While attending the University of Michigan, filmmaker Aviva Kempner worked as a cashier, selling movie tickets at the Michigan Theatre in downtown Ann Arbor. Recently her name reappeared at the Michigan, although this time it was on the screen: Her documentary "The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg" played there last month.
The movie, a fond look back at former Detroit Tiger star "Hammerin' Hank," is the product of 13 years of research, writing and fundraising, which Kempner said was inspired by her family. "I grew up in Detroit and I grew up a big Tigers fan," Kempner recalled in a phone interview from her office in Washington, D.C. "My father would take my brother and I to games all the time, and hence, I became a Hank Greenberg fan.
"(In 1986) when I heard Hank Greenberg had died, I knew I had to make this film, because he was always my daddy's hero. My father had always taught us that prejudice doesn't belong on the field or in society, so for me, Hank Greenberg seemed an unsung hero, someone I had to do a film about."
But Kempner's movie is not for baseball fanatics only. "Greenberg" paints a vivid portrait of America in the first half of the century, a world in which many different cultures and nationalities sat uneasily side by side in big cities such as Detroit, New York and St. Louis. Prior to WWII, ethnic and racial slurs that would get you booted out of a ballpark today were regularly shouted and chanted by crowds, which meant the Jewish Greenberg had to endure all sorts of demeaning nicknames. Yet that didn't discourage him from playing.
"That Hank went to work every day, with all that catcalling, and still performed, that's one of the things that makes him a real role model for people," Kempner explained. "How many of us would have done the same? I have such respect for the man because of it."
Kempner, a child of Holocaust survivors, said she wanted to make a film to help shatter the stereotype of Jewish men as "nebbishs," weak-willed types who are easily pushed around by everyone else. Greenberg was well aware he was someone the Jewish community (and not a few Gentiles as well) looked up to, and he did his best to behave accordingly. In these times when sports figures such as John Rocker and Dennis Rodman flaunt their bad-boy reputations, it's mildly startling to see a man who went out of his way to put forth a positive image for his fans. Kempner's film reveals Greenberg as someone who took his faith quite seriously as well and actually sought advice from rabbis about whether or not he should play on Yom Kippur.
The most difficult part of putting the project together was "sustaining it for so many years until it was done, keeping the faith that I would eventually finish it," said Kempner. "I feel bad for two things: that a lot of the people in the film, the fans and the players, didn't live to see themselves; and two, if I'd raised the money a year ago, maybe the film could have influenced the voting for the All-Century Team (Greenberg was not included on that list)."
Although the movie is finished and has earned honors at the Hamptons International Film Festival and the International Sports Video and Film Awards, Kempner said she's still trying to get a little more money put together to cover the rights on the music used in the film. She's particularly grateful for a contribution from the Kellogg Foundation and joked, in her best Blanche DuBois accent, "I have always depended upon the kindness of strangers."
Kempner, who previously chronicled the Jewish resistance movement in her 1986 documentary "Partisans of Vilna," was hesitant to give many details on her next project, but she did allow it will probably be another sports story, perhaps looking at a Jewish hockey player she declined to name.
"Telling our history is an important vehicle in making sure the prejudice doesn't happen in society," Kempner said. "That's why I do it." James Sanford
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