We get deep into the mind of Woody Allen as we kick off this premiere episode of TJC Movie Talk With Alana Newhouse, and also explore the history of the Jewish Labor Committee’s historic fight to save Jews during WW2.

Over thirty years ago, as a newbie reporter Eric Lax wrote an article on Woody Allen, and launched the acquaintance into a friendship that’s lasted to this day. Their three-decades-long correspondence is now open for public view through Lax’s new book “Conversation With Woody Allen.” Lax joins Newhouse in the studio to share insight into the film Zelig and Allen’s genius.

Though Lax’s initial interview with Allen ultimately led to a fruitful friendship, it didn’t go so well. Lax recalls that Allen’s “shortest answer was ‘No,’ which wouldn’t have been so bad except that his longest answer was ‘Yes.’” But lucky for us, their conversations became less terse, and Lax shares what he’s learned over the years about the mind of Woody Allen, like that Zelig is one of Allen’s favorite films from his own body of work, and that in it he was trying to send a message about the ease with which one can lose one’s own identity, and the dangers of conformity leading to fascism.

Though Allen is known mostly for his comedic filmmaking genius, Lax explains that Allen is really a writer at heart, and just as interested in making dramatic films, like Matchpoint, or writing plays and books. His work ethic is such that he makes about a film a year and is usually more than one script ahead of whatever film is currently in production, which Newhouse compares to Phillip Roth’s prolificness.

As to how Allen’s Jewish identity informs his work, Lax says that being Jewish influences the sense of not fitting in — of being an outsider — that is so prevalent in Allen’s films, including Zelig.

While Zelig deals with fascism through comedy, the documentary They Were Not Silent: The Jewish Labor Movement and the Holocaust takes quite a serious look at the subject. The Jewish Labor Committee’s communications director, Arieh Lebowitz, shares the crucial role that the JLC played in trying to save European Jews during the war when most Americans turned a blind eye to their plight.

The JLC was formed in New York City in 1934, as a unifier of various Jewish labor organizations, specifically to combat the rise of Nazism, Lebowitz explains, to help European Jews and to encourage Americans it was in their best interest to get involved in the war effort against Germany.

Since the Forward was established by socialists and played an active part in the JLC’s mission to help Jews on the other side of the ocean, it was in a unique position to gather and spread information about what was really going on in Hitler’s empire. Newhouse and Lebowitz have a lot to talk about — like JLC founder B.C. Vladeck who, Newhouse notes, was also the manager of the Forward from 1918 until his death. Lebowitz explains that due to the Forward’s European correspondents, Jews in America did know what was going on overseas in the 1930s, before the war officially broke out. This led many to form the JLC and do something about it.

Unfortunately, the JLC wasn’t as successful in its efforts as it hoped to be, due to many governmental constraints, such as quotas on the number of emigrants allowed out of the European countries and the number of immigrants allowed into the U.S. But the organization itself has survived, with a changed mission. The JLC now fights for various labor rights causes, such as for immigrant workers rights, and acts as the official Jewish voice within the labor movement.