The Charles H. Revision Foundation and The Jewish Museum, which is under the auspices of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, have jointly announced the creation of the National Jewish Archives of Film and Broadcasting. A grant of $550,000 over three years from the Revson Foundation will launch the project as port of the Museum in Manhattan. The Archives will enable young people, scholars and individuals. of all religious and, cultural backgrounds to look of and listen to the records of Jewish experience preserved in the modern media.
Creation of the Archives follows a year-long study by the Revson Foundation and its consultants, who explored the idea with broadcasting executives, media experts and educators. A report on this study, released today, lists. more than 700 films and television programs identified in the preliminary search. The television programs include dramas, interviews, news and documentaries.
Agreements in principle have been reached with the three commercial networks — ABC, CBS and NBC and the Public Broadcasting Service to obtain copies of the selected programs, with details to be worked out in the next few months. A core film collection will be drown from some 1000 feature films of Jewish interest produced in the United States and abroad since the turn of the century, and research is underway to identify relevant radio programs.
According to the Revson Foundation report, the Archives is being established “to make sure that this unparalleled primary source on the Jewish experience is not lost and that it is accessible to the widest possible audience.” The Revson Foundation grant supports the initial development and operation of the Archives, which is scheduled to open by the end of 1980.
Dr. Gerson Cohen, Chancellor of The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, stated, “It is vital that we gather the precious Jewish material that has been created by the modern media in recent generations for the inspiration and enrichment of future generations. For many young people today, the founding of the State of Israel and the Holocaust are events of the remote past …. The National Jewish Archives can make them real.”
While the initial collection will concentrate on programs produced in the United States, eventually the Archives may include material from other countries as well.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
