Press Releases
On the latest episode of the B’nai B’rith podcast, CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin talks with documentary filmmaker Laura Seltzer-Duny on her latest film, “Nobody Wants Us.”
The film focuses on the sojourn of the SS Quanza, a ship carrying Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust in Europe. Unlike the passengers on a more well-known ship, the SS St. Louis, the passengers on the Quanza found refuge in the United States thanks to the intervention of a Newport News-based lawyer, Jacob Morowitz, as well as the direct intervention of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
Seltzer-Duny stumbled on the story of the SS Quanza when a cousin she had never met called her from San Francisco and told her he had a story she could turn into a feature film. The story has special resonance for Seltzer-Duny, because attorney Morowitz is a relative on her mother’s side.
Mariaschin and Seltzer-Duny discussed the modern-day implications of the Quanza story. “Eleanor Roosevelt did get involved and she did say, ‘You have to save the children, but how do you separate them from your families?’, which was an interesting point that really does resonate with today,” Seltzer-Duny said. “We need to really…think about America’s response to refugees, both then and now.”
Click here for Episode 62 of the B’nai B’rith Podcast.
The film focuses on the sojourn of the SS Quanza, a ship carrying Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust in Europe. Unlike the passengers on a more well-known ship, the SS St. Louis, the passengers on the Quanza found refuge in the United States thanks to the intervention of a Newport News-based lawyer, Jacob Morowitz, as well as the direct intervention of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
Seltzer-Duny stumbled on the story of the SS Quanza when a cousin she had never met called her from San Francisco and told her he had a story she could turn into a feature film. The story has special resonance for Seltzer-Duny, because attorney Morowitz is a relative on her mother’s side.
Mariaschin and Seltzer-Duny discussed the modern-day implications of the Quanza story. “Eleanor Roosevelt did get involved and she did say, ‘You have to save the children, but how do you separate them from your families?’, which was an interesting point that really does resonate with today,” Seltzer-Duny said. “We need to really…think about America’s response to refugees, both then and now.”
Click here for Episode 62 of the B’nai B’rith Podcast.
Laura Seltzer-Duny, left, and podcast host and B’nai B’rith International CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin, right.
