An Israeli Perspective
William Topkis Cited In Jerusalem
By DR. DAVID GEFFEN
The first William Topkis (1878-1925) was alive and well in Jerusalem one night last week. On December 12, 1989 at the Israel Museum, the Steven Spielberg Film Archives of the Hebrew University presented a retrospective program on the work of Ya’akov Ben-Dov, considered to be the first Jewish filmmaker in the country. During the program of lectures, slides and films, William Topkis was cited for writing the filmscript and directing a film made by Ben-Dov in 1923.
The film, which Topkis entitled “Palestine Awakening,” told the story of a rich American Jewish tourist who landed in Haifa intending to spend only one day in “this dirty, filthy country.” Instead, he stayed on for a month seeing everything there was to see in the cities and in the kubbutzim and moshavim. At the end of the film the tourist announces that he is returning to the United States to close out his affairs and then will come to live in Palestine.
The significance of William Topkis’ participation in the making of this film in 1923 is greatly enhanced by the diary which he kept of his daily activities during his five-month stay in the Holy Land. His diary entries of the period in May 1923 when the actual filming was being done read like a film log. It is the only written record of the film and supplements the 19 minute portion of the actual film which has survived.
During the program at the Israel Museum Topkis was hailed for his Zionist career, for his film partnership with the DuPonts and Samuel Goldwyn and for his encouragement of American tourism through this film and through the American Information Bureau which he opened in Jerusalem in April 1923. As the work of William Topkis was described, I was proud to be a Delawarean. William Topkis was one of the first American Jewish leaders who realized the potential of film as an. informational device in giving wide audiences the picture of what was transpiring in the rebuilding of Eretz Yisrael. Because of his premature death in 1925, he did not have an opportunity to write or produce any more films. However, the film he left us did break new ground while setting the tone for future productions.
The public career of William Topkis began in the early part of the century when he was elected the secretary of Congregation Adas Kodesch in 1901. His English written minutes are among the first in that language of a Delaware Jewish organization. On Rosh Hashanah in 1901 he helped to write the sermon which calmed the Wilmington Jewish community in the wake of the assassination of President William McKinley.
He served as president of the Wilmington YMHA in 1913, and in 1917 Topkis was elected as Delaware’s only delegate to the first American Jewish Congress. After attending several national ZOA conventions, he was elected to the national executive committee in 1921, serving for several years with distinction. In 1923 he took his wife and daughter, and he went to Palestine to see the country; “a visit to the land of his fathers” and to do what he could to help promote its development.
All together, he and his family spent five months in Eretz Yisrael and several months in Europe, where he attended the World Zionist Congress as an American delegate. His two lasting contributions from that trip are the film and the assistance he provided for Jewish tourism in the country through his American Information Bureau. On returning to the U.S., he gave an interview printed in the national ZOA magazine, The New Palestine, and in various anglo-Jewish newspapers. In the course of the survey of his trip, he urged that 200 American Jewish businessmen should go and live in Palestine for that will “change the face of the country.”
I was pleased to hear about and see the work of the first William Topkis here in Jerusalem. I also told my friend Yaakov Gross, the historian of the film career of Ben-Dov, that the second William Topkis is currently the President of the Jewish Federation of Delaware. From Delaware to Jerusalem and back, William Topkis has left his mark.
(Note: The Steven Spielberg Film Archives is anxious to locate a complete version of the film made by Topkis and Ben-Dov. Any information about the film or still pictures taken as the filming was being done can be sent to Dr. David Geffen via The Jewish Voice. Hopefully, an English version of the Ben-Dov film composite will be available in 1990.)
Originally published in the Jewish Voice on January 5, 1990.
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