How Long Is “Dear Mr. Waldman”?

In Tel Aviv, Israel, in the early 1960s, a Jewish family still chafes from the wounds it endured in the Holocaust. So begins Israeli director Hanan Peled's period drama Dear Mr. Waldman (AKA Michtavim Le America, 2006). At the center of the family unit stands 10-year-old Hilik, who sees it as his mission to pool his resources with those of his brother and help their parents bury the nightmare of the concentration camps. The father, Moishe's, trauma may be more deep-rooted than it appears, however; not only is he unable to free himself from the grip of the Holocaust, he lives with the persistent delusion that his son from his first marriage evaded murder in the camps, fled to a new life in America, and took a position as John F. Kennedy's assistant.