When the Jewish Community Centers of Chicago brought in the Violins of Hope, an exhibit of restored violins owned and played by Jewish musicians before and during the Holocaust, no one seemed to fully appreciate its significance, the center’s president and CEO said.
Or at least not until it came to the Gail Borden Public Library in Elgin last year.
“I think the flood gates really opened when Elgin came onboard,” Addie Goodman said. “I think people saw how the city of Elgin, the library, the municipality and the orchestra came together.”
The local exhibit included history programs, musical performances, discussions, a play presentation and other events that involved several sectors of the Elgin community, including local schools, Congregation Kneseth Israel and the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, which used some of the violins in a concert.
“There’s a large segment of Elgin in the film,” Goodman said.
As other communities began coming together as a result of the exhibit, the Jewish Community Centers — known as the JCC — decided to create the Growing Hope movement, which was chronicled in a documentary of the same name set to premiere at 5 p.m. Sunday at the Chicago History Museum.
Directed by Kamp Kennedy, “Growing Hope” features the display when it was in Elgin and includes an interview with Elgin Mayor Dave Kaptain. It’s narrated by actor David Eigenberg, known for his roles as Lt. Christopher Herrmann on NBC’s “Chicago Fire” and as Steve Brady on HBO’s “Sex and the City” and “And Just Like That…”.
Eigenbert, a Naperville native, became part of the JCC when he enrolled one of his children in the nonprofit organization’s summer camp. The approached him about doing the narration, Goodman said.
“He has a very personal interest in this kind of education and platform,” she said, noting that members of his family died in the Holocaust. “We’ve been thrilled by how many people have raised their hands to be part of this work.”
Violins of Hope became a traveling exhibit in 2006, originating in Israel, Goodman said. JCC worked with the Elgin library on the six-month local exhibition last spring, which included a program with Violins of Hope co-founder Avshi Weinstein.
“We started filming the documentary to capture the story of Violins of Hope as we embarked on the exhibit,” said Goodman, who noted that JCC time with the exhibit was the largest and most expansive that the Violins of Hope project has had since it was launched.
As filming progressed, “we realized the story was much bigger than the Violins of Hope project,” she said.
“Our organization took a project that’s been around and translated it into a movement,” she said. “The core messages are tolerance, understanding, acceptance and kindness.”
The documentary is about how the Violins of Hope became a mechanism for telling the personal stories of the Holocaust and launching a new movement focused on making the world a better, more hopeful place, Goodman said.
It also addresses the October 2023 Hamas terrorist attack in Israeli citizens, sparking a war and strong feelings among Israeli and Palestinian supporters. A spike in antisemitism has been reported in the U.S. and around the world since the attack occurred and war began.
There’s a lot of misinformation about the Holocaust and antisemitism on social media, Goodman said.
Ten instruments played by people before and during the Holocaust were on display at the Gail Borden Public Library in 2023 as part of the “Violins of Hope” exhibit. (Gloria Casas/The Courier-News)
Violins of Hope provides a different way to experience the stories about the Holocaust, Goodman said.
“Every violin is connected to a person, connected to a story,” she said. The stories are about real people who had regular lives before being sent to concentration camps, she said.
Growing Hope not only hopes to provide education but also be an “incubator for kindness,” Goodman said. “Our hope is that what we are doing here with our partners will permeate through Middle America and, over time, make a difference in the world,” she said.
JCC is working on finding a way to distribute the documentary and enter it into film festivals, Goodman said. The Violins of Hope exhibit through JCC reached 200,000 people while it was in the area, and she said she believes “the film can have an even broader reach.”
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
