MEMOIR (Working title)
Learning Something about Love
A young filmmaker records his grandparents' history. Thirty years later, after the birth of his son, he goes back to the tapes and realizes he documented everything and understood nothing.
When he'd asked his grandmother if she loved his grandfather, she said no. "What is love? You can only love once. What's left is conscience and commitment." In Learning Something about Love, this legacy unfolds across a life spanning Soviet Latvia, a Jewish family that didn't speak of the war, and an emigration to America at age nine. Through the lens of undiagnosed dyslexia and a career spent telling other people's stories, the narrative asks one ultimate question: what do we inherit, and what do we choose to pass on?
Forthcoming
Photo Essay
Put Down That Camera
For six years in his late twenties, Daniel photographed his grandparents who were Holocaust survivors, navigating Alzheimer's, decline, and loss. He put the negatives away for over two decades. After the birth of his son, he returned to the archive and found the words to go with the images: an essay about recording family history, and what a camera can mean when it's the only thing standing between you and what's happening.
Published in HuffPost Personal · July 2026
Enjoyed this story?
I'm currently writing a memoir inspired by these experiences. If you'd like occasional updates, new essays, and behind-the-scenes reflections on photography and documentary storytelling, I'd love to stay in touch.
I'm currently writing a memoir inspired by these experiences. If you'd like occasional updates, new essays, and behind-the-scenes reflections on photography and documentary storytelling, I'd love to stay in touch.
Personal Essay
Minnie Love Story
When Daniel was twelve, failing seventh-grade English, his parents found Minnie Galatzer Cherney through the local Jewish Community Center, a theater director in her seventies, partially blind, who had worked with Tennessee Williams and Studs Terkel. Minnie tutored Daniel in exchange for groceries and dog walks. She figured out he was dyslexic when no teacher had, and spent seven years teaching him to read with his finger on the page. Before Minnie died, she played a memory game with him — collecting their years together like pieces of a puzzle. Years later, alone on a stage reciting Macbeth, he finally understood what she meant when she told him: love is eternal. This is a personal essay condensed from the memoir-in-progress.
Forthcoming
DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Eight Nights
A biographical documentary short blending live-action interview, hand-drawn animation, and archival footage. The film traces Daniel from a Soviet childhood where Jewish education was banned, through immigration to America, to a segment on Conan where he finds himself dressed in silver Spandex — one link in a human centipede menorah — as his family watches on television. At its core, a film about shame, identity, and what it takes for a son to finally pick up his father's call. Co-directed with Benjamin Goldman.
DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Tsipa & Volf
Tsipa and Volf met durinng WWII. Both widowed, they married, migrated and started a new family built on a shared understanding of loss. Now, Alzheimer's threatens their union. A moving, honest account of love and memory, documented by their grandson over a period of six years.
• Michael Moore Award for Best Short Doc.
• Acquired by the Library of Congress
• Acquired by the Australian Film Archive
• Aired on PBS
"…mixes nostalgia, family, shame, guilt, and humor into a seriously potent cocktail." — Tana Wojczuk, The New Yorker
DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Confessions of a Combustion Engineer
A whimsical short story about how Misha (Daniel's father) became a combustion engineer. Written and directed by Daniel Gamburg and Benjamin Goldman