Jewish

The Jewish population has been a well-integrated part of Scottish society for centuries, but their story is not well known. This programme tells their story through a series of intimate, contemporary portraits.

Hitler's Jewish Soldiers tells the relatively unknown story of how some German men who were part-Jewish served in Hitler's army before the advent of World War Two and even during World War Two. In 1935 a German law went into effect that men who were partly Jewish ("Mischling," which means "mutt" in German), could be drafted into the Nazi army that was out to destroy not only their Jewish relatives but the entire Jewish race as well.

For 10 years, Edgar Feuchtwanger lived in a luxury apartment in Munich. Hitler lived across the street. Edgar was Jewish and the nephew of Lion Feuchtwanger, one of the most popular Jewish writers from the period. Edgar left Germany with his parents in 1939, two months before the invasion of Poland and the beginning of WWII. He now tells the story of his family and his country. Through the eyes of a child, we witness the rise of the Nazi movement and how this rise was experienced by a Jewish family.

For generations of Jewish songwriters, the bright lights of Broadway have been a catalyst for transformation. New York's musical theatres offered a chance for those who had fled persecution and oppression to make it big in America.

Following Simon Atkins, a gay Catholic man, as he considers converting to Judaism. He travels to Israel to experience views in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, before making a decision.

Sam Holder travels across the UK to celebrate the Jewish festival marking the biblical Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, with families gathering for 8 days of commemoration, conviviality and cooking. Sam joins some of them for their preparations and ceremonial seder meals as Jewish people reflect on their faith and their life in Britain in 2024.

The Last Minyan tells the story of the disappearing world of the Belfast Jewish community, as seen from the inside. Film-maker Aaron Black observes the ageing community as it struggles to gather the ten men or Minyan needed for a prayer service. The film explores the reasons why keeping the synagogue open and the community going is so important to those who remain. Small Jewish communities are dying all over the UK, this is the story of one of them.

Widely praised as the most authentic film ever made of Jewish life within the Holocaust, "Lodz Ghetto" combines secret diaries with clandestine images to depict life in the longest surviving concentration of Jews in Nazi Europe.