This first one, for instance, would have been quite the lively repartee, I'm sure!
"Kiss Me Kosher", aka "Kiss Me Before It Blows Up", featured a lesbian couple, one an Israeli tour guide, the other a German on holiday, and a ring that may or may not mean an engagement.
Hilarious, with just the right dash of pathos!
But what about that trio that kept popping up, singing of weddings?
Was that a Greek chorus in a LGBT movie?!?
I would have loved to ask the director about that!
Sadly, that was held at 7 PM on 28 February... and that's when I watched the movie.
Sadly, that was held at 7 PM on 28 February... and that's when I watched the movie.
I had misunderstood how the virtual schedule worked this year.
No worries, I had it figured out after that!
That was a thoroughly delightful film about a father and his now-grown autistic son, on the move from the mother, who wants the boy placed in a home "with others like him".
As I told the others, their family dynamics were much like those depicted in "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time", a play I'd loved so very much I saw it three times!
(I watched this movie twice!)
The post-film Zoom talk was on 3 March.
There were two fathers who talked with us about their sons, one now grown, the other just 11 years old, and neither of them had experienced quite the issues of the dad in the film.
Those two fathers, as well as the woman therapist with them, were in Charleston.
(This year the SJFF and the CJFF have united for all films and talks.)
What did I learn?
Autism affects 1 out of 34 boys, but only 1 out f 134 girls.
That's definitely something to ponder.
That means we all Zoom'ed together to watch it, then discuss it, at 1 PM on 4 March.
I had already watched "Commandment 613: A Sacred Craft" the day before.
Had I known the Torah only consists of the five books of Moses?
No, I had not; I thought the Torah was the entirety of the Old Testament of the Bible.
Had I known there were so very many commandments?
No, I had not; nor had I known that they are meant to be sung, not spoken.
My thanks to Rabbi Ray (left), the one who taught Rabbi Kevin Hale (center) whose work on Torah scroll #795 was the focus of this movie from Miriam Lewin.
On the right in the photo are the tools used for the restoration of these ancient documents.
I even found out that a local synagogue has Torah scroll #1477 which had been sent from the small town of Slany to the Jewish Museum in Prague in 1939, for safekeeping. Rabbi Ray is the one who restored it before giving it to Mickve Israel here.
The next time I go there, I'll have to ask to see it, now that I understand more what it represents and how many hundreds of years it has survived.
The next item for the SJFF18 was to be
four shorts from students of the Sam Spiegel Film School in Jerusalem.
Two were to be discussed, two were not, so that Saturday found me at
Vimeo watching all of them twice.
I'm so glad this film festival is virtual so I have that opportunity!
"The Silhouette of Braids" used old silent family movies, with a running dialogue between two women, to diagram a dysfunctional daughter-mother relationship; I found it to be rather sad.
On the other hand, "Claude Bartini and I" was delightful!
It was a travelogue from a young man tasked with taking his aged idol to a film screening!
Noa Gusakov was there via Zoom for a Q & A after her film, so of course I asked her about the barracks scene!
"Supporting Role" featured a young man who gets to realize how his ex-girlfriend really saw him when he walks into a film she's shooting.
Nir Pushkin said the hardest scene to shoot was the fight scene with the tangle of striped-shirt guys tussling over a coat; I liked that, too!
Tuesday, 9 March, brought "Shared Legacies", a compilation of 1960's era news reels and stories from those who were part of the civil rights movement.
The focus was on Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rabbi Joshua Heschel, including their friendship that was at the heart of the movement's combining of blacks and Jews to have voices heard and laws passed.
Sadly, after King's assassination and Heshel's death, the others lost cohesion and the momentum stalled.
The placard raised during on of the marches grabbed my attention as it captured a key theme:
WE OWE OUR CHILDREN A JUST SOCIETY
- doesn't that speak volumes?
The ZOOM discussion continued with the sharing of stories, this time from three people who were high school students during the integration in Charleston.
None of them were roughed up as I was during the de-segregation busing of the Savannah schools in 1971. None of them were beaten to the ground and kicked by trespassing high school students like I was at my middle school. None of them missed a week of classes because they had been beaten like I was.
The two women, both black, spoke of some name-calling and racial slurs; I, too, experienced those as a young white girl. One of the women made signs and sandwiches for the marchers, but did not herself march. The other cooperated with her white friends to "shake up their parents", but did not march, either.
The one man, white, said his high school experience was fairly uneventful; the presence of the two black students at his school did not cause any particular turmoil.
So many different stories.
It's important that all stories are told.
Chabad-Lubavich is Hassidic in nature, but unlike all other practices of Judaism, their events are free to attend; dues are never required.
That's certainly a draw for those on budgets. I know my friend Sandy has said that her mom pays her dues so Sandy can attend the synagogue.
It's also a draw for those seeking a social outlet in a open and welcoming environment which is hoping to reunite lapsed or non-practicing Jews with their faith.
The movie followed Rabbi Chaim and his growing family (eventually they had five adopted children) as they set up their center in Bozeman, Montana. (That's a town I know only because Sheldon Cooper visited it seeking a new home with no crime - and was promptly robbed at the bus depot!).
So, what is the purpose of the center?
To have a gathering place for more Jews to do mitzat so the Messiah will come.
Say what???
No, that's the truth. This sect seems to be a bridge between Judaism and Christianity, near as I can tell, though no one actually mentioned that point.
The Zoom discussion on 11 March was with the writer-director Gerald Peary and he thought the audience was all Jewish until I let him know otherwise. He and his wife made five trips to Montana to meet with Chaim about different aspects of that branch of Judaism, catching some high holidays, but also regular occasions.
The pandemic has actually benefited his documentary, as big movie houses have agreed to "show" it on their virtual screens. That means money to recover his costs for making the film, every time someone rents it. He doesn't honestly expect to "get rich", though, and acknowledges that this was a labor of education for himself.
Very nice, very realistic.
Now, what about that "plus two"?
Well, as the local film festival seemed a bit short this year, I went in search of other virtual hosts to add to the movie list.
Surprisingly, there were quite a few out there!
Sadly, most had already occurred... but one was still in the running.
The Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival, in its 16th year in Springfield, Massachusetts, still had two of its seven films for me to view - and they were different and were also free!
So I signed up to receive the links, of course.
That's one I would have viewed twice, had I realized it in time.
Not quite a documentary, it chronicled the life of Bert Trautmann, one-time German prisoner of WWII in an English prison camp, who became the beloved goalkeeper for the Manchester City football team for better than a decade.
And just how had that come to pass?
He was blocking balls by fellow prisoners, in exchange for cigarettes, when the local grocer spotted him and wanted him for the losing team he sponsored.
That grocer, as good fortune had it, was the owner of an unbiased eye, willing to not only overlook the lad's nationality, but to defend him to others.
The grocer's daughter, as good fortune had it, eventually saw the lad's good qualities, too, and had the good sense to wed him.
And the entire country of England was on his side by the time their son died, even though he mistook the ice cream truck accident as God's vengeance for war wrongs.
His wife made sure he knew the boy was her child, too, and God would not have made her pay for her husband's sins.
Wow.
How very fortunate Trautmann was the day the grocer saw him playing ball that day in the prison yard!
Second chances are so valuable.
The other film, the final one in the PVJFF16 series, was a 2017 documentary, "The Museum".
What an interesting way to "see" a museum: not as a collection of artifacts or art, but as a mosaic formed by inclusion of the stories of the people who bring such a building to life.
I speak of the docents, the curators, the security guards, the movers and cleaners and organizers of the museum's contents, the people who visit, the politicians and benefactors that keep its lights on.
I wish I had watched it before its final day of availability on vimeo!
I would have shared it with everyone I know who works at a museum.
The zoom discussion tonight had Simon Sidelman, a scholarly fellow, providing some history of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, as well as some background on several articles which are part of its collection, including... get this... the draft of Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity, donated by the man himself.
Wow!!!
I like the outdoor sculpture, said to be a favorite backdrop for couples.
And why wouldn't it be?
The letters are Hebrew for "love".
Striking resemblance it has to the the Philadelphia sculpture, doesn't it?
Proof positive that love makes the world go around!
(smile!)
i thank You, God.
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