The Devils Arithmetic
Courtesy of- Smeagol
The opening presented by Dustin Hoffman is very powerful and poignant. His speech went as follows:
“ One of the most rewarding things about being a parent is the cycle of education: you teach your children, and just as often, they teach you. Hello, I’m Dustin Hoffman, and along with Mimi Rogers, as producers and parents, we are proud to be involved in this special Showtime presentation of ‘The Devil’s Arithmetic’. It’s a provocative film about how a teenage girl relives her family’s Holocaust experience in a dramatically vivid and sometimes frightening way. When I first brought the script home, I learned from my 10-year-old daughter it was based on a popular children’s book that she’d been reading at school. This story has touched the lives of young readers by making history come alive, combining harsh realities with the magical elements of fable, and as in the book there are scenes in the film that are disturbing; but they don’t begin to show the full extent of the horror that took place during the Holocaust. Violence is often used as a way to entertain our children as fantasy without consequence, but the brutality and the inhumanity of the Holocaust were real, not fantasy, and they affect us today and they will affect us tomorrow as well. Indifference to hatred and prejudice take root and grow in impressionable minds and only the light of history can turn the horror of this 20th century into a profound lesson for our children. We must teach them to remember. I now invite you to share with me a young woman’s extraordinary journey of discovery where friendship, love and courage are the rewards of caring for others where each day the faces of evil determine who will live, and who will die. The Devil’s Arithmetic.” Dustin Hoffman The Devils Arithmetic 1999
A late 1990’s fantasy reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland based on the novel of the same name, starring Kirsten Dunst and a passed on far too soon Brittany Murphy. It is a story of Passover, the history of the Jewish people especially during this Passover season, why we are to be grateful to have survived, free to celebrate and embrace our identity as Jews. All of the hatred came down to the warped theology “Lives unworthy of life.” Bigots to this day hold that ideology of anyone they have biases against.
Such as is the case with Indigenous peoples and Romani people it is the grace of God any of us are still here. History tells us we were to have been wiped out a long time ago but we are not. It is this time of year we are most thankful to live.
💖🙏🏽
