The Bagel: An Immigrant's Story

Short Synopsis

The story of the bagel is the classic story of the immigrant made good in America – struggling, then prospering, and finally assimilating. This one hour documentary tells the fascinating tale of the bagel’s transcendence from urban Jewish street food to America’s favorite mass-market breakfast, and relates how the bagel itself has changed -and changed people’s lives - in the process.

Description/Treatment

The Bagel: An Immigrant’s Story

The Story

The story of the bagel is the classic story of the immigrant made good in America – struggling, then prospering, and finally assimilating.

Once available only in the Jewish enclaves of a few urban centers, today there is scarcely a mid-sized American community that doesn’t have at least one bagel shop, selling bagels in almost as many flavors as Baskin-Robbins has ice cream. You can buy bagels at Dunkin’ Donuts (the largest seller of bagels in America), or even at McDonald’s, as part of the “McBagel breakfast sandwich” – topped with ham and cheese.

It’s all happened in the span of just a single generation. But how it happened – and what changed in the process – is one of the most fascinating and little-known, not to mention one of the most poignant, stories in American history.

This film will tell the never before told story of the rise and fall of the International Bagel Bakers Union – and the bagel with it – the union that for decades produced every single bagel made in New York. It’s the story of a small group of artisans who powerfully maintained the traditions carried over by the first Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. It’s the story of how they fought for better working conditions with strikes and walkouts and, when necessary, in-shop sabotage; how they fought against exploitative factory owners, corrupt rival unions, and even against the Mafia – who often used bagel shops as front businesses to launder money. And it’s also the story of how the union was ultimately destroyed by a force much larger and stronger than it was: modern technology.

But the death of the union also meant something more: the death of the traditional bagel. For, remarkably, the very same technology that destroyed the union also destroyed the delicious old-style bagel – a style that, for all of the bagel’s omnipresence, is today nearly extinct. The traditional bagel was made with dough that was too dense to go through the new bagel machines, and so bakers had to soften the dough – producing, in the process, much softer bagels. The bagel that was crafted for decades – small, dense, and chewy– has now become huge, pillowy and soft.

This film carries the viewer back to the old cellar bakeries, to the picket lines where union members fought gangster-run bagel shops, inside mass-production bagel factories, and modern suburban malls where bagels are filled with pesto, blueberries, and sun-dried tomatoes, as well as the last of the old-style bakeries producing handmade bagels. The story that emerges, while compelling in itself, also manages to evoke important larger themes – about the process of assimilation in America, the demise of the labor movement, and the fate of ethnic foods when they get adopted by the culture at large. The film will be of interest toanyone who has ever eaten a bagel – and these days, of course, that’s just about everyone.

The Film

One hour in length, the documentary film The Bagel: An Immigrant's Story is narrated by Peter Riegert, star of such films as Crossing Delancey and Local Hero. It interweaves present day interviews with an entertaining variety of archival footage: local TV news coverage of bagel union strikes and other activities, photographs of old-time bagel production, newsreel footage of working conditions on the Lower East Side, references to bagels in popular culture from TV to movies, and old radio and TV commercials. It will also feature original illustrations from the award-winning cartoonist and illustrator Ben Katchor.

The interviews comprisea broad and fascinating mix, including:

Many of the union bagel bakers themselves. These men are lively and opinionated, proud and deeply passionate about their work. They recount the colorful history of the union, from its heyday in the 1930s-1950s, when it controlled every one of the bagel factories operating in New York, to the darker days of the 1960s, when union members, fearing the loss of their jobs, tried to sabotage the newly installed bagel-making machines. They also relate amusing details, such as how the bagel strike of 1957 was mediated by the man who four years earlier had mediated the lox strike; and how salt bagels were invented because the bakers had salt in the factories anyway, to throw on the sidewalks in the event of snow. Also interviewed are Daniel Thompson, the original inventor of the bagel machine,and other food experts and historians, who provide useful historical context and an assessment of how bagels have changed over time.

Others have agreed toparticipate in the film include:

• Calvin Trillin. well-known food writer and humorist
• Michael Wex, author of Born to Kvetch
• Arthur Schwartz, cookbook author and radio personality
• Mimi Sheraton, former New York Times food critic and author of The Bialy Eater
• Maria Balinska, BBC journalist and author of The Bagel: The Surprising History of a Modest Bread, published by Yale University Press
• Barbara Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, New York University professor and Jewish-food historian
• Nach Waxman, owner of New York’s premier cookbook store, Kitchen Arts and Letters
• <!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]-->

• Advisers:
• Joshua B.Freeman, (U.S. Labor History)
• Professor ofHistory, Queens College, CUNY
• Donna Gabaccia, (Immigration History)
• Professor ofHistory & Director
• ImmigrationHistory Research Center
• Minneapolis, MN
• Barbara Kirschenblatt-Gimblett (Jewish History)
• UniversityProfessor, Dept of Performance Studies
• Tisch School of the Arts
• New YorkUniversity
• * Hasia Diner (American Jewish &Immigration History)
• Paul S. andSylvia Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History
• Professor ofHebrew and Judaic Studies
• New YorkUniversity
• * Jennifer Berg (History of Food)
• Director, Graduate Program in Food Studies and Food Management
• Steinhardt School,
• New YorkUniversity
• Fred Carstensen, (Expert on Lenders)
• Director ofCenter for Economic Analysis
• University ofConnecticut
• *appear in the trailer