Guide to Jewish TV Programming
for Northern Virginia
May 2001
Listings are Cox TV Cable listings. To see these shows in non Cox TV areas,
consult your local TV Guide using the Networks or Stations appearing below.

Dear America Dreams in the Golden Country  30 min.
  A Russian Jewish immigrant (Natalie Vansier) struggles to adjust to life in New York in this adaptation of the book by Kathryn Lasky.

  It's not easy for 12-year-old Zippy (Vansier), who's “stuck in the first grade...because [her] English [isn't] good.” Although she's comforted by a friendship with a Polish immigrant (Dov Tiefenbach) who helps her study and nurtures her love of acting, Zippy still has problems at home: her musician father must work long hours in a factory; and her traditional mother is furious that the family is adopting American values---so much so that she disowns Zippy's older sister when she marries an Irishman.

  Cast: Larry Schwartz, Joyce Gordon, Rummy Bishop, Rafael Vigod, Josh Peace, Maggie Huculak, Paul Hecht, Natalie Vansier, Dov Tiefenbach, Heather Brown  Category: Children, Drama  Director: Shawn Levy
  Show times
Date                        Time                Channel
Monday, 5/14           3:00 PM        71 HBOF

New Jewish Cuisine  30 min.
  Category: Food
  Release Year: 1998
  Show times
  Date                Time           Channel
Sunday, 5/13      4:30 PM       22 MPT
Sunday, 5/20         4:30 PM       22 MPT

Varian's War  121 min.
  William Hurt stars in this fact-based 2001 cable drama about an American editor's efforts to save Jewish artists during World War II.
  After witnessing Nazi cruelty firsthand, Varian Fry (Hurt) dedicates himself to spiriting Jews out of Vichy France despite a lack of cooperation from the U.S. Government. But Fry and his Emergency Rescue Committee don't target just any Jewish refugee. The people on “Fry's List” are artists, authors, scientists and intellectuals. In short, they are the “soul of Western civilization” and include painter Marc Chagall (Joel Miller) and writers Heinrich Mann (John  Dunn-Hill) and Franz Werfel (Vlasta Vrana). Miriam: Julia Ormond. Beamish: Matt Craven.
  Cast: William Hurt, Julia Ormond, Matt Craven, Maury Chaykin, Alan Arkin, Lynn Redgrave,
  Remy Girard, Christopher Heyerdahl, Gloria Carlin, Joel Miller, Vlasta Vrana, John Dunn-Hill,
  Ted Whittall, Dorothee Berryman
  Rating: TV-PG
  Content: Suggestive Dialog, Violence
  Category: Movie, Drama
  Director: Lionel Chetwynd
  Release Year: 2000
Show times
Date                          Time           Channel
Friday, 5/11            10:00 AM     67 SHOW
Tuesday, 5/15             4:00 PM     67 SHOW
Thursday, 5/17            6:45 PM     66 SHOW2
Monday, 5/21              9:15 AM    66 SHOW2

  Children of the Night  18 min.
  Images and memories of the Holocaust are presented in this intense documentary.
  Accompanied by a haunting Bach cello solo by Yo-Yo Ma, the 1999 film short consists of grainy black-and-white footage of countless youths being rounded up by Nazi soldiers or huddled in Jewish ghettos, their faces distorted by confusion, fear and hunger. The film was written and narrated by Marion Wiesel, wife of novelist Elie Wiesel.
  Rating: TV-14
  Category: Documentary
  Release Year: 1999
Show times
Date                          Time           Channel
Tuesday, 5/15          12:45 AM      73 HBOS
Saturday, 5/19           6:35 AM      74 HBO
Tuesday, 5/22            1:15 PM     73 HBOS
Thursday, 5/24         12:40 AM      73 HBOS
Thursday, 5/24           8:45 AM     73 HBOS

   Liberty Heights  127 min.
  Writer-director Barry Levinson returns to familiar turf---Baltimore, where his “Diner,” “Tin Men”
  and “Avalon” were set---for this literate and witty comedy-drama.

  The film is set in 1954, and Levinson's perceptive eye focuses on the changing times and a changing neighborhood. Ben (Ben Foster) is a Jewish teen with a crush on an attractive black classmate (Rebekah Johnson). His college-age brother, Van (Adrien Brody), is infatuated with a WASP socialite (Carolyn Murphy), and the boys' bookie father (Joe Mantegna) is in trouble with his numbers racket. The 2000 film is rated R for strong language. Ada: Bebe Neuwirth. Little Melvin: Orlando Jones.

  Cast: Adrien Brody, Ben Foster, Orlando Jones, Bebe Neuwirth, Joe Mantegna, Rebekah Johnson, David Krumholtz, Richard Kline, Vincent Guastaferro, Justin Chambers, Carolyn Murphy, Anthony Anderson, James Pickens Jr., Frania Rubinek, Kiersten Warren, Evan Neuman, Kevin Sussman, Gerry Rosenthal, Charley Scalies, Shane West, Cloie Wyatt Taylor, Carlton Smith
  Rating: R
  Content: Strong Language
  Category: Movie, Comedy-drama
  Director: Barry Levinson
  Release Year: 1999
  Show times
Date                          Time           Channel
Sunday, 5/13            1:45 PM         72 HBOPL
Saturday, 5/19          5:45 PM         72 HBOPL
Tuesday, 5/22           4:00 PM        72 HBOPL
 

  Jewish News in Review   30 min.
  Category: General
 Show times
Date                          Time           Channel
Sunday, 5/20              4:30 AM         9 WUSA

Brooklyn Bridge  30 min.
  A warm, nostalgia-filled sitcom that follows a Jewish family in 1950s Brooklyn (before the Dodgers left). Series creator Gary David Goldberg ('Family Ties') grew up in Brooklyn himself during the '50s and the show reflects his experiences. It debuted Sept. 20, 1991, and ran for two seasons on CBS.

 Cast: Adam LaVorgna, Aeryk Egan, David Wohl, Matthew Louis Siegel, Jake Jundef, Jenny
  Lewis, Louis Zorich, Amy Aquino, Peter Friedman, Danny Gerard, Marion Ross
  Category: Comedy-drama
  Show times
Date                          Time           Channel
Monday, 5/21            10:00 PM    32 WHUT

Rescuers: Stories of Courage---Two Women   120 min.
  Peter Bogdanovich directed this stirring, fact-based drama about two Gentile women who shielded Jews from Nazi persecution during World War II. The 1997 cable film is co-produced by Barbra Streisand and comprises two separate stories.[] “Mamusha,” set in Poland, tells of a Jewish family's governess (Elizabeth Perkins) who masquerades as the mother of her orphaned charge (Fraser McGregor). “The Woman on the Bicycle” is an unassuming Frenchwoman named Marie-Rose Gineste (Sela Ward), who smuggles information to Resistance members and hides a Jewish family in her attic. Monsignor Theas: Fritz Weaver.
  Cast: Elizabeth Perkins, Sela Ward, Fritz Weaver
  Rating: PG-13
  Content: Strong Language, Adult Themes
  Category: Movie, Drama
  Release Year: 1997
 Show times
Date                          Time           Channel
Wednesday, 5/16      11:00 AM    67 SHOW
Monday, 5/21              4:15 PM    67 SHOW

  Touched by an Angel - Bar Mitzvah   60 min.
  Kirk Douglas guest stars as an 83-year-old Jewish man who is compelled to reexamine his faith.

  He plays Ross Berger, a self-made man and stroke survivor who has no time for God. When Ross was 13, his father was run over by a milk wagon and disabled for life. Ross turned away from religion then and never looked back. But now he's suddenly faced with a grievous situation: his devout son, Alan (Dennis Boutsikaris), is dying from an inoperable brain tumor. When Alan realizes he may not make it to his own son's Bar Mitzvah, he asks Ross to step in for him. Aaron: Shawn Pyfrom. Connie: Melanie Chartoff. Rabbi: Bruce Nozick.
  Cast: Roma Downey, Della Reese, John Dye, Kirk Douglas, Dennis Boutsikaris, Shawn
  Pyfrom, Melanie Chartoff, Tracy Chase, Craig Clyde, Jeanette Puhich, Bruce Nozick
  Rating: TV-PG
  Category: Drama
  Director: Jeff Kanew
  Release Year: 2000
 Show times
Date                          Time           Channel
Wednesday, 5/23      9:00 PM    15 PAXTV