A Pocketful of Miracles: A Tale of Two Siblings

A member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Washington, D.C.-based filmmaker Aviva Kempner creates acclaimed documentaries about under-known Jewish heroes and social justice. She co-directed Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting, about the movement to remove Native American imagery in the sports world. Her other films include Spy Behind Home Plate about baseball player and World War II spy Moe Berg, Rosenwald, about Chicago philanthropist Julius Rosenwald partnering with Booker T. Washington to build over 5,000 African American schools in the Jim Crow South, Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, about Gertrude Berg, who created the first sitcom; and The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, about the baseball player who faced anti-Semitism during the ’30s. She also produced Partisans of Vilna, about Jews fighting the Nazis. Her upcoming documentaries are on the Jewish screenwriter and activist Ben Hecht and short Pissed Off about “potty parity” in Congress.