I have finished my eight rounds of chemotherapy. I feel like someone coming to the end of a year of mourning, about to surrender the status of \”mourner\” and return to face the world without a label to describe my continuing internal struggle.
In the new Austrian film, \”Zorro\’s Bar Mitzvah,\” Jewish party documenter Andre describes the addictive nature of his video extravaganzas.
On her big day, Yael spoke with maturity and depth about the concepts of oz and hadar, strength and splendor, for which the Jewish woman is praised in Eishet Chayil. She explained that this is the kind of strength that springs from faith in God and from the courage of one\’s convictions.
As my son\’s bar mitzvah day inched closer, I began to see the world in a whole different light — a disco ball light, to be exact — for as my child grew, so did his friends, officially putting us both on the b\’nai mitzvah circuit.
I hate to admit it, but after decades of writing about Jewish-themed movies, I had only the vaguest notion of the National Center for Jewish Film (NCJF), but executive director Rivo filled me in.
The segment begins with host Jimmy Smits providing a quick overview of a familiar litany of problems besetting Los Angeles. There are traffic-choked interchanges, vast tracts of unchecked development, a trickle of water to slake a thirsty city and brownish air.
\”Sweet Mud\” (the Hebrew title is Adama Meshugaat, literally \”Crazy Earth\”) has considerable acting and visual merits, but it continues the unfortunate tradition by the Israel Academy of Films of selecting the most self-critical and downbeat portrayals of its society to compete in the Oscar races.
\”Jews are not cultured people,\” she complains. The other woman disagrees.\n\n\”They are cultured,\” she insists, \”they are just different.\”
When Peter Saraf signed on to co-produce the film, \”Little Miss Sunshine,\” he says he did so without hesitation. The script, about a dysfunctional family\’s road trip, spoke to him immediately, and he was proud to bring his great-aunt and great-uncle to see it.
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