“American Birthright” Documentary Asks, “Should I Marry Jewish?”

“American Birthright” is a documentary about having difficult conversations. 

The writer and director, Becky Tahel, made her movie to find the answer to two questions: “Should I marry Jewish?” and “Why be Jewish?”

The inspiration behind the documentary came to Tahel when her younger sister Gal became engaged to a non-Jew. Gal and her fiancé Justin agreed to raise their future children Jewish, but also celebrate Christmas and Easter. Their family and community all had varying feelings ranging from joy to disappointment, including Tahel. Both sisters were born in Israel and raised in Philadelphia.

It was all very confusing to Tahel, then 29 years old and an unmarried actress in Los Angeles.  

She had been auditioning for film and television roles of Jewish women, including the titular character in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” She landed a leading role in a commercial for the dating app JDate. 

But there was something eating her up inside: The sister of the woman on a commercial for a Jewish dating app was getting married to a non-Jew. Tahel knew it would, at the very least, be intriguing to explore.

“My sister and I bumped heads a lot, and I was bumped by her decision [to marry a non-Jew],” Tahel said. “I was worried about her. I wanted to make sure that she understood what she was doing, but I didn’t even understand what she was doing. And I realized that I was the one who needed more education. And isn’t that just life? The things that bump us, we need to explore and hold space for, and we need to stop freaking out about.”

In “American Birthright,” Tahel initially set out to interview family members and rabbis from all different streams of Judaism to learn their perspective on how important individual Jews are in keeping Judaism alive for generations to come. 

One religious scholar pointed out that Christianity and Islam are not significantly affected by intermarriage—both religions have around 2 billion followers each. But with only 15 million Jews in the world, many see intermarriage as a statistical threat. 

A 2020 Pew survey showed that 47% of married Jews outside the Orthodox community are married to a non-Jew. This is compared to 18% of Jews who got married before 1980 who did not have a Jewish spouse. 

“I just want to be a Jew that celebrates Hanukkah, and enjoys the cultural stuff, and goes to summer camp, and goes to Israel every so often,” Tahel told Orthodox Rabbi Benzion Klatzko, the founder of Shabbat.com. “I don’t want to do all those other things. There [are] too many rules. Am I not Jewish?” 

“Oh no, you‘re Jewish” Klatzko assured her. “Education is the beginning of connection. If we don’t understand what Judaism is trying to do, then there’s no way it can speak to us. It becomes OCD practices: that we stand, we sit, we eat, we drink — and that can’t overcome love. It can’t and it won’t.” 

As Tahel looked deeper inside herself, she didn’t fully understand what she loved about being Jewish. She didn’t know how she felt about Torah. She craved more education about Judaism to understand more about herself and her place in it. So she traveled to Jerusalem to study, read, research, debate and reflect at Neve Yerushalayim, one of the oldest all-female seminaries in the world.

“I put Hollywood on hold and booked a  four-month sabbatical — enrolling in a women’s Orthodox seminary to hopefully find the answers to all my burning questions”– Becky Tahel

“I put Hollywood on hold and booked a four-month sabbatical — enrolling in a women’s Orthodox seminary to hopefully find the answers to all my burning questions,” Tahel said in the film. 

There, Tahel explored ancestral healing and intergenerational guilt in Judaism. She determined just how important Judaism really was to her.

“I thought you’re either a cultural Jew or a religious Jew,” she said. “And I didn’t know there were shades of gray. That sort of flavor that I was able to find for myself was the super-inspiring piece. And I hoped that I could bring that into the journey and have people be really excited and inspired to just ask questions. We’re all walking around life, not asking the deeper questions. We don’t want to deal with it.” 

In “American Birthright,” Tahel fights through awkwardness, piousness and certainty. In the end, she presents her findings on her inner faith and identity.

The film received numerous awards on the festival circuit in 2021. Even with its limited release so far, many viewers have reached out to Tahel to share just how much the film impacted them. 

The film received numerous awards on the festival circuit in 2021. Even with its limited release so far, many viewers have reached out to Tahel to share just how much the film impacted them. 

“People are opening up to me about their own Jewish journeys,” she told the Journal. “I get less of the interfaith thing and I get more of the Jewish identity pieces of, ‘Wow, this has just made me really think about why I am Jewish,’ or from the non-Jewish audience, ‘I am what I am.’” 

Tahel also does high school and college workshops with the film. She spent many months of the pandemic driving across the country, living out of a recreational vehicle. 

Without proselytizing one viewpoint over another in the film, Tahel presents her own visible change in “American Birthright.” 

“I felt responsible that my people who came before me led me up to be able to have access to this beautiful experience and this tradition,” she said. “Not everyone has to feel that sort of call, but I think there’s a beauty to that.” 

“American Birthright” will be screening May 25th at 7:30 p.m. at the Laemmle Royal (11523 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles). Tickets: https://www.americanbirthrightfilm.com/screenings