Broken Barriers

1h 16m
Drama
5

This 1919 silent is the first American film based on the same Sholem Aleichem stories as Fiddler on the Roof, but produced 50 years before the blockbuster musical. Unlike most adaptations of Aleichem’s work, Broken Barriers (Khavah) focuses not on Tevye the milkman, but on his daughter Khavah, who falls in love with the gentile boy Fedka and must navigate the reverberations from this with both her community and her family.

Cast

Alice Hastings
Khavah
Alexander Tenenholtz
Fedka
Giacomo Masuroff
Tobias, Khavah's Father
Billie Wilson
Khavah's Mother
Sonia Radin
Parasha, Fedka's Mother
Phil Sanford
Ivan, Fedka's Father
Anna Kay
Khavah's Sister
Raymond Friedgen
Fedka's Chum

Crew

Nat Dorfman
Writers' Production, Editor
Charles E. Davenport
Director
Sholom Aleichem
Writer
Irving B. Ruby
Cinematography
Jack Young
Cinematography
Meyer Kehlmann
Producer
Leopold Kehlmann
Producer
Raymond Friedgen
Second Unit Director of Photography

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