The Jewish Channel - - Connect With Your Culture. Jewish Television on Cable. Directed by: Gustave Rosanio & Joseph Van Blunk. Echoes From a Ghost Minyan. Echoes From A Ghost Minyan is a 1998 documentary film about the once vibrant Jewish community of South Philadelphia. Rating: TV- PGRelease Date: 1. Running Time: 5. 9 mins. Language: English. Genre: Documentary. More Info: Film's Webpage. Category: America. It was stigmatized as a poor immigrant neighborhood, but for those who grew up there, South Philadelphia still draws up fond memories that make them nostalgic for the past. The Philadelphia Jewish Archives Center was established in 1972. Our community Mekor Habracha is a vibrant. Jews of all ages and religious backgrounds are always welcome to participate in. Echoes From A Ghost Minyan offers a highly- personal look at the neighborhood’s once vibrant but now dwindling Jewish community.“There are two kinds of people in the world,” an old saying goes, “there are people who are from South Philly and people who aren’t.”The Jewish community of South Philadelphia once competed in size with the Jewish population of New York City’s Lower East Side. But as the twentieth century progressed, more and more children of Jewish immigrants moved away in search of prosperity, leaving behind the charming blue- collar neighborhood of their youth. Echoes From A Ghost Minyan collects worn photographs and old timers’ memories to reconstruct the delightful, nearly- forgotten history of Jewish South Philly. The film’s writer/director Joseph Van Blunk has spent his whole life in South Philly. Having grown up Catholic in a heavily Jewish neighborhood, Van Blunk still remembers his childhood fascination with his religious neighbors, who gave him pocket change for turning off their lights on the Sabbath. So when he decided to pursue his dream of filmmaking – temporarily leaving his job as a longshoreman on Philadelphia’s docks – he decided to dedicate his first film to finding out what happened to the curious neighbors of his youth. Echoes From A Ghost Minyan digs up the neighborhood’s little- known Jewish history and exposes a somewhat seedy past. It turns out that members of the Jewish mob set up homes in South Philly and ran a successful gambling venture. Boo Boo) might have looked scrawny, more suited to books than booze, but he was known as an intimidating bootlegger and fight promoter. The documentary has a lesson or two up its sleeve for children of the digital age who don’t realize that fun and facts weren’t always found on the Internet—they used to be found on the street corner. Echoes from a Ghost Minyan: The Jews of South Philadelphia Online shopping from a great selection at Movies & TV Store. Echoes from a Ghost Minyan: The Jews of South Philadelphia - Academic Version w/ PPR. The men interviewed speak with nostalgia about the joy and importance of sitting on the corner, where they spent countless hours of simple contentment loitering, telling jokes, philosophizing, and generally bonding with each other. Famous Deli sits on a corner in South Philadelphia as the only surviving branch of what one was a five- store chain of delis run by five brothers. The son of Famous Deli’s original owner explains that when his father came to America he was “so excited to see the streets paved with gold that he literally got hit by a truck on the dock in New York.” Soon after, the young immigrant joined his brothers in Philadelphia, where they ran a successful joint business. But only one son took over his father’s deli. He has to work hard seven days a week from 6am to 6pm each day to keep the business running — he doesn’t recommend it to others. The cycle of immigration continues today, as many of the little shops and delis that were once run by Jews have been taken over by Vietnamese owners. No doubt their children will one day move to the suburbs as well. And so the story of ethnic upward mobility continues .
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