Behrman House Goes to the Movies:
Helping Create Period Fiction Means a Trip Down Memory Lane
It’s exciting to be involved, even peripherally, in the making of a movie. When the call came in last year for help dressing the set of the Coen brothers’ latest film, A Serious Man, we were all abuzz. They needed stuff—stuff to evoke growing up Jewish in the 1960’s. I was assigned—assigned? I was first in line to volunteer!—the task of digging out appropriate stuff.
After a year of anticipation, I finally got to see the movie this past weekend. And I have to say, I saw it with a completely new appreciation for the level of detail that goes into making a piece of period fiction. I found myself spending most of the film’s running time focused on the background—those ashtrays! (Just like the ones in my dad’s office.) That lamp! (Just like the one my grandmother had in her den).
I think I’ll have to see it again just to be able to sit still and give my full attention to the characters.
In searching out appropriately vintage materials, I had the opportunity to sift through Behrman House’s history as I combed through our library and the Behrman House archives. It was a little like going into your family’s attic. Lots of bits of nostalgia.
Some of the books and materials that had cameo roles in A Serious Man
I found books from a variety of sources, including some we had published ourselves, lo those many years ago. I ended up sending over seven cartons of books and materials out to Minneapolis, including first edition hardcovers of our own As a Driven Leaf and Rabbis’ Bible; a multi-volume set of the 1909 edition of Funk & Wagnall’s Jewish Encyclopedia; and several scholarly works on Talmud with beautiful lettering on the spines. The Coen Brothers used it all; even the multiple sets of blank blue books, still tied in their original twine, which can be seen on a bookshelf in one rabbi’s office, and a decoupage print of Elias M. Grossman’s “Man with a Prayer Shawl” which landed on a shelf in another’s.
My most challenging task, however, was to find textbooks circa 1967 in the classroom quantities that the set dresser requested. Although we have kept many classic reference books in print since as early as 1945, our classroom materials are very rooted in today, an anachronism that might have ruined the mood. Ultimately, I was able to put together a number of Practice, Drill and Review workbooks (first published in 1966) and multiple copies of The Traditional Prayer Book with its distinctive gold-embossed black cover (still in use in Orthodox and some Conservative synagogues across the US, and with their own cameo appearance in a Gilmore Girls episode a few years ago).
Finally, the production also needed materials for the classroom walls and the various desks and drawers, such as letters, calendars, and catalogs. This research gave me a new appreciation for the place Behrman House has staked out, even from its earliest years, at the very forefront of innovative Jewish education. For, while some materials can become dated (who among us has not changed since 1967?), one’s approach to developing them can remain as innovative as ever.
Actual letters from and about Behrman House in 1967 helped Rabbi Ginsler's desk look authentically 1960's Jewish.
As I pored over boxes of archive files, I stumbled over a poster from 1967 of our famous “Growth of the Child” developmental guidelines, excerpts of which are still among the materials most frequently requested by educators around the country for their insights into the ages and stages of intellectual and emotional development in children.
I found letters to Behrman House from educators and rabbis praising the “modern and inviting” feel of a new prayer book, or rejoicing that a new Bible text “Is the most creative text book published in many years and you can quote me.”
I found notes about Jacob Behrman’s vigilance to provide “joyously Jewish” material “with meaning for today”, stressing “relevant values,” and “crisp, powerful writing.”
More than research for a movie, this assignment became a trip down memory lane; a trip that made me even more proud to be a part of the house that was then, and is now, the premier publisher of Jewish educational materials. And when you’re the best, and best known, you get the call to participate in fun stuff, like the make believe world of the movies.
Vicki Weber
(Publicity stills from A Serious Man courtesy of Working Title Productions)
