As Vidi Bilu recalls it, she and Dalia Hager were working on a series they were hoping to sell to Israeli television, when their conversation turned to their experiences in the military. Even in the Holy Land, it is not typical for women \”to talk about their memories of the army,\” she says. But the chat got them thinking that their experiences might make a good film.
There\’s a serious note to Oren Safdie\’s musical comedy, \”Jews & Jesus\” — his own life. Safdie, 38, drew on his interfaith dating experiences to write the play about two religiously mixed couples trying to walk the fine line between tradition and emotion, love and guilt. Debra (Iris Bahr), the child of a mixed marriage, travels to Israel, where she meets an American rabbinical student (Griffin Shaw) struggling against the temptation of premarital sex.
One of the items I smuggled out of Auschwitz, when the Nazis moved me into Camp Number Eight — a quarantine camp, for those suspected of carrying typhus — was my spoon.
Over the years, I have listened to the stories of hundreds of such Jews. No two are alike. Given the prejudice against religious belief with which they grew up and in which they were educated, each Jew who becomes religious is a miracle.
I\’m not surprised that Southern Baptists are praying for the conversion of the Jews. I\’m praying for Southern Baptists. I pray that they see how hypocritical and offensive it is for them to say they love Jews and in the same breath trash our religion.
In \”Hit and Runway,\” a straight Italian-American naif teams up with a gay Jew to write a screenplay. In \”Aimee & Jaguar,\” a Jewish woman and a Nazi\’s wife begin a torrid affair. In \”Man is a Woman,\” a gay man marries a woman, a Yiddish singer, who has never known a man.
If you need proof that miracles still happen in this world, look no further than Benjamin Kadish.
Recently, The Journal caught up with three comics whose Judaism informs their act and whose career informs their Judaism. Cathy Ladman quips about her intermarriage; Mark Schiff brings his comic pals to perform at an Orthodox shul fund-raiser; and Larry Miller views stand-up as Talmudic discourse.
Earlier this year, Greg Laemmle wasn\’t sure there was going to be another Cinema Judaica: The Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival.
For many Jewish parents, who associate the holiday with demons, death and wickedness, as well as with Christianity, Halloween is problematic.
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