Zack and I met the first week at American University because we were living right across from each other. We decided to pledge the same fraternity along with a lot of our other friends on our floor and have been great friends ever since. We decided that one way to get the word out to a large community would be to spread it throughout our national fraternity. A few days ago an article was printed in our national newsletter about our project and here it is for everyone to see. We ended up getting a couple of donations from fraternity brothers that went to other schools that we had never met before, which is what this project is all about. Spreading the word to the world!

It’s been a crazy 72 hours here in Los Angeles. We’re down to crunch time with the Kickstarter fundraising, and while we’ve already reached our minimum, we’ve pretty much blown through the budget already between airfare, camera equipment and a laptop to edit it.

Yesterday we had the honor to participate in a presentation and excellent discussion on crowd fundraising at the IAJGS Conference on Jewish Geneology (which is going on all this week). Roberta Grossman, a talented and accomplished documentary filmmaker, showed a great clip from her newest project “Hava Nagila - What Is It?” Roberta raised money for the project in a similar manner, using IndieGoGo.com, and seems to be having a success with it.

After Roberta discussed her experience with IndieGoGo and developing and maintaining email contact lists, Mike and I talked a little about Kickstarter. We showed the short teaser we cut for the conference and showed our original Kickstarter pitch video. We stressed the importance of face-time in a pitch video, as well as making sure the pitch and rewards for the project were personal and inclusive of the potential funders.

The audience was comprised primarily of filmmakers and writers looking to pursue similar projects. Afterwards we had a lively discussion afterwards about the best was to use these micro-financing sites to maximize donations and create a supportive community around the project. In fact, a number of those in attendance are presenting there projects at the conference this week as well, so we wish them well with that.

Here is the first trailer for Dust of Europe. We cut it together for the Jewish Genealogy conference we spoke at yesterday. We wouldn't have been able to do it without all of your support.

On July 10 1920 Joseph Selig Kershner left New York for Europe after learning that his wife's family was in danger in their Polish homeland. After a grueling four month journey, that included seven weeks in various Soviet jails and dungeons, Joseph returned to Ellis Island in New York harbor with 18 Polish Jews who would make America their new home. The following article ran in the Wednesday, November 10th 1920 edition of The Burlington Free Press, Joseph's home town newspaper, just four days after his arrival back in America. I have transcribed the article and included a high-resolution scan of the article from microform. This isn't the whole story, but it provides useful insight into Joseph's journey.

HELD SEVEN WEEKS BY THE BOSHEVIKI

Joseph Kershner has Thrilling Experience in Getting His Wife's Family Out of Polish Russia - Accomplishes Mission, and 11 Reach Burlington

Captured by the Bolsheviki, held prisoner by them for seven weeks and later freed on the arrival of the Polish troops are some of the experiences of Joseph Kershner of 192 Park street, who yesterday returned with his wife's family from Polish Russia.

Mr. Kershner reached New York Saturday on the S.S. "Zeeland" with his wife's family consisting of eleven persons and arrived in Burlington at an early hour yesterday morning.
Mr. Kershner left New York on July 10 last on the S.S. "Kroonland," going direct to Southampton, England, from which place he sailed to Danzig, the new Polish port. From Danzig Mr. Kershner went to Warsaw, arriving there July 28. The city at the time of Mr. Kershner's arrival was in serious danger of being captured by the Bolsheviki, and he was warned by the American consul not to attempt to go into the interior where his relatives were. The city in which they resided was Wladiner-Wolinzk.

Mr. Kernsher, in order to reach Wladiner-Wolinzk, had to pass the Bolshevik lines and upon arriving at the city of Wladiner-Wolinzk was forced to remain concealed in the cellar of his relatives' home during the night of August 7, while the Bolshevik troops were storming the city. Later that night he was found by the Red soldiers and was brought before the Red commander and, according to his story, he was there put through a "third degree." He exhibited his American and Polish passports, but Mr. Kershner alleges that they were ignored by the commander who ordered him to be under arrest. Later, he was given the freedom of the city but was not allowed to leave it.

Mr. Kershner stated that the condition of the Bolsheviki was indescribable, as both officers and men were without necessary clothing and only a few of them were fortunate enough to have a pair of shoes. Mr. Kershner was ordered to report to them twice while they occupied the city. In the early part of the Bolshevik occupation Mr. Kershner stated that a thorough search was made of all houses and stores in the city, and that many articles were stolen by them, such as clothing, shoes, food and the like.

During the Bolshevik occupation Mr. Kershner had an opportunity to see and to note the actions of the Red troops with each other. He stated that there was no saluting between officers and enlisted men, and when they were addressing one another, instead of using a title, they would use the word "Comrade."

Conditions grew so bad that bread made of oats, rye and corn by the inhabitants was selling at ten rubles per pound, about 25 cents in American money, and was very scarce at that.
The Poles, when they advanced upon the city, were accompanied by and aided by veteran French troops, who, according to Mr. Kershner, were very conspicuous, owing to their light blue uniforms and blue steel helmets. The city of Wladiner-Wolinzk was easily captured by the Poles and French from the Bolsheviki, according to Mr. Kershner.

Shortly after arrival of the Polish troops, Mr. Kershner, with his relatives, moved by wagon to Warsaw, where, aided by the American consul, he at last, with a great deal of difficulty, succeeded in getting accommodation on the S.S. "Zeeland" and sailed from Antwerp, Belgium, on October 27, arriving in New York on November 6. Some little difficulty was experienced at the immigration station on Ellis Island in the passing of Mr. Kershner's father-in-law, who is an aged man. This was, however, accomplished and Mr. Kershner, with his eleven relatives, arrived in the city yesterday morning.

I can't ask for any more support from anyone seeing this update, because you have already done more than I could have ever asked for. But I am going to ask you for some help. We can't spread the word alone and I need your help, it is our last week of fundraising and we did hit our goal, but it was well below what we need to finish this project, because we never thought we would get this far. Please tell everyone you know and all those people you have already told and have said, "oh it sounds wonderful," but haven't supported us, ask them again for me. It is very easy for everyone to let emails and websites fall into the far depths of our email accounts. Emailing or telling people in person one more time, during this last week of fundraising won't hurt or annoy anyone. Here is the link and thank you very much for your continuing support.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/michaelkershner/mike-and-zacks-righteous-journey

I just found out from my mother that we were written up in the Cambridge Chronicle in the Thursday, June 24th edition. We are on page 13 and it talks all about our project. I also found out that they posted it online. So for all my supporters from the Boston area, if you can get a June 24th Cambridge Chronicle, you will see the article. It is thanks to all of you that we got in the newspaper, because without this project getting so big, we never would have had any interest. Here is the link online to the article if you do not get the paper.

http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/features/x564349954/Guest-commentary-I-know-where-I-came-from

We reached 100% yesterday morning after a burst of amazing donations and I woke up to a few excited texts from Zack, saying why aren't you answering, we hit 100% funded, how can you be sleeping. Little did he know that I had worked 17 hours the night before until 4am that morning. When I awoke I saw his texts and immediately called him elated. Both of us said that we couldn't believe this happened and that this entire process has been incredible and inspiring.

Thank you to everyone that has donated, we are so happy that you could be a part of this journey. This is not finished and our goal of $8000 was a low estimate of the cost of the entire project, because we had no idea where all of this would go. We want to ask you for a little more help in spreading the word to all of your friends for these last couple of weeks. We need to raise a good bit more and we know we can, we just need people to keep up the great work and ask people to check out our project and donate even $1, because as you can see every dollar adds up.

We are very busy the next couple of weeks with planning and writing, but will update you with everything that is going on. Thank you again!

As always I want to thank everyone for their support, because this project is more than making a documentary or a script, its also about inspiring others to go out and do something they really want to do. I want everyone who is following along with our journey to get inspired to start working on that one thing everyone has in the back of their mind as something they always wanted to do.

One of the biggest pieces of news about our project is that Zack and I will be presenting at the 30th Annual Jewish Genealogy Convention in Los Angeles this July. We will be promoting our project and talking about how others can do projects just like ours. The one thing I have learned from this project is that many families have amazing stories of heroism and most people have no idea how to start trying to tell them to the world. Hopefully, we can help with our presentation with some tips of how we started with a small idea and how it grew tenfold.

The other big news is that we are going to be written up in the Cambridge Chronicle, so for all of my Boston area supporters I will let you know when that comes out. I have started contacting more papers and hopefully will have more articles written about our project.

In late July we will be traveling to New York City and visiting Ellis Island. We also will be talking to a few different organizations in the city and interviewing as many people as possible as the start of our documentary. Burlington, VT, where my great grandfather lived is another destination before we set off for Europe. We will visit where he lived and try to search through old newspapers to find the articles that were written up about him when he got back from his righteous journey.

This is all for now and we will have more to come very soon. Thank you all and don't stop spreading the word please, because we are almost at $7000, but have a long way to go in not much time. Tell people that every dollar helps and that it will add up.

Its the home stretch and all of you have put Zack and I in this position. We continue on this journey together until we reach 100% funded and hopefully go past it. I have some facts and thoughts to inspire people to keep spreading the word.

In 1915, 600,000 Jews were forced to migrate inward from the Western borders of Russia, including areas such as the Ukraine, which was part of Russia at the time. 100,000 died from starvation and exposure to the weather during that trek.

This story is more than a tale of heroism, by an everyday man. This story is about teaching the world and especially the Jewish community that this was a terrible time for Jews and most of us aren't educated on it. To express how important it is that this story is told, I will give you a statistic. During the Russian Revolution, 200,000 Jews were slaughtered in the Ukraine alone. The killing of Jews could be upwards of half a million if you include all the countries in Eastern Europe. This was 20 years before the Holocaust and all the horror that everyone is taught about in school.

In the process of getting in touch with many Jewish organizations for funding or research, I have found that there is a lot of money out there for projects about the Holocaust. They will not fund stories, such as this one about Joseph Kershner and my family, because it didn't take place at that time period. This story is just as important and just as compelling and so we will have to take a different route to get it told.

Keep on telling your friends and family to support us, because it is time that the world knows about the hundreds of thousands of Jews that were killed years before the Holocaust and forgotten about. Thank you all again for your support, I wish I could take everyone of you out to dinner.

Hello group of individuals I owe a lot to,

This is a quick update to let everyone know what is going on with the project. I was getting a slight bit discouraged a couple of weeks ago after a lull in support on Kickstarter, but now have been reassured that I lost my faith too quickly. Over the last couple of weeks the amount of support from people that I have never met, that are friends of friends and/or family has blown my mind. We are almost at 75% funded and have been getting donations, day after day from people I would have never expected to have supported us. That is where "you never know until you try" comes in. Zack and I never would have known how much people care, until we did this project and started reaching out to the far reaches of our networks.

We are going to make our goal and beyond and the faith will not be lost again.

I have started speaking with many Jewish organizations and am in the process of getting the project promoted in newsletters and newspapers all over the country. We have also started the process of planning our trip and have setup interviews with a few experts in Europe.

A very exciting piece of news is that we will be speaking at the Jewish Genealogy Convention in Los Angeles, in July. I contacted the organizer about our project and possibly covering the conference for our documentary and she thought it would be a great idea for us to speak there and talk about how we started with an amazing family story, like many us have and have turned it into a flourishing multimedia project. Thank you again to everyone who has supported us and shown me that anything is possible. Keep spreading the word!

Dear Kickstarter,

We're just over the one month mark - with almost two to go - and we're happy to report that thanks to all of you, we have reached 50% of our funding goal. We're just as happy to report that we're making similar progress with the research stage. In fact, we're making so much progress with the research that we're launching a full time blog to handle the updates that we're going to be posting multiple times per week. Dust Of Europe is the working title for our project, and while I won't go into that exact meaning right now (there has to be some things we keep to ourselves, right!) you can now visit DustOfEurope.com to follow along as we learn more about Joseph, his journey and all kinds of other great information we're learning about.

As I write, there is currently a post detailing the tremendous feedback we have received from other families with roots in Joseph's town of Turiysk. Mike reached out to a number of families through JewishGen.org, and the responses we've gotten have been informative and inspiring.

Similarly, my recent trip to Ellis Island (pictured below) and the Statue of Liberty provided me with some great video, photographs and documents on the immigration process that Joseph and his family experienced during the first half of the 20th Century. You can expect a post on that too, shortly, at DustOfEurope.com.

Again, we thank everyone for your support. We are halfway to our goal with almost two months to go - ahead of schedule. And we'd like to keep that way. So be sure to tell you family, tell your friends, and thanks for your continued help in giving us the opportunity to tell this story.

Yours in intrepid doggedness,
Zack Sherwood
Odenton, MD
May 18, 2010

Dear Kickstarter,

Two weeks into this, both Mike and I have to admit, we are surprised, excited and grateful. With 71 days to go and over 40% funding, it is hard not to be. The outpouring of support - not only in terms of giving but also who has given - has been overwhelming. Our very first supporter was my High School prom date! I'll thank Facebook for that (and Erin, of course. Thanks!). We've received donations from a couple Mike has not even seen since his Bar Mitzvah. And while my Hebrew is non-existent, I do know that a Mitzvah is a good deed, and Mike and I consider each donation as a deed we will repay - with a finished screenplay and a documentary to boot!

Since the project has been progressing here on Kickstarter so splendidly, perhaps you'd like to hear how it is progressing offline as well. We're both finishing up some other projects right now, but I have been spending a considerable amount of my personal time researching Poland in general and writing. We're feeding new ideas off of each other constantly and meet up on G-Chat a few times a week to share our thoughts and develop the individual scenes.

It's strange where inspiration comes from. Mike sent me a text message in the middle of the night with an idea for a visualization of how Israel Horder's important letter reaches Joseph. It's a damn good idea and I don't have the foggiest clue how Mike came up with it.

I was in a Grad class two weeks ago and a visiting lecturer made an off-hand comment about the American view of history. It jarred something loose in my head and, right there in class, I scribble 5 pages of thoughts and dialogue for one of the most important scenes in the entire film.

So the story is developing and we are moving closer to our goal. What's next is a trip to New York to meet with some of the records organizations Mike's grandfather contacted when he first began putting this story together. Mike contacted Jewishgen.org, an organization that traces Jewish genealogies throughout Europe and may be helpful with gathering research. We also plan to visit Ellis Island to shoot some preliminary video and to visit a plaque engraved with Joseph's name. It's all very exciting to us - and hopefully you too. And don't worry, we'll be sure to keep you updated here on Kickstarter.

For those of you who have given, know that it fills our hearts with joy, our bodies with fortitude and our minds with ideas. Thank you for your support so far, wish us luck going forward and - with almost 60% left to go - tell your friends!

Yours in inspired satisfaction,
Zack Sherwood
Washington DC
May 3, 2010