Hester Street (1975) on Netflix
Yankel comes to New York from Eastern Europe and becomes Jake. His wife Gitl arrives with their son Yossele, and she has trouble with the language and customs of the new country.
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- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.0/102,489 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes80%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1896, Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe come to the Lower East Side of New York City and live on Hester Street in Manhattan. Yankel came before his wife did, and he prides himself on the Yankee he has become; he goes by the name Jake now, and the world he lives in is populated almost entirely by other Jewish immigrants. Gitl stayed behind in Eastern Europe, and she arrives at last with their son, Yossele. She has difficulty assimilating. Jake has begun an affair with Mamie, a dancer. Tension arises in the marriage, and Jake continually upbraids and abuses Gitl.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Hester Street (1975)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- While seeking investors for Hester Street, Joan Micklin Silver was told by a studio executive that "[features] are expensive to make […] and women directors are one more problem we don't need". She financed the film independently, with $370,000 raised by her husband, developer Ray Silver.
- Joan Micklin Silver wanted Carol Kane for Gitl after seeing her in the 1972 Canadian film Wedding in White, but assumed Kane was Canadian and so would be hard to book for a low-budget New York shoot. In fact, Kane lived near where the film was shot and was keen to audition after reading the script.
- Hester Street was mainly shot on New York City's Morton Street rather than the real Hester Street, because the actual street's many Hispanic shops and Spanish signage would have been too expensive to remove.
- During production, Carol Kane worked with a dialect coach to learn Yiddish for her role as Gitl, a language she had not previously spoken; she has said she "loved every minute" of working on the film.
- Before making Hester Street, Joan Micklin Silver was told by a television producer not to center Jewish subjects, since the film would be "too atypical"; she kept the story, partly to honor her family's emigration legacy.
- Hester Street remains Carol Kane's favorite of her film and television work; she thinks her Yiddish dialogue in it helped her land the role of Simka Dahblitz-Gravas in the sitcom Taxi, whose character partly speaks a fictional Eastern European-sounding language.
