NYJFF

      The New York Jewish Film Festival is always walking the line between  being a festival with Jewish themes or just of festival of films made by Jews. When the films don't have such a Jewish center I wonder how this film festival is more different than any other Hollywood film festival. Hollywood is full of Jews. All films in the U.S. are sort of Jewish films. Or are they? After all, there still is anti-semitsm in America. A lot of films still try not to be too Jewish even when they are made by Jews.

      One evening of the festival this year was devoted to films by the Safdie brothers Benny and Josh. They are Syrian Jews who appear to be in their late twenties. They presented five film shorts and one feature film . The shorts were not especially Jewishly themed , but quite surreal and enjoyable. I especially liked the short called The Black Balloon. TBB is about a bouquet of hot air balloons at a children's party that are set free and the adventures of one of the balloons that was set free. It is kind of like an update of that old French film called  The Red Balloon which is about a little boy chasing a red hot air balloon in Paris in the late 1950's.

     The Safdie  brothers also presented a feature film about an immature divorced dad and his two little sons. The family is secular Jewish, although the only mention of Jewishness is their surname which is Sokol. The father portrayed is so immature and his persona is so real that one feels grateful someone like him is not your father. The brothers loosely based this story on their own upbringing which I assume is as kids of divorce . I hope that their real dad was more adult than the dad in the film. 

      I am torn. An Israeli secular film seems Jewish even if it does not mention religion. I guess Israeli films are about Jews living life in Israel so that has to be qualified as being Jewish enough for a film festival while a film about people happening to be Jewish in America does not always qualify as being a Jewish film

     The Safdie brothers are adorable and they drew a much younger than usual crowd to their films at the festival . Of course one question still remains...Are they single....?

follow me, the yoni netanyahu story

monday night i saw the documentary film  follow me : the yoni netanyahu story at the jewish film festival . i always knew about what happened during operation thunderbolt (raid at entebbe) but i didn't know a lot about the mastermind and and only israeli soldier who lost his life during this brave mission. now i do.
this movie explores yoni the son and brother, yoni the writer and yoni the warrior. this 35th anniversary tribute includes interviews by yoni's brothers bibi and ido as well as his father ben-tzion. many israeli dignitaries were interviewed as well. the most fascinating interviews were that of his ex-wife  as well as his girlfriend. there were interviews of the young men he led during raid on entebbe.  there were even home movies from childhood . i felt like i really got to know yoni netanyahu through this movie. who knows what he would have added to the world had he lived past operation thunderbolt.
follow me is the story of a young man's love and devotion of his country. its the story of a very handsome young man who was a great warrior as well as a sensitive writer. this was one of the most amazing films of this  year's new york jewish film festival.

a generation apart

nothing like netflix to help a person find little known documentaries. one such documentary that i recently found is called a generation apart which is the story of the fisher family . the parents esther and alan  are holocaust survivors.  this is their story and the story of their children joe, jack and danny. the film was made in 1984 and broadcast on pbs. the video has an epilogue shot almost 20 years later with the family  as well as a commentary of the original documentary with alan and jack.
i wouldn't say that this is the best documentary of its kind but i do think that is worthwhile.
because so much had been taken away from them survivors put a lot of pressure on their children to be high achievers. the stories of the past that their parents told them affected their childrens' lives. because the children did not b"h go through the same trauma that their parents had they could not fully understand their parents no matter how much they wanted to.
the nice part of this film is that it is about a real family that could be any jewish family.

romeo and juliet in yiddish

when i was in high school in my modern orthodox jewish high school romeo and juliet  as well as west side story were on the syllabus. i read the cliff's notes version of romeo and juliet because the shakespeare version was so dry. west side story was a modern tale of feuding families which i found much more entertaining.
yesterday i saw the film romeo and juliet in yiddish. i'm not sure that the title really catches the essence of the film. yes this is a film about the telling of romeo and juliet but it is also a tale about what people who grew up only speaking yiddish would think of the shakespeare classic if they grew up in the shtetl of williamsberg, brooklyn or i would even venture to say that if it was your great grandparents who grew up in a very frum shtetl in europe and suddenly heard of shakespeare.
i've  often wondered how isaac bashevis singer has remained such a beloved writer since most of the people who read his books now are jewish but have no clue what frum jewish life is about. singer writes well, but a person really misses out on all of the jewish references if you aren't familiar with orthodox judaism.
many of the audience members at the showing yesterday of romeo and juliet in yiddish were non-orthodox jews over 65. some of them may have actually understood the yiddish, but i can't be sure. i do know that they did not understand the jewish references.  the secular 65+  jew is the typical moviegoer for this type of film but they are not really the target audience.
i am frum, but not necessarily yiddish speaking . after viewing this film i would say i would be more of the target audience for this film. i found that i understood most of the yiddish because it was really frum-speak not actual yiddish or perhaps the frum -speak is mostly  hebrew which is part of yiddish. i found the english subtitles distracting  because they didn't accurately translate the yiddish words that were being spoken.  i found the dialogue hysterically funny.and i was probably the only one in the audience laughing   (because most weren't frum and were over 65).
the film's story is about ava ,a  secular jewish nurse who is also in graduate school and is forced by her advisor to write a production of romeo and juliet in yiddish. ava finds twenty something chassidish juvenile delinquents to help her create this yiddish version of romeo and juliet.
the back story is that the chassidishe dropouts in this film are playing versions of themselves as they are all native chassidishe yiddish speakers. though they are experimenting with a world outside the one they grew up in they haven't completely rid themselves of their chassidishe upbringing. the idea of crab or pork makes them ill even thought they might do drugs or sleep around. because they were so sheltered from american secular culture they haven't even heard of shakespeare or romeo and juliet and in the accent of a greenhorn they mock the story even though they  eventually  realize that it is not as foreign as they think.. romeo and juliet is the story of two feuding families not unlike the satmar and the chabad and  not unlike the struggles these rebels have with their own families.
in dreamy sequences they imagine what it would be like for a satmar and a chabad to fall in love and what their families would say and do. to see portrayal  was laugh out loud funny. its not only a yiddish language  version of romeo and juliet but also a jewish re-imagining of romeo and juliet that has not been brought to us by woody allen or philip roth ( baruch h-shem) the english subtitles do not do the dialogue justice. i'd like to see the film once more to just watch it listening to the yiddish because im sure i missed out on a lot juggling between listening to the spoken words and reading the subtitles.it will also be easier now that i know the storyline.
the chassidishe drop-outs  were played by individuals who attend the chulent group  that gathers every thursday night .
the point of the movie is that there is too much jew vs.jew going on out there even in the frum world and its just as ridiculous as shakespeare's version of it. maybe just maybe the world would be a better place if we could all figure out a way to get along  and perhaps even try to understand where the other person might be coming from.
romeo and juliet in yiddish is playing at lincoln center this week.

sholem aleichem

its that time of year again. the new york jewish film festival is here. last night i saw the movie sholem aleichem : laughing in the darkness. it was quite informative.
sholem aleichem was a yiddish writer who wrote the ever popular tevye stories of  which fiddler on the roof  was based . i read the short stories about tevye when i was a teenager. they were very different from the hollywood movie  fiddler on the roof.  i did have the fortune to see the yiddish movie tevye der milker which was filmed in new jersey in 1939 and stars maurice schwartz (  and btw this is also playing at the jewish film festival this year) . the 1939 movie is a must see.  if you miss it at the festival you can also get it from the new york public library. first of all the ending was very different. though chava marries a goy she returns to her father after there is a pogrom and she finds that her goyishe husbands family stole her mother's wedding dress. i liked it better than the hollywood version. all the peasants speak yiddish in the 1939 movie. its such a hoot. once you see the original tevye movie you will have a different view of the subsequent  movie.
sholem aleichem wrote about the old jewish world in russia that was changing. modernity was approaching. though he himself did not end up remaining frum in his adult life he did believe in jews marrying jews. all four of his daughters married jewish men.
aside from the actual story itself the old shtetl footage was fabulous. it captured the joy of life that those in the shtetl had. it showed the genuine smiles of children and adults. there was much hardship in the shtetl , but even so these people were able to smile.
sholem aleichem's characters suffered, but had a hard time accepting the hardships that befell them. this is true about jewish people to this day. this is why we complain so much. goyim on the other hand are able to just say 'its g-d's will ' and they muddle through it. ive seen this continually at work. something bad happens and they accept it. the jewish people complain and try to improve the circumstances. its so hard to accept the worst as being inevitable. i guess this is why the israeli national atthem is hatikvah (the hope).
long after sholem aleichem's 1916 death he became well respected for his writings in russia. this continued even after the 1952 murder of yiddish writers in russia.. he was respected by jews and gentiles alike.
sholem aleichem is still respected in russia as a writer until today. last night was the premeire of sholem aleichem laughing in the darkness. the film's director joseph dorman was there, bel kaufman , sholem aleichem's almost 100 year old granddaughter as well as several of the film's editors, sound technician and others. there was a young woman in the audience who was born in the former soviet union. she said that she had grown up very secular but on her twelveth birthday her grandmother gave her a book by shoelem aleichem so that she would know her about her jewish heritage.  now she lives in new york and is living a jewish life. so even now sholem aleichem's purpose is being realized . he did not want people to forget the jewish world that had existed in europe even though he himself had become a secular jew in his adulthood. he felt that even if you did not continue all of the traditions that it was important to know where you come from.
in this documentary they focus a lot on fiddler on the roof  because it is the one sholem aleichem work that most people have heard of. the film also seems to think that sholem aleichem would have liked the fact that at the end of fiddler on the roof when they are leaving russia he sees his daughter chava who has married the goy and tells her she should live and be well. the filmmakers seemed to have thought that the evolution of sholem aleichem would be that he would have accepted intermarriage. i dont agree.
according to the film  when sholem aleichem had first come to america in 1905 he did not like what had happend to american jewry. the american jews did not like his stories and plays because they did not romantisize the old life and they just wanted to fit into the good life in america. sholem aleichem felt a sadness because jews were living a life in the united states that was better than anywhere else the jews had lived and yet they were becoming less and less observant and reliquishing all of their jewish culture. after such a bad reception he returned to russia. this does not seem like a man who would be so accepting of intermarriage even in the late sixties when fiddler on the roof came on the scene. fiddler on the roof had to be more accepting because by then intermarriage was on the rise and even one of the film's creators was intermarried. perhaps this documentary felt they had to say sholem aleichem's feelings on intermarriage would have changed because of modern audiences and the continuing rise of intermarriage these days. i for one don't buy it.
eventually sholem aleichem returned to the united states. at his 1916 funeral many public officials were in attendance. according to the film his funeral was the largest in new york city to this day. though he might have had a chilly reception at first in the united states , it had indeed changed. .the american jews cried at his funeral. the magnitude of his funeral also proved the power of the jewish community in the united states. sholem aleichem , a jewish folk writer passes away and many non-jewish politicians attend his funeral.
now that i have seen this documentary i feel compelled to read sholem aleichem's stories again. this is why i love the jewish film festival. you see a film and it broadens your interests.

the boy in the striped pajamas

recently i viewed a most excellent movie titled the boy in the striped pajamas. it is a film about a nazi soldier who moves his family to the countryside which is near a concentration camp he is "working" in. the ss man's young son wanders around and locates outer  fence  of this concentration camp and befriends a little jewish boy who resides in this concentration camp. to say any more about this movie would give away its poignant ending. im sure it is not possibly a true story, but its an effective one just the same.