Aviva Kempner

Aviva Kempner
Born	December 23, 1946 Berlin, Germany
Alma mater	University of Michigan

Aviva Kempner (born December 23, 1946) is an American filmmaker. Her documentaries investigate non-stereotypical images of Jews in history and focus on the untold stories of Jewish people. She is most well known for The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg.

Life and career

Kempner was born in Berlin, Germany, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor and a U.S. Army officer. She founded the Washington Jewish Film Festival in 1989. In 1981, Kempner founded The Ciesla Foundation to promote educational materials relating to the Holocaust and Jewish resistance. She was a member of the Class of 1976 at the progressive Antioch School of Law<ref"Screening of "Rosenwald" Documentary". Retrieved 2017-18-25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)</ref>. In 1986, Kempner conceived and produced Partisans of Vilna, a documentary on Jewish resistance against the Nazis. Additionally, she was the executive producer of the 1989 Grammy Award-nominated record Partisans of Vilna: The Songs of World War II Jewish Resistance. She is the scriptwriter, director and producer of The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, a film about a Jewish person who fought anti-Semitism during the 1930s and 1940s.

In 2009 she produced Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, a 90-minute documentary about Gertrude Berg (a popular American radio and television personalities). Berg was the creator, principal writer, and star of the popular 1930s radio show and then the 1950s weekly televised situation comedy, The Goldbergs.

Her most recent film is Rosenwald, a documentary describing how businessman and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald joined with African-American communities in the South to build schools for them during the early 20th century. Rosenwald was released in August 2015. The two-disc DVD is being released in the fall of 2017, with more than four hours of newly produced educational bonus material included.

She is also the co-writer and producer of Casuse, a film about Larry Casuse (a young Native American activist who kidnapped the Mayor of Gallup, New Mexico to draw attention to the plight of the Navajho people and to expose the hypocrisy of the establishment).

Currently, she is filming the first feature-length documentary about Moe Berg, a baseball player turned spy during the World War II era. The film is currently in production with scheduled release during the 2018 baseball season. The film will feature rare historical footage as well as revealing interviews with celebrities and other individuals from the worlds of sports, espionage, history and more.

Filmography

• Moe Berg (work in progress)
• Casuse (work in progress)
• Rosenwald (2015)
• Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg (2009)
• Today I Vote for My Joey (2002)
• The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (1999)
• Partisans of Vilna (1986)

External links

• The Ciesla Foundation website
• Aviva Kempner at IMDb
• Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg website
• The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg website
• Appearances on C-SPAN

Category:Film directors from Washington, D.C.