Eric Forman is a Brooklyn-based documentary producer/director bent on the possibility of film as a tool for education, justice, and change. What separates Eric from the pack is his stubborn decision to only work on high-quality long form non-fiction films, even though such projects are extremely scarce. While many filmmakers dream of the Hollywood red carpet, Eric fantasizes about a debut on PBS’ FRONTLINE or a screening for the graduating class of Harvard Law. I had the pleasure of attending a fundraising event for DEAD TIME, a long-term documentary film project Eric is working on concerning an active capital punishment case. Sister Helen Prejean, the author and real life protagonist of Dead Man Walking addressed the small crowd who had gathered in Victor Navasky’s Upper West Side home for the Bob Balaban hosted event. She stressed “this is how slavery ended. Small gatherings of well-intentioned people who wanted to fix big problems.” Eric nodded in the corner.

I hear it’s your birthday – happy birthday! What’s your goal for this next year of your life?

Thank you. My goal is pretty simple: to keep active in the trade of documentary and keep meeting new and interesting people in the documentary community.

Besides DEAD TIME, what are working on these days?

I’m also working as the Coordinating Producer at Storyville Films and we have a bunch of great new projects. Risk Takers is one – it’s a documentary series about the new generation of entrepreneurs and leaders who are changing the way we live. That airs in July on Bloomberg TV and the profiles are tremendously engaging. Makers: Women Who Make America is another – it’s the never-before-told story of women’s advancement in America, featuring the most influential women of the past 50 years and today. It is such an inspiring project and I feel honored to be able to work on it along with a great team.

I understand that you can’t talk about the specifics of DEAD TIME as it relates to an active capital punishment case, but what can you tell me?

If you look at the data, most executions take place in the South. The story I’m telling is about a specific case in Talladega County, Alabama, but it’s representative of the larger problem. It’s a socioeconomic problem. If you are poor, you don’t have access to the legal resources you need to fight these complex capital cases – no matter what race you are. In the particular case I’ve been following, the prisoner is claiming “actual innocence,” meaning that his argument is that he wasn’t even at the scene of the crime, which is quite rare.

I want to humanize the issue, by telling this particular man’s story. By following the case over a number of years I want the viewer to get to know the inmate, his wife, and his family, as well as the victim’s family. I’m attracted to it as a storyteller and as an activist.

So who’s the audience for this?

Ideally policy makers and law school students. National broadcasts are great, but I’d like to encourage lawmakers to reassess, and encourage law school students to do more pro-bono work. It will also potentially be launched along with an App or another new media platform to align a number of different technologies and make the most impact.

Have you come away having more empathy for death row inmates?

My choice of subject matter makes it pretty obvious that I think this is a problem. I don’t want to make general, vague statements though, my goal is to show the intimate details – to get at the complexity of this issue – and to show these are real people suffering – both the inmates and the victims.

What lead you to documentary filmmaking?

I’m drawn to the educational value. We need more than entertainment. From a societal perspective we need to invest in films that challenge us.

I attended a screening of a film you helped produce, The Battle of Durban II: Israel, Palestine & The United Nations at the Simon Wiesenthal Center. With the 10-year anniversary of the first World Conference Against Racism coming up this September, what’s your prediction of what will happen this year at Durban III?

Unfortunately the UN is glacially slow. When the world wants to come together to make a decision it’s simply inefficient. In my opinion, there are many larger negotiating games going on at the UN with Israel stuck in the middle of a lot of conversations that have nothing to do with Israel.

So does the conversation matter?

Absolutely! Now that Obama has shown he understands what the UN can do and what alliances he can put together, there is some hope. Look at the coalition he and Susan Rice put together to approve military intervention in Libya with China and Russia onboard! Unheard of. I know the US isn’t attending Durban, but somebody needs to counter Ahmadinejad if he shows up again – it could happen. We’re trying to set up some screenings now to build awareness in advance of the conference.

Eric Forman is a member of the Filmmakers Collaborative, a non-profit organization that provides fiscal sponsorship and professional development for independent filmmakers. To make a tax-deductible donation to Eric’s film DEAD TIME via the Filmmakers Collaborative, CLICK HERE.

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The number of journalists who refer to the French/Israeli/Dutch composer-singer-songwriter-sound designer-engineer-producer Keren Ann as “mesmerizing” or “extraordinary” is almost laughable, and I agree.  Her deeply personal music is hard to neatly lump into a basket filled with her oft-less worldly female contemporaries, as she transcends the musical typecasting and organically pushes the boundaries of context, while expertly avoiding caricature.  Perhaps the British magazine Q said it best, “Few can manage this level of confidence and mystique.”  I caught up with Keren on her few days off between two shows in Germany and the start of a three week U.S. tour in an attempt to add to the mysterious canon of Keren Ann.

A friend from Paris told me to check out your eponymous album during a heat wave in NYC in 2007, and I vividly remember listening to the first 10 seconds of “It’s All A Lie” – the hammer-on vibrato guitar, the amp crackle, and your effortlessly, sultry opening words – and being totally drawn in…and that was before I learned that you also produce your albums.   How did you pick the sequence of songs for your new album 101?

Keren: It felt pretty natural. I needed to build a sequence that makes sence in terms of the sound evolution but also the stories told. I always knew that the title track will close the album, I just needed to set the right sound order for the rest. I also knew that “All The Beautiful Girls” would come third and “My Name Is Trouble” first. That was a given.

101 strikes me as a musical leap from your 2007 eponymous album – especially the beats, drum sounds, and key sounds, while still maintaining your breezy and beautiful vocal delivery.  What is really striking though is the image and content leap: from lovelorn contemplation of lies to holding a gun on your album cover and talking about being a “Sugar Mama”.  How conscious of this shift were you during the creative process?

The more I make music, the more I become obsessed with sound and frequencies and production. I know that songwriting is a big part of my life and I don’t see how I can do without it. However, the art of sound and the entire process of giving an emotion, a note, an instrument, a room, or an atmosphere an actual physical form is all I care about when I’m in the studio. I want the music to give the exact feel that is already in the words and the melody but I need to be able to paint a whole mew musical landscape with each song. I say so many things about myself in the songs that I can’t step back when it comes to their form. I need a song to be fully representative of what I have to say at that moment and I need an entire album to be a true chapter of my life.

One of the things that I love about your music is that every so often a lyric makes me squirm a little.  Lyrics like “There was blood on my fans/There was blood in my whiskey/Now there’s blood on my hands” almost have a Pixie-ish violent feel given the context of your lush melodies.  Where does that come from?

I love beauty and poetry but I think my observation is always trapped between the actual instinctive feel and what it can become. How to turn around a perfect situation or how to balance out an odd feeling of longing. This empathetic point of you helps me write things that are sometimes hard to say. Blood on my hands is more like “what would Tarantino do in my place”?

The title track on your new album, 101, references The Old Testament and Israel independence – do you think of yourself as a Jewish artist?  Or an Israeli artist?

My identity doesn’t necessarily exist through religion but I do carry my origins with me. When you are born in Israel you do not have the luxury of being an eternal pacifist because reality hits you from a very young age. I think that being, even partly, Israeli is a strong responsibility though I am rarely an activist in my songs. I do have statements but they are open to subjectivity. My countdown has to do with the last hours before my fathers death and he is all over that song. He was Israeli.

Do you actually have 48 pairs of shoes [as referenced in the track “101”]? Which are your favorites?

I do. I have a pair of classic red high heels that I rarely wear cause I can’t bare over an hour with them but I love having them.

Have you been following Obama and Netanyahu’s speeches on the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks?

I have and in order to speak about that we will probably need a lifetime.

Well – do you think peace is possible in our lifetime?

I think peace is possible in certain parts of the world, but unfortunately I am very pessimistic about peace in the Middle East.  We would need long hours of discussion to make this response more valuable.

Your U.S. tour starts today.  What do you do to fill the time while traveling between cities?

I write. I watch TV on my laptop. I have a pile of fun books to read. I try to blend in with the long highways and not make plans.

Full Keren Ann tour dates are here.  Catch her in NYC at Bowery Ballroom on Wednesday, June 8th, and in LA at Luckman Fine Arts Complex on Saturday, June 25th. 101 is now available on iTunes and Amazon, and in record stores that know what’s up.

The post The Big Jewcy: Keren Ann – Artist Par Excellence appeared first on Jewcy.

The following is by far the most exciting and important celebrity interview we have ever scored: Grover.  Granted, he is my favorite Sesame Street character, and I am the proud new father of a two-and-a-half month old baby boy, but still – I challenge you to think of a more timeless living subject.  Naturally, I compiled a list of the 300 or so most important questions I have always wanted to ask Grover.  How has he sustained his fame?  How often does he wash his fur?  What did he do for Passover this year?  How come the 1983 LP “The Best of Grover” has seven songs on the first side and eight on the other?  Did he realize how mind boggling that was to someone who was just learning to count when he recorded it?  The list goes on…

When I was informed that I unfortunately would not be able to hang out with Grover for the full week I had requested, I decided to focus on Grover 2011.  Enjoy!

Jacob: Who is your favorite celebrity?

Grover: It is so hard to choose a favorite when I have met so many nice and wonderful people at Sesame Street and Rechov Sumsum.  You know who was really funny? Jake Gyllenhaal.  He hid the Afikomen and then forgot where he hid it. Sounds like something your cute and furry pal Grover would do, no? At least we are both loveable.

Who was the tallest celebrity you met?

I would have to say my new friend Amar’e Stoudemire is the tallest celebrity, maybe even the tallest person I have ever met!  Amar’e and I played some hoops in The Arbor at Sesame Street! I am pretty sure I surprised him with my sweet moves. Look out New York. Here comes Grover, baby!

Were you surprised he/she was so tall?

I was very surprised!  And Amar’e was impressed by my beautiful and luxurious blue fur.  Wouldn’t it be funny if I was his height and he had my color fur?

Speaking of which, how tall are you?

It is not the size of the monster that counts. All that matters is that I am very cute, very furry, and very blue. I am a monster of perfect proportions!

If you could have dinner with any celebrity couple, who it be and why?

I would have dinner with Idina Menzel and Taye Diggs and I would take them to my favorite place, Charlie’s Restaurant. And seeing as how I also happen to be a very talented waiter, I would take the pleasure of serving us myself!  I know they are allergic to chicken and shrimp from when they last visited Sesame Street so I will be sure to keep them away.

Has Super Grover ever met Superman?

Hmmmmm, that is a good question. Super Grover has never met Superman, but I am sure that if we do meet, we will have a lot of super important, super-secret things to talk about.

Do you follow any celebrities on Twitter?

You can check me and my furry and feathered friends out in all our 140 character glory, coming to you live from Hooper’s Store. Being a waiter, a superhero, a global traveler and a loveable monster takes up a lot of my time so I have not had time to peruse other pages yet.

Shalom Sesame is now available on DVD.  Check out awesome new clips on YouTube.

All images used by permission, TM and © 2011 Sesame Workshop. All Rights Reserved.

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Will Schneider is the Director of Slingshot, a non-profit dedicated to strengthening innovation in Jewish life by developing next-generation funders and providing resources to leverage impact in the Jewish community.  Slingshot accomplishes this two-part mission via three interconnected activities, The Slingshot Guide, The Slingshot Fund, and Slingshot Day.

The annual Zagat-style Slingshot Guide, is a beautifully bound resource guidebook of the 50 most innovative Jewish organizations in North America [full-disclosure: Jewcy is featured in the 2010-2011 Guide, and JDub has been featured in the Guide for the past six years].  The Slingshot Fund invites 20- and 30-somethings to pool their financial resources and brainpower to create the Guide and allocate a limited number of grants to organizations featured in the Guide.  Participants in the Fund also undergo donor education and come together on Slingshot Day to announce the grant recipients.  The annual Slingshot Day gathering is perhaps the most innovative piece of the puzzle in that it brings together the funding community and non-profits to discuss new ideas and learn from some of the most creative minds in the secular non-profit world.

I sat down with Will after this year’s sold out Slingshot Day to find out how he ended up with such a cool job, what’s next from Slingshot, and what he’d do with $5 million dollars.

Jacob: What lead you to Jewish philanthropy?

Will: I wanted to work for an advertising agency most of the time I was in college, and I eventually interned with a large agency and didn’t really have the greatest experience.  I didn’t see where I was going with it, so I wandered a bit, but I was introduced to the Development Director for Stern at NYU and she thought I was a marketing person, so during my senior year I ended up working there like 30 hours a week. I worked on special events.  I worked on major gifts, and while another full time employee was on leave, I became the prospect researcher.  When I graduated, I got a job at Carnegie Hall on the major gifts team, and then I became a fundraising consultant.  I knew I really liked the world of philanthropy, but I never knew what sector, so consulting was perfect.  I worked for St. Vincent’s hospital.  I worked for a vocational center for the deaf and blind.  I worked for the Apollo.

Then in 2007, I met Sharna Goldseker from the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, who handed me a copy of an early edition of the Slingshot Guide, and – I actually remember this so clearly – I went home and looked at it and it was like a revelation.  Here is Jewish stuff that I really like.  I never had a real connection to Jewish life, so Jewish life never really occurred to me as an option for philanthropy.  So when I saw the position open up for Director a couple years ago, I jumped on it.

When you aren’t thinking about saving the world and getting others to save the world, what are you doing?

Will: My wife, Rachel, is an aspiring Broadway singer, so a lot of time at the theater, seeing her perform, and our friends perform.  Plus, watching “American Idol” is like a full time job.

Speaking of TV, have you ever seen the cancelled NBC show “The Philanthropist” based on the life of Bobby Sager?

Will: No, I still need to check that out.  I heard it was good.

It was really good – I definitely recommend it.  So what’s the plan for Slingshot in the next few years?

Will: I’m hoping to do webinars and book launch events in other cities, but there are no rules.  We’re eager for input on what works for people, and what I’d really like to be doing is supporting innovative Jewish life, and I think convening people like we do on Slingshot Day is part of that.  I don’t think anyone else is doing it enormously well, so we’d really like to lead the way.  The new nomination form for inclusion in the 2011-2012 Guide will be available shortly on our website so I’m going to be travelling around to places where we already get a lot of applications like San Francisco and Boston, and places where we see a lot of growth opportunity like Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami, and Chicago.  We can only put in the best of who applies, so we need to get the application into the right hands in order to get an accurate representation of what Jewish innovation looks like.

I imagine you are already getting a ton of applications though.  Do you feel like the Guide is limiting if you are only featuring 50 organizations?

Will: We want to actually feature the MOST innovative organizations, meaning that the organizations included are groundbreaking in responding to the changing needs of the Jewish community, and also really have an impact, strong leadership, and efficacy.  So when I go hand the Guide to a Jewish organization in Atlanta and say, “This is what innovation looks like, and you’re not listed here,” I’m also saying “You should be.”

What do you think about the level of innovation in the Jewish world?

Will: I think that there are many things the Jewish non-profit world is really pioneering.  It’s like what Jonathan Safran Foer said in the closing panel on Slingshot Day, “The best writers and the best Jewish writers might be the same list.”  This is often true of Jewish non-profits, but there’s always catch up and more to learn for the future.  The nice thing is that there are A LOT of people working on it.

Do you feel like philanthropists are the innovators driving this or is it really social entrepreneurs?

Will: In my experience, next generation philanthropists don’t want to do this alone.  They not only want to be part of collective giving, they also want to learn what innovative ideas are out there that can be developed.

I noticed that there were several high school students who participated in Slingshot Day this year.  How did they end up there and what do you think will be the differences for the NEXT-next-generation?

Will: The Jewish Teen Funders Network asked if there was room for them to come to Slingshot Day, so I put it to the Slingshot Fund members, and several stepped up and said they really wanted them there and they wanted to have a special session with them to discuss what they are “about to” experience.  The takeaway was that the NEXT-next-generation is going to be much more prepared to understand the landscape and responsibility of their generation.  I sat in on the session, and I have to say I was really impressed!  To elect at 14 or 15 years old to come to a day long conference about Jewish philanthropy, where you have to wear a suit, and sit still surrounded by people you don’t know is amazing in and of itself, but they were really listening and participating.  They know what’s going on.

So, if I gave you $5 million and said that you had to invest it in one issue area what would it be?

Will: When I worked in Development at Carnegie Hall and a potential donor would ask, “Why should I give money to you instead of cancer research?” I learned that the right answer to that question is “you need to give to both.”  I’ve also consulted for health care organizations and so I think that would be part of it, but my answer is that the world needs “both.”

Where is Will Schneider in 20 years?

Will: I think it’s important that someone young run Slingshot, so when I’m nearly 50 I imagine I’ll be doing something else, but I’ll check in with you and we can discuss.

The 2010-2011 Slingshot Guide is also available as a PDF download here.

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This piece appears in response to an article by Professor Ari Kelman, which can be read here.

First, I should say that I agree with nearly everything Ari has to say, but I think we need to zoom out. To my mind, Jewcy and United Jewish Communities (UJC), which is now called Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), have very different functions. JFNA represents the body of Jewish communities that raise and distribute more than $3 billion per year for social welfare, social services, and education. Jewcy is a web platform for the ideas that matter to young Jews today. We don’t feed the hungry or heal the sick, although we increasingly do have better and better chicken soup recipes. Moreover, from our bat cave, we can see that Jewcy actually has 60,000+ links in, and is at least 10 times more popular than JFNA – but I digress, that’s really not the point.

The point is structure must follow strategy.

Quick quiz: how many websites do you actually visit per day on a consistent basis? The experts agree on a range at least, and the answer is an average of five to seven. So in fact, our world wide web is quite small. If you take a social network, such as Facebook, out of that equation, as well as a news site, and maybe a web based email client – well, you guessed it – the answer is really three or four. This has been expanded slightly by the app market and a generation of kids who don’t know what a library looks like, but still, not by much. Bottom-line: we’ve mostly settled into our internet usage, and when we find something we like, we stick with it, until we find something better to fill the time between pretending to work and all the other stuff we have to get done.

So what does this mean for Jewish websites? Well, in our view, it all depends on what purpose the website serves. For us, it’s simple really. We’re dedicated to our audience. I’m not just saying that – we are our audience and we really like you too! We serve our mission of forging vibrant connections to Judaism through providing free content on a consistent basis from an expanding spectrum of voices. Some of it’s funny, some of it’s edgy, some of it’s dead serious. I disagree with Ari on the implication that the network is equally important as the content – it’s really all about the content, and if you have great content, network development becomes much easier to navigate. Accordingly, I wholeheartedly agree that an “increasing number of people turn to the internet as the first source of information about Jewish life.” Our only secret (sssshhhhh) is that we know they’d rather read about leftover brisket, intermarriage, Israeli porn, and imaginary kosher animals than local Israel rallies, consortiums of people they don’t know, and a daily dose of not-so-shocking, yet still highly depressing anti-Semitism. This is not to say that the latter topics aren’t important. They are very important and I read about them every day. BUT they don’t sum total Jewish life…and thus we have a whole lot of traffic and a whole lot of links. Incidentally, our Jewish website also has a ton of very smart and savvy people loyally reading it, who magically often figure out for themselves how Judaism fits into their lives. For some, that involves donating to the very worthy causes JFNA represents, or participating in an American Jewish World Service trip to Uganda.  For others, that involves getting a tattoo.

Our structure (both on the web and organizationally) follows our strategy of expanding the definition of community. It is surely more inclusive, fluid, self-defined, diverse, and complex than your average Jewish institution, but that doesn’t mean it is any less meaningful, relevant, proud, and real.

So in considering what a Federation or synagogue website should be or should do now that the internet has changed the communal conversation for the next generation, my question is what’s the objective and really what’s the strategy that is going to get you there? What are you going to focus on? …and most importantly, who is going to care? If you can’t honestly answer these questions with evidence, it may be nearly impossible to figure out what you should (or shouldn’t) be doing on the web.

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Bill is one of the most influential presenters of music in the U.S., and by music we mean everything – rock, hip-hop, jazz, country, electronic, Americana, Brazilian, Latin, African and Asian, and jams from every other continent save from maybe Antarctica.  As former Director of Joe’s Pub, The Village Voice called him the "best excuse to let a single venue dictate your taste," a fitting description in that Bill possess both the vision and production know-how to curate performances as if he’s scrolling through your coolest friend’s iPod.  Genres, disciplines, and geographical borders disappear like poof – magic!  Bill is currently the Director of Public Programming for Lincoln Center and when the smartest people in the world (ahem TED) need a consultant he’s on speed dial.  

He’s also a kick ass DJ. 

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The New York program has come and gone (January 13-28).  I had the pleasure of seeing some of the NY offerings and Ajami aside, which just received a well deserved Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film, the options were many, and the quality was low.  I’m sorry, but 32 films?  There just aren’t 32 recent and great Jewish/Israeli films.  Hell – there aren’t 32 recent and great American films.  I say "recent" because the New York selection committee apparently does not have any restrictions on production year.  This was evident from the screening of the 1935 vaudevillian film Bar Mitvzah, which I recommend skipping even if it’s on PBS.  The point is – what’s the point?  This is a yearly Jewish film festival and there are at least a handful of great, new, topical, Jewish/Israeli films that could be showcased alone.

Which brings us to the Phoenix Film Fest, and really a vast majority of the other smartly smaller film festivals throughout the U.S.  The Phoenix program is just about to begin (February 20-March 4) and features a mere nine films.

The selection ranges from documentary Stealing Klimt, the complex story of 90-year-old Maria Altmann’s struggle to recover five Gustav Klimt paintings stolen from her family by the Nazis, to the hilarious comedy A Matter of Size, a charming tale about four overweight Israeli’s who launch a sumo wrestling club.  

So back to the question: what’s the point?  Well, I think the point of all of the film fests, and Jewish cultural offerings in general, is to create moments of community that can be easily accessed via culture.  The problem with the superstore 32 films model (besides stunning those who aren’t in the know with too many choices) is reduction in quality.  As Jews and consumers, we crave quality, and thus the carefully curated experience becomes extremely important if you are asking someone to spend a few hours watching whatever it is you are peddling.

Moreover, community is often about shared experience.  If the aim is to rally the community and generate buzz for certain films and overall, the richness of Jewish culture…well, you get where I’m going: that’s pretty hard to do when everyone you know saw a different random film.

I’m a firm believer in the transformative powers of culture and inclusive environments, but much like the movie camera, focus is key.

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We’re seeking editorial interns for spring 2010 – from January to May, thereabouts. Applicants should be college students, grad students, or recent grads based in the New York City area who are interested in Jewish journalism and web media.

You can see the full job description here.

To apply, email Jewcy Editor Lilit Marcus at lmarcus@jewcy.com. Please send a resume attached in MS Word format and in the body of an email explain why you think you’d be a great fit for the position. The subject line should be “Jewcy Intern Spring 2010.”

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"Congrats on the great news!!!"

"Good shit!"

"I’m a huge fan.  I’d love to write for Jewcy."

"What are you gonna do together?"

"Make beautiful babies together."

"Just wanted to say Mazal Tov from TCJewfolk.com, the new Twin Cities Jewish blog for Jews in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Jewcy is def one of our fav blogs – Jewish or otherwise, and JDub, well, your music rocks. Congrats to both of your organizations. We look forward to seeing what you do together!"

"Yeah, baby!  I’ll make sure to stop by more often now.  Was getting worried there for awhile." 

"Hurray! chazak chazak v’nitchazek."

In the next few weeks, we’ll be asking for more of your brainwaves, but until then I urge you to join the conversation. Sign-up to blog on the top right of homepage, join the mailing list, email me and tell me what you really think, donate, and spread the word via Facebook, Twitter, email, telephone, or morse code.  Your ideas will make this community grow.  We’re firm believers in the transformative powers of music, culture, and inclusive environments, and via JDub at least, you have  proven us correct in those assumptions and pushed us to new heights within our mission and vision.  The result is an expanded definition of community, and it is our sincere hope that Jewcy, along with our ’round-the-clock investment in artistry will keep that definition malleable.

Talk to you soon…

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