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Jewish film expert Dr. Eric Goldman expected the genre of Holocaust cinema to come to a quiet end, but with popular pictures like "Defiance" and "Inglourious Basterds," the past couple of years have proved otherwise.

Goldman, who teaches at Yeshiva University and Fairleigh Dickinson University and is the founder of Ergo Media, a New Jersey-based video publishing company specializing in Jewish and Israeli video, will review the evolution of Holocaust film around the world Sunday, Jan. 24 at Temple Beth Or/Beth Torah (TBO/BT) in Clark.

His talk, titled "Cinema as Haggadah for the Holocaust," is the annual Edith & Mark Lief Lecture & Breakfast at TBO/BT. When Holocaust films stopped winning Academy Awards and appeared less and less at film festivals, Goldman thought the age of "Schindler's List" was over.

"I think people were tired of it," Goldman said of Holocaust cinema in an interview with The Jewish State. "[They had] too much already. People just had had it."

Not so fast, Goldman learned. In 2008, "Defiance" chronicled the efforts of the Bielski partisans and was a significant film because it showed that Jews were not only persecuted during the Holocaust but also fought back, Goldman said. Then, 2009 was a "banner year" for Holocaust cinema, he said, highlighted by Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds," which tells the story of a fictional plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders, something unlike anything viewers had seen from Holocaust films before.

"It really turns the Holocaust genre upside down," Goldman said of "Inglourious Basterds".

Eastern and Central Europe took up Holocaust cinema right after World War II, but Western Europe shied away from the genre until the 1970s due to a "sense of culpability" about the Holocaust, Goldman said. America didn't immediately produce Holocaust films because they dealt with something not many Americans experienced, he said, while the genre was also taboo in Israel for a few decades.

"Israel represented the new Jews and the Holocaust represented the old Jew, the Diaspora Jew," Goldman said.

Now, the younger generation in America is comfortable enough to self-identify as Jews, Goldman said, much different from past generations that had to deal with anti-Semitism. That led to the greater popularity of Holocaust cinema here, with the 1978 made for TV mini-series "Holocaust" starring Meryl Streep, James Woods, and Michael Moriarty representing a turning point, he said.

"It really made Holocaust cinema acceptable," Goldman said of the series.

When Goldman explores the history of Holocaust cinema, he said he first looks into where the films were produced for insight.

"My approach to film is to really look at the societies who make the films," he said.

Part of why Holocaust films have been popular over the years, not just with Jewish audiences, is because "it was clear who the good guys were and who the bad guys were," Goldman said.

At TBO/BT, Goldman will be lecturing as well as showing film clips. Edith and Mark Lief, both Holocaust survivors and longtime members of the synagogue, started the annual lecture and breakfast program in honor of their 50th anniversary, and when they passed away the series turned into a memorial for them, said Thelma Purdy, adult education chair at TBO/BT.

Since we are now more than 60 years removed from the Holocaust, it's important for the Jewish community to understand not only the Holocaust's history, but also how it is perceived, Purdy said.

"There are so many films that have come out with Holocaust material in them, and as time goes on the import of the Holocaust, as it applies specifically to Jews, [is shaped by how] the media has taken over our perception of it," Purdy said of this year's lecture topic.

The program is free and open to the entire community. Temple Beth Or/Beth Torah is located at 111 Valley Road in Clark. Reservations are required; please call the synagogue at (732) 381-8403.