Menachem Daum

Background

Daum was born on October 5, 1946, in a displaced persons camp in Landsberg am Lech, Germany, to refugees from Poland who had survived the Holocaust. Being Jewish, many of his relatives perished in Nazi Germany's genocide. His parents, who met in the refugee camp, had both been married and had children before, but their spouses and children were killed in the Holocaust.

In 1951, the family settled in the United States, briefly in Schenectady, New York, before moving to Borough Park, Brooklyn, so Daum could be raised in a Jewish community and attend yeshivas.

Career

Daum made his first film, In Care of: Families and Their Elders, after he became a caregiver for his mother, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease.

Hiding and Seeking, began as a search to reconnect with the Poles that sheltered his family. The Jewish Week wrote of Daum's work on this film, "The film speaks more deeply to how religious intolerance is insidious no matter who is practicing it, and upbraids Holocaust survivors who broke all ties with their rescuers, despite wartime promises to stay in touch forever".

"I believe in the importance of self-criticism for all communities, Jewish, non-Jewish Islamic, Christian", says Daum. "We do ourselves a disservice when we can see faults in others but not see our own shortcomings".

By 2008, he was working on a film, Common Ground, addressing the work of non-Jews in working to maintain Jewish cemeteries in Poland.

Personal life and death

Daum and his wife, Rifka (née Federman), had three children and lived in Borough Park. He died from heart failure at a Brooklyn hospital on January 7, 2024, at the age of 77.

Notes

References

1. Berger, Joseph. (January 21, 2024). "Menachem Daum, 77, Filmmaker Who Explored the World of Hasidim, Dies". [[The New York Times]].
2. Dave Kehr, "FILM IN REVIEW; 'Hiding and Seeking' -- 'Faith and Tolerance After the Holocaust,'" "[[New York Times]]," February 6, 2004, http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9803E5DD113BF935A35751C0A9629C8B63
3. "Close-up on the Jewish Community".