Documentary about Catcher/Spy Moe Berg Coming to Parkway Theatre

In baseball terms, Morris “Moe” Berg would best bedescribed as a journeyman player. A New York native and son of Jewishimmigrants, he played for five Major League Baseball teams between 1923 and1939, with a lifetime batting average of just .243.

The enigmatic Berg’s career would generally not attractmuch attention, but his overall story is far from typical. In addition to his baseballcareer, Berg worked for the Office of Strategic Services – predecessor to theCentral Intelligence Agency – spying in Europe and playing a prominent role inAmerica’s efforts to undermine the Nazis’ nuclear ambitions during World WarII.

Berg’s life is now the subject of a new documentary, “The Spy Behind Home Plate,” by award-winning filmmaker Aviva Kempner. A Washington, D.C., resident, Kempner will present “The Spy Behind Home Plate” on July 7, at 4:30 p.m. at the historic Parkway Theatre.

Paul Rudd plays Moe Berg in “The Catcher Was a Spy.” (Courtesy of IFC Films)

In 1994, Berg’s life story was told in Nicholas Dawidoff’s biography, “The Catcher Was a Spy” (Vintage). It was also a 2018 film of the same name starring Paul Rudd, Jeff Daniels and Sienna Miller.

Kempner characterized the documentary as her latest effortto present non-stereotypical images of Jews in history and celebrate the untoldstories of Jewish heroes.

Her previous acclaimed documentaries include“Rosenwald,” about businessman/philanthropistJulius Rosenwald and his support of African-American children living in therural South during the Jim Crow era; and “The Life and Times of HankGreenberg,” celebrating baseball’s first major Jewish star player.

“As the child of a Holocaust survivor, I’ve found it my mission to do this work, to help break stereotypical views of Jewish people and tell these amazing stories,” Kempner, 73, a Berlin native, said in an interview with Jmore. “I’ve been doing this for 40 years.”

A 1933 vintage baseball card of Moe Berg during his days playing for the Washington Senators. (Wikipedia)

Kempner conducted dozens of interviews for “The SpyBehind Home Plate.” The film also incorporates 18 interviews, conducted between1987 and 1991 by filmmakers Jerry Feldman and Neil Goldstein, for a never-completedproject on Berg archived at Princeton University. The Ciesla Foundation, anonprofit founded by Kempner in 1979, supported the digitizing of interviews usedin “The Spy Behind Home Plate.”

In addition, the documentary offers rare historical footage and photographs, some of which are nearly a century old, including archival film of Berg, Babe Ruth and other baseball stars during an exhibition tour of Japan in 1934.

“Moe Berg’s story is one people have wanted to tellfor decades,” Kempner said. “He was very secretive about his life and neverwrote his autobiography. George Clooney, Dustin Hoffman and Marlon Brando areall people who wanted to make this documentary.

“I’m just lucky to be the first one to make thisfull-length documentary become a reality,” she said. “Those interviews from 30years ago add to the project, even more as none of those people, including MoeBerg’s brother, are alive today.”

Kempner said that Berg — who in 1996 was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and Museum in Commack, N.Y., and whose baseball card is now on display at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. — is both an American and a Jewish-American hero.

Berg, who died in 1972 at the age of 70, grew up inNewark, N.J., spoke several languages and earned degrees from both PrincetonUniversity and Columbia Law School.

In 1943, the OSS tapped him to interview top Italian physicists to assess what they knew about Nazi Germany’s atomic bomb program. The following year, the OSS sent Berg to Zurich to attend a lecture delivered by German physicist Werner Heisenberg. Berg was given a gun and cyanide pill, and instructed to shoot Heisenberg if he appeared to be involved in the building of an atomic bomb for the Nazis. Berg determined that Germany was not developing an atomic bomb at that time, and his mission aided the advancement of the Manhattan Project.

“This was one of the most perilous times in thehistory of the world,” Kempner said. “If the Nazis had been able to develop anuclear bomb, we would not be here speaking today.”

Kempner feels strongly that Berg’s story needs to beexposed to the masses and is just as relevant today as it was during the war.

“We are dealing with the nuclear threats of countrieslike North Korea and Iran,” Kempner said. “Anti-Semitism is on the rise aroundthe world, and the need for spies with the ability to speak multiple languageslike Berg is so important. In many cases, those with the ability to speak thoselanguages are immigrants or the children of immigrants, just like Berg.

“My hope,” she said, “is younger people come out forthe film and appreciate just what Moe Berg was able to do for our country.”

For information, visit mdfilmfest.com.

RonSnyder is a Baltimore-based freelance writer.