He conquered Miami and then the world: the story of Cuban Jewish Feldenkreis comes to film
George Feldenkreis’s constant smile makes it impossible to look away from the screen in the documentary From Cuba to America, which will have its world premiere at the Miami Jewish Film Festival on January 24, with two additional screenings on Monday the 26th and Wednesday the 28th.
Feldenkreis (Havana, 1935–Miami, 2025) speaks with a smile in his voice and in his eyes. For those who think they know the story of the Cuban Jewish immigrant, the businessman and philanthropist who arrived in Miami in 1961 with $70 and built a multimillion-dollar textile empire — today Perry Ellis International — the curiosity to discover so many lives in one, lived with such optimism, is what captivates the viewer.
“His sense of humor was unmistakably Jewish,” says Jerry Levine, director of From Cuba to America. “The funniest things he said were often sprinkled with Yiddish: that cadence, that irony, that warmth… it’s a very old and beautiful tradition.”
Many lives in one: from guayabera salesman to textile magnate
Feldenkreis was many things in his 89 years: guayabera salesman, architect of modern Miami, one of the fortunate who rings the bell on Wall Street; a tireless worker who one day found himself holding a $12 million check — proceeds from when his company went public — which he kept as a reminder of how hard he had worked to get there.
He was also the businessman who rescued his company and took it private again when he saw his legacy was threatened.
But above all, he was a Cuban child, the son of Ukrainian Jews, who grew up in a small Havana apartment, sleeping in a room with his grandfather and his sister.
“We lived in poverty all the time; I wouldn’t call it a happy childhood, more of a mediocre one,” Feldenkreis admits in the documentary.
He also learned early about the suffering of the Jews, reflected in his mother’s tears, who had lost relatives in extermination camps in Europe.
“I saw my mother cry, and it was the first time I understood the evil done to the Jews,” Feldenkreis says.
The trade learned at home: fabrics, commerce and the start in Miami
His father sold fabrics, and from him he learned to be a merchant — an experience that gave him the confidence to become a door-to-door salesman in Hialeah, he also recalls in the film.
He developed leadership early as a member of Jewish Youth in Cuba, at a time when he toured the city visiting Jewish homes, to the point of knowing almost every member of the community.
“What surprised me most about Cuba, in the context of this film, was the depth of Havana’s Jewish community,” says Levine. “That religious and cultural foundation deeply influenced George. As a teenager he met Menachem Begin in Havana and spent an entire day accompanying him, an unforgettable experience that helped shape his path as a global leader.”
The documentary also shows Feldenkreis as a Law student at the University of Havana, a degree he paid for himself. Later, as a lawyer after the 1959 revolution, he had an early encounter with Fidel Castro, who gave him a mission — which I won’t reveal so you can see it in the film — related to a building on the Malecón that housed students.
The return to Cuba in 2011, closing a circle
One of the most moving aspects of the documentary for Cuban exiles, especially those who have never returned to Cuba, is Feldenkreis’s trip back to the island in 2011. Now a successful man and accompanied by part of his family, he humbly knocks on the door of the Havana apartment where he grew up.
They let him in and suddenly two worlds meet, with the nostalgia produced by overlapping times in the same space. What follows is joyful: Feldenkreis reunites with some former classmates from Law school, and there is dancing and camaraderie.
“George gave me a DVD and said, ‘Jerry, you have to watch these raw images,’ ” Levine recalls. “As soon as I saw them, I knew they had to be at the end of the film. It was epic: George returning to Havana and to his childhood home at the end of his life. A true moment that represents the circle of life.”
Voices and testimonies: who appears in the documentary
The film features interviews with Feldenkreis’s children, Fanny Hanono and Oscar Feldenkreis, who now runs Perry Ellis; Jacob Solomon, former president of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation; designer Tommy Hilfiger; and musician and producer Emilio Estefan, who contributed part of the documentary’s soundtrack.
The Miami Jewish Film Festival runs through January 29, with a program that is a true celebration for the community’s cinephiles, said film critic Alejandro Ríos.
Festival Director Igor Shteyrenberg emphasized that the event has “the responsibility to support filmmakers and artists, especially when Jewish and Israeli stories are marginalized elsewhere.”
“A great film has the power to open hearts and minds like nothing else: it can move you deeply, make you believe in people’s goodness and kindness, and offer hope where there is none,” Shteyrenberg concluded.
From Cuba to America, world premiere January 24, 7:30 p.m., Miami Theater Center, 9806 NE 2 Ave., Miami Shores; January 26, 7:30 p.m., Temple Menorah, 620 75th St., Miami Beach; and January 28, 7:30 p.m., Michael-Ann Russell JCC, 18900 NE 25 Ave. For the full festival program, https://miamijewishfilmfestival.org/ Tickets: 305-503-5182.
Esta historia fue publicada originalmente el 24 de enero de 2026, 7:30 a. m..
