At the Toronto Jewish Film Festival in June, 2024, CFY co-presented a screening of the newly restored 1939 Yiddish film

 

Mothers of Today / Hayntige Mames

 

 

CANADIAN PREMIERE OF NEW RESTORATION.

A good old-fashioned Yiddish melodrama newly restored by the National Center for Jewish Film. Mothers of Today is the only film performance by radio star Esther Field, known on the airwaves of the 1930s as the "Yiddishe Mama." Field plays a widowed Jewish mother coping with her children’s struggles in America caused by crime and assimilation. Mothers Of Today exemplifies the Yiddish film genre of shund, which appealed to working-class Jewish-American immigrant audiences and featured broadly drawn, sentimental stories that reflected the daily life and culture of a distinctly American Yiddish community. Presented in-theatre on 35mm.

Screened in memory of EDA ZIMLER SHIFF (z"l)