“Strange Fruit” explores the origins and legacy of Billie Holiday’s haunting classic, one of the most influential protest songs ever written.

While many people assume the song “Strange Fruit” was written by Holiday herself, it was actually conceived as a poem by a Jewish-American schoolteacher from the Bronx.

Disturbed by a photograph of a lynching, the teacher wrote the stark verse and brooding melody. It was first put to music at a meeting of his New York teacher’s union. But it was when Billie Holiday began performing the song at New York’s Cafe Society and then later recorded it that “Strange Fruit” began to gain notoriety. The song reached number 16 on popular music charts just months after being released, despite a ban by radio stations who labeled it “subversive”. Footage of Lady Day herself performing her bitter and heart wrenching signature song stands at the of the film.

The film is 57 minutes long produced and directed by Joel Katz was released in 2002. It was screened at the SF Jewish Film Festival in 2003.

The film is appropriate for anyone over the age of 10.

@7:00 pm on June 14th at Congregation Beth Shalom Napa.