(Jewish Group) VIDEO: Watch this rare home film of a Seder in 1932

[Behind the Aegis]

After my mother died, I found a dusty tote bag in my parents’ cellar, stuffed with reels of film from our growing-up years. The 16mm film had been converted to digital form long ago, and I’m not even sure why I kept it. The tote bag migrated to a dark corner of my closet until last summer, when I thought to look inside and found a reel I’d never noticed before, smaller and wider than the others. Instead of a metal storage canister, it had been wrapped in wax paper and aluminum foil, like a sandwich.

Carefully unspooling a few feet, I saw “Passover Feast 1932,” followed by my great-grandfather’s name. After the title, the first frames showed a man and woman, he in an old-fashioned kippah, seated at the head of a long table. I recognized them as my father’s mother’s parents.

Old film is fragile; I didn’t dare unwind it further. I sent the reel out to an archival film house to be restored and digitized, and weeks later, I clicked on a link.

The film was now a file, a little under four minutes long, documenting a seder with about 30 people squeezed around a table covered in white cloths. Hagaddahs are handed out; my bearded great-grandfather reads aloud; wine glasses are filled and emptied. Matzoh appear on the table. Women move behind the chairs, their seats empty, as the meal is served. My grandmother, impossibly young and elegant, asks a child to make room for another place setting; my grandfather chats earnestly with a niece. My father, aged six, grins broadly, looking excited to be with his older cousins. Children squirm and jostle; a small boy cuts meat with an upside-down knife; young women flirt with the camera, nibbling on candied fruit. Teacups are filled from an enormous samovar.

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