DVD American Jerusalem: Jews and the Making of San Francisco Directed by Marc Shaffer

American Jerusalem:
Jews and the Making of
San Francisco

USA, 2013, 57 minutes
Directed by Marc Shaffer
Produced by Jackie Krentzman

American Jerusalem: Jews and the Making of San Francisco tells the remarkable story of the pioneering Jews of San Francisco. Drawn to California by the Gold Rush, Jews were welcomed in San Francisco. They went on to build a thriving community, at one time the second largest Jewish community in the United States after New York. With a newfound freedom, Jews played a central role in the transformation of this once-sleepy maritime village into the largest metropolis in the American West. As Jews integrated into mainstream San Francisco society, they reinvented what it meant for them to be Jewish. Their creation was a new kind of Jew... a San Francisco Jew.

Peter L. Stein, Former Director of San Francisco Jewish Film Festival on American Jerusalem:

Puzzled visitors to San Francisco often wander around wondering where the Jewish neighborhood is, or at least was. Fact is, beginning with the city's boom in the 1849 Gold Rush, Jews have been assimilated into nearly every corner of San Francisco life, helping build, grow and define the city as well as being shaped by it in ways that are unique in American and Jewish history. Focusing on the first chapter of the city's development (1849-1915), American Jerusalem: Jews and the Making of San Francisco entertainingly charts the evolution of a distinct brand of American Jewish life on the western edge of the continent and introduces us to influential pioneers like Levi Strauss and Adolph Sutro (America's first Jewish mayor), helping to explain why some San Francisco Jewish families celebrated Shabbat on Sunday and enjoyed a good roast pork on Christmas. Some habits die hard. While not shying away from the community's more troubling chapters, such as anti-Chinese and anti-Eastern European sentiments among German Jewish leaders here, the documentary is a lively and affectionate primer to a place, and a community, like no other.