A shot from "Where Neon Goes to Die" South Beach, Fla. in 1977

UNC Asheville will host a screening of "Where Neon Goes to Die" at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 29, at the Reuter Center on the UNC Asheville campus. A talk by director David Weintraub will follow. The program will also include a short performance by a local klezmer band, featuring Marc Rudow. Events are free and open to the public.

Weintraub began researching the culture of South Beach and South Florida before it became a glamorous locale. His grandparents, along with tens of thousands of others, were part of a culturally rich Yiddish community that thrived with six Yiddish theatres, a variety of choruses and folksinger groups, eight Yiddish music radio stations and much more. Then, after six decades, the cultural richness faded with the onslaught of redevelopment. Using rare film and video footage, photography, and radio recordings, "Where Neon Goes to Die" reconstructs the last days of Yiddish culture in South Beach.

"South Beach was a good canvas to depict what is happening across the country where Americans are losing their culturally rich communities to development, redevelopment and cultural amnesia," said Weintraub. "When we lose our heritage, we lose something that makes us human, that connects us across the generations and gives us a firm foundation for the future."

Weintraub is the author of more than a dozen books and screenplays and is executive director of the Miami-based Dora Teitelboim Center for Yiddish Culture. He founded and ran a civil rights organization dedicated to representing low-income litigants and has been active in civil rights and social justice issues for more than 30 years.

For more information, call UNC Asheville’s Center for Jewish Studies at 828/251-6576 or click on www.unca.edu/cjs.