Authentic in every detail from one who lived it

I'm a bit younger than the featured boy and lived in D.C. but later moved to N.Y. so it was a replay of my life on many levels. I had seen the film when it first came out, but forgotten most of it. Then when the dad's secret occupation was discovered, a cabbie, I knew why I repressed it. My Dad also did this for a living, or to augment his meager salary as a baker. Among that generation of Jews, it was a badge of failure, and we always made him park it a distance away when visiting.

Other things, not giving the kid the 15 cents for the ring, and making him ask for every dime. No allowances for him or for me, as there was very little self worth for a Jewish cabbie, and having your child with independent "wealth" was too great a chance to take. The tone of voice of the Rabbi, with one very minor quibble being that I doubt that there would have been a girl in Hebrew school. Bat Mitizvahs had not been invented, and Men and Women did not pray together - still don't among orthodox.

And then after beating the kid with a strap, also authentic, and finding out the child in the well had died, and the embrace, the love between father and son, and the entire family. This too was there in the film, and in my childhood, in spite of all of the shortcomings it was a real existence, as this film so brilliantly conveyed.

AlRodbell.com