By posting as the ‘Chief Rabbi of Gaza’, Michael has amassed almost 7,000 followers, some of which include Fleur Hassan, the deputy mayor of Jerusalem and Disturbed lead singer David Draiman. While poking fun at the often careless ignorance of anti-Israel progressives, Rabbi Linda has duped ‘Tinder Swindler’ Simon Leviev, Jewish Currents, former British MP Thelma Walker, and most notably, New Jersey congress hopeful Imani Oakley.

I sat down with Michael to talk about creating the account, the shenanigans he’s been up to as Rabbi Linda, and the astute political commentary behind them.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell me about when Rabbi Linda was born and what inspired you to create her.

I’m normally scrolling through Twitter, but during the last flare up in Gaza back in May, I was seeing so much hate and disinformation coming from progressive circles. I’m thinking of people like Ariel Gold, for example, who just seem like a parody even though they aren’t. 

Why not have a character that takes these anti-Israel positions to the extreme and attempts to predict the future on antizionist positions? And it happens. Rabbi Linda will say something absolutely crazy, and then a real person comes along and inevitably says the same thing.

I’ve been having fun with it. It’s taken off more than I expected. I did it as a sitting-on-my-couch kind of thing. But now she has a bit of a following, and people expect her to tweet about certain things. I’ll get messages all the time from people asking me to respond to something or to support something by highlighting it in an outrageous way. 

Can I ask about her photo? Is it from one of those AI websites that generates a realistic fake face?

Yeah, I definitely didn’t want to take anyone else’s image or get in trouble for that. I was refreshing the website for about an hour until I found the right picture of what I imagined her to look like. And these websites have gotten better since then, but I can’t change it now because you know her face. Like, punchable with the sunglasses… 

Yeah, you can’t change it anymore. She’s so recognizable, and people on the Jewish enclaves of social media have become quite attached to her.

For sure. In the beginning, when I would go dark for Shabbat people would be asking, “Why aren’t you tweeting?” I think the Imani Oakley story was actually published once Shabbat had already started. I’m not online on Shabbat, so I didn’t see anything. Once I came back I had like 50 DMs from people being like, “Are you suspended? What happened to your account? Why haven’t you tweeted yet?”

The Imani Oakley story was incredible. Did you expect to be duping people and pranking public figures since the beginning or is that something that came later on?

That came later. My earliest tweets were about organizing a Tehillim group for Hassan Nasrallah when he was ill, and then trying to organize a Gaza Pride Parade. I think the Pride Parade was what really made the account take off. Pinkwashing was a big thing at the time, and I was just trying to highlight how ridiculous that is when Tel Aviv is one of the most LGBT friendly cities and Gaza is very much the opposite.

I was honestly expecting the account to move around the anti-Israel circles and instead it was noticed by pro-Israel people, which I guess are the people who get the joke.

With Imani Oakley, I was inspired by some previous disastrous interviews by AOC and the founders of Ben and Jerry’s that illustrated that they just parrot talking points and they don’t have any substantive understanding of Israel. I thought it would be fun to test the empty suit theory on Oakley. 

How much background went into creating Rabbi Linda? This character has a lot of detail and it’s all very consistent.

It’s loosely based on my life. I am married. I have a wife, so Linda has a wife. She has a daughter. I have a daughter… Unlike Linda, my daughter’s name is not Leila Khaled.

The parallels make it easier to keep the details consistent. But she does have a lot of backstory, and part of it is remembering it. There’s the name of her shul and her OnlyFans page and all that ridiculous stuff that she does. Part of what makes her fun is that she has a real story.

So you’re also a nude yogi like Rabbi Linda?

Not a nude yogi. I have tried yoga, and I’m not the biggest fan. But it’s those kinds of things that make Linda realistic. There was one time when Jewish Currents retweeted Rabbi Linda not knowing she is a satire account after they had posted an article about at home abortion guides. I had thanked them and said how helpful it was for sex workers like myself.

I don’t care if someone wants to get abortion, but I wanted to show the ridiculousness of a rabbi being a sex worker and they just took it at face value. It was up there for a while before they took it down. 

The ‘nude yogi’ thing comes from that. I’m trying to make it obvious for anyone looking at the page that this is satire. I hope that gives it away.

And yet there’s still people who are consistently falling for it. They don’t know that these things aren’t true and they are confidently engaging.

That’s the fun part. Her bio says “Chief Rabbi of Gaza”. There are no Jews in Gaza. It says “Jewish Issues advisor to Ismail Haniyyeh,”  who is a senior political leader of Hamas. That’s obviously not a thing. Just the idea that there is a shul in Gaza [laughs]… People have asked me privately who I serve there, and I tell them there’s plenty of UNRWA workers who are Jewish. 

It just shows that many people are completely ignorant of all these issues. Jews are not permitted in Gaza, and in any future Palestinian state, there would be no Jews there either. As a base point, if you don’t understand that Hamas’ charter calls for the destruction of Israel in its entirety as an open, safe society for Jews, then you’re not really getting it.

Do you ever worry about how coverage like this interview, or the New York Post article might make tricking public figures more difficult?

That was one of my biggest hesitations with the New York Post. If I let them write about this, I will be able to do this less because a quick Google search now shows it’s a parody account. But there are other parody accounts out there that no matter how big, people fall for it. So I just figured, if they can stay relevant, then I can do it too. 

And Rabbi Linda is in more of a niche space. How many Zionist Jews on Twitter care to follow an account like this? There’s only so far she can go, and she’s gone pretty far. Yeah, I guess it will be harder to do those kinds of things, but at this point, I’m over that concern.

Rabbi Linda’s account is critical of the left-wing Israel-Palestine discourse, but it’s also critical of the woke-type rhetoric that often comes attached to it. For example, she writes Torah as “TorXh,” which I’m guessing is alluding to the controversy behind the term “Latinx.”

That was in response to an article about the Torah being gendered. Somebody re-gendered the whole Torah and switched all the genders around. So then I responded by asking her not to gender the Torah at all. She asked how you would do it if it wasn’t gendered, so I made it “TorXh.”

I’m just trying to keep the character consistent. There are real rabbis that she may or may not be modeled after who are much more interested in fitting Judaism into progressive politics than actual Jewish traditions. It’s the woke types who engage with Rabbi Linda. I just go where the audience goes. 

People’s observances are between them and God and I’m not critical of how someone practices their faith, but it tends to be antizionist Jews who are the type to do these things, so it blends in. And so the people I’m trying to parody don’t recognize it either. It fits into their circle perfectly. They have no idea.

There’s some sort of a mess of ideologies and a rebranding of Judaism in a way that perhaps makes space for anti-Israel views.

It’s putting an American progressive lens on everything Jewish even if it’s not taking place in America and trying to fit everything into that mold and hierarchy, which doesn’t really apply… It’s just how it works. People impose their views on anything and it happens on the right too. I’m not opposed to criticizing Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar. I’ve definitely done plenty of that too.

Maybe the next step for Rabbi Linda is beef with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

I don’t think she’ll engage with me. I’ve tried on Twitter a few times. But the space laser thing was pretty amazing. There’s just always good content with her. 

There was also Thomas Massie, a Kentucky congressman who has voted against Iron Dome funding, when he tweeted a picture of his whole family holding guns. Some of them were Uzis, which are Israeli made weapons, so I attacked him for that. He also didn’t respond.

Maybe the left is more gullible here because they’re excited to see someone else on their team.

There’s more of a platform for the squad-type people. It’s Ilhan Omar who serves on the foreign affairs committee, even after saying we shouldn’t send weapons to Ukraine and whatnot. Then there’s people like Steve King, who is on the right, and he was stripped of all of his committee assignments when he said something antisemitic. Both parties definitely have a problem with antisemitism, but I think some tend to have a bigger platform. In this case, it’s the squad, where it seems like they can just say anything and get away with it. 

I honestly think we’re not very far behind what happened in England with Labour and Jeremy Corbyn. Our progressive wing is maybe four or five years behind.

I’m sure many British Jews would agree with that assessment. There’s been a lot of criticism on that end because it feels like Jewish community is splitting off here and many are blinding themselves to it, while in the UK, there was more unity.

When you are too steeped in ideology, whether it’s far left or far right, it takes over your Jewish identity. It takes priority over it. So I think in this country, the Jews who are giving cover to folks like Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar are more concerned with being accepted in certain circles than with being Jewish.

What is in the future for Rabbi Linda? What’s the big picture?

I think she’ll be relevant as long as there’s some sort of commentary to make based on what’s happening in Israel. And there are quieter weeks, which are good. I like the quiet weeks. But there are weeks where things are going on and something needs to be said to highlight the ridiculousness of some positions. 

I saw a woman holding a sign in Ukraine which had Golda Meir’s very famous quote, which is originally about Israel: “If we lay down our weapons, there’ll be no Ukraine, but Russia lays down its weapons, there’ll be no war.” I’m a huge Golda fan, so I love that quote, and it describes the situation in Israel so well, and I’m happy that it was used in Ukraine too. But the fact that people can understand it when it applies to Ukraine, but not Israel, just shows it’s always different when there are Jewish people involved.

That kind of hypocrisy will probably always exist, and flare ups like the Israel-Gaza conflict last May are bound to happen again, so she’ll always be relevant.

I don’t want her to have to exist, but at this point, I can’t really take her away. Even after the Texas hostage situation… I didn’t expect to say anything. I actually didn’t want to. And some prominent people kept saying, “Rabbi Linda’s got to weigh in here. People are upset.” I was like, “Alright, if it makes light of the situation.” But I felt uncomfortable doing it.

I didn’t want to tweet about Ukraine either. It’s a sensitive situation, but some things just need to be said. I made a situation in which I just have to be consistent with the character even if it sucks.

It’s interesting to hear about how playing this character can sometimes become uneasy, but it just comes with the territory of committing to the bit and the satire. Still, it’s a very Jewish thing to deal with serious situations with humor. I hope we can all continue to do that.

It started because it was just so exhausting to be pro-Israel on social media. Someone’s gotta make light of it a little bit, and be able to laugh at it all.

You can follow Rabbi Linda Goldstein on Twitter @RabbiLindaGold1 and on Instagram @realrabbilindagoldstein.

The post Who Is Rabbi Linda Goldstein, Really? appeared first on Jewcy.

Every so often, Edelman, creator of the BBC radio show Peer Group, likes to scroll through the vile list, as a treat. One such evening, he came across an open invitation to attend a meeting for White Nationalists at a private apartment in Queens. “Curious about your whiteness?” the tweet read. Edelman is curious about everything, and hey, maybe there’d be a cute girl there. And that’s how a curious Orthodox Jew wound up at a gathering of neo-Nazis and, using wit and charm, lived to tell the tale.

What happened next? No spoilers here! You’ll have to buy a ticket to Edelman’s third solo show, Just For Us, playing at the Cherry Lane Theater in New York City (and Mike Birbiglia produced it!) If you’re lucky enough to snag a seat during the show’s limited run, the award winning comedian will take you back to his very Jewish childhood in the very racist Boston and explain in hilarious detail how he infiltrated a group of White supremacists and survived unscathed. Come for the Nazis, stay for the unexpected love story, and applaud Edelman for the finale zinger of all zingers. 

Dear reader, I realize it’s kind of late to insert my voice here, but deal with it. Edelman doesn’t remember this, but we first met at a comedy show in January of 2015. He was MCing and checking IDs — a man of many talents — and when he read my Hebrew name written on the silver necklace I wore, I fangirled hard. Critics describe him as a young Jerry Seinfeld, but I think he’s more of a Bugs Bunny — charming, full of tricks, and a master at deploying humor to examine uncomfortable issues. Anyway, seven years later I found myself on a Zoom call with Edelman joking about dead Jews. He was telling me about a recent episode of his BBC radio show Peer Group that was “controversially” called “Dead Jews.”

Controversial? People love dead Jews, I quipped (I know “quipped” sounds pretentious, I just didn’t want to write “joke” again). “Right, the joke is that people care a lot more about dead Jews than they do about living ones,” he replied. 

Dead Jew jokes don’t sit well with everyone, but it’s less of a joke and more so an observation about Jews in non-Jewish spaces, which is precisely what Just For Us is about. Okay, let’s get into my conversation with Alex.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What I loved about the show were the handful of moments where I felt the jokes were just for Jews, just for us. It surprised me that the majority of your audience is actually non-Jewish. Do they, like, get it?

Every joke that is specifically Jewish is contextualized by at least one explanation and two context clues. It’s calibrated to appeal to non Jews, but also to make Jewish audiences feel like it’s for them. And the reason for that isn’t cynical. The reason for that is that I am a Jew, who, after many years of trying to figure it out, is existing as a Jew in non Jewish spaces. And that’s one of the layers of the show is what it means to exist as a Jew in a space that isn’t Jewish, and tackling everything around that. It’s nice, though, to have jokes in the show with the word shul or HaShem, and it does get a different pop here. It’s a joy to be doing it in New York, precisely because this is the first time I’ve performed in a market where there’s a substantial base of Jewish people.

People say the show is so timely, especially now. But I think it’s evergreen.

People always tell me, “What a timely show.” When I ask them why, they answer, “Because of all the antisemitism.” And I was like, bro, even when I started writing—back in my second solo show in 2015—people were like, “What a timely joke about an antisemitic experience!”

I have a feeling the show will be evergreen and it will always be timely. If this show is filmed with a special — God willing — and comes out in 2023, people are going to be like, “What a timely special,” Yeah, man… antisemitism. We’re always on the menu.

That’s it, you can call your next show, “Timely,” or “Always on The Menu.” 

If my next show is about Israel and Palestine my old manager said we should call it “Career Suicide.” I do sort of want to tackle it. I think comedy should try to thread the needle. No one can agree on the Israel and Palestine conflict generally, but everyone can agree that it’s hard to talk about. Everyone can agree that what’s happening on the ground is heartbreaking to people on both sides. Everyone can agree these are two distinct people who just want to live in peace and have nice televisions and eat food with their families. So there is common ground, and comedy is such a great vehicle for exploring it and navigating heavy issues in a light-hearted way. 

So you go to this neo-Nazi meeting for anyone who’s “curious about your whiteness.” What’s your gut response to the ever debated question — are Jews white? 

The short answer is “it’s complicated.” The long answer is Jews have a complicated relationship to whiteness. In some spaces, Jews are considered white and in some spaces, Jews aren’t considered white; they benefit from certain white privileges and things have changed throughout history. But the way I qualify it is — which is a joke that I’ve done on the BBC — here’s how you know if you think Jews are white. If you think being white is awesome, then Jews are definitely not white. If you think being white is terrible, then Jews are whiter than white, the whitest people who’ve ever lived. It’s a lose-lose situation. Look at me, I’m a white person, although some people look at me and they’re like, “You’re clearly Jewish.” I have passing privilege, right? I wear my hair in a certain way, I dress in a certain way, so if I’m in a certain environment, people might not register me as Jewish. So I have this passing privilege, but the fact that Jews even need to pass raises all these complicated questions.  

And it’s your white privilege that allowed you to infiltrate this group of neo-Nazis. Another issue with the are-Jewish-White question is that it erases Jews of color. It’s not even about all Ashkenazi Jews, but the white-passing Ashkenazi Jews like you and me.

It’s complicated, because there’s no one-to-one here, right? The construct of skin color and reckoning with what a Jew is, as a cultural, religious, ethnic melange… it’s hard to quantify. It’s fascinating and complex because it’s like trying to do a math problem with two different mathematical languages. Some people go, “It’s the same language,” and other people go, “No, it’s entirely different.” It’s contentious in every way. What I reckon with is that some Jews have elements of white privilege and other Jews do not. 

I think this addiction of binaries that is reflected within the general culture is unhealthy. Someone’s either this or they’re that. A big part of the show, and a big part of my work, my upbringing, and day-to-day life is examining a shade of gray (no pun intended). It’s where all the interesting stuff is! The tension between tradition and modernity, comfort and anxiety… I’m not uncomfortable saying that there’s a tenseness to the question — are Jews white? — I’m also not uncomfortable trying to examine that tension in a thoughtful way. I think anyone who declaratively states one way or the other might have firmer conviction in their beliefs than I do. 

Stephen Fry, one of my favorite Jews and intellectual heroes, likes to say that he’s constantly suffused with doubt. I’m the same way. You know who Stephen Fry is, right? Google him real quick and you’ll be like “I know this guy.” 

*Googles quickly* Ohh LOL yeah, I know him.

Right, he’s super recognizable, one of the funniest people alive and the smartest people alive. His approach is to come at everything with a degree of doubt. There’s a quote by Yeats, the poet, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst, are full of passionate intensity.” Let’s bring passion and intensity to not having conviction! We’re getting a little Talmudic now. Ask another question. 

No! This is where the good stuff happens! 

Well, yeah! I mean… things have changed. Things keep changing, and the Jews that I speak to about this often tell me that they’re frustrated by what is perceived to be a lack of allyship in all corners, and there’s real value to that message. There’s a tendency for people on the Right to not call out right-leaning antisemitism. I think there’s a tendency for people on the Left to not call out left-leaning antisemitism.

As they say, Jews are — or rather, antisemitism — is the canary in a coal mine. Or the scapegoats, which is ironically from the Torah.

Antisemitism skyrocketed in the last year, especially in Europe. Did you experience any Jew-hatred from your show? 

I had a bad antisemitic experience onstage in England in February of 2020, but I’ve also had a shocking amount of Jewish allyship from British people. The amount of people I’ve met on tour who’ve come up to me and been like, “Man, you’re the first Jew I’ve ever met,” and I’m like, “sick!”

Now that’s good for the Jews!

Being good for the Jews is really important for me. All of my heroes are people who are good for the Jews. Like Mel Brooks, who I would argue is great for the Jews.

Ugh, the best. 

David Baddiel identifies as an atheist, but still gets to be good for the Jews. In the show I say that Judaism is a mailing list you can never unsubscribe from. It’s like the Hotel California of religions. For better or for worse, you can be an atheist and wake up every day and curse the name of God and eat pork nonstop from the time you get up until the time you go to sleep and engage in the ritual slaughter of Torah scrolls or something—

But a Jew is a Jew is a Jew.

Exactly, a Jew is a Jew a Jew.

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Destination Unknown, which opens in New York tomorrow, is a collection of testimonies from Holocaust survivors culled over a thirteen-year period. Jewcy had the chance to speak with director Claire Ferguson, producer Llion Roberts, and 92-year-old survivor Ed Mosberg about how this film came together and why it’s vitally important to keep talking about the Holocaust.

Jewcy: How did you begin working on this film?

Roberts: In 2001, I went with my brother on a trip to Auschwitz like millions of other people have done. When I got there, I came across a picture of a 13-year-old girl named Christina. She had been in Auschwitz from December 1943 to May 1944; she only survived six months. She was the spitting image of my own daughter, who was also thirteen at the time. That struck me, so when I went home, I immediately started researching.

Eighteen months later, I made a call to a company in Ronkonkoma, New York, that was the only place that had some equipment I needed, and eventually I got through and they explained to me that they were closed for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot. The conversation quickly turned to the Holocaust, and soon I was on conference call with one survivor, and then another. Ed Mosberg was the third, and this continued for the next fourteen years. In 2013, a sampler of the survivors’ interviews was put on Blu-ray. We met with Claire in December, and all 400 hours was put into her Avid.

Ferguson: I looked through all this extraordinary material, and it was then a question of how to piece together the jigsaw puzzle. What film do we make from this? It’s not possible to make a history of the Holocaust. It’s a well-trodden subject: the more you learn about it, the more it becomes unfathomable. How could you have a life with so much pain and then live with this? Focusing on the trauma of survivors and the lives they made afterwards seemed like the most powerful direction.

It was a huge challenge. Llion filmed thirty survivors, and in the film we only used twelve. Trying to tell a story with a narrative arc that would link these twelve survivors and still hold on to their individual stories was a delicate balance. The detail is what makes this film special. We even have love stories of people who survived and were reunited. There are important, moving details among horrible traumatic memories.

Jewcy: Ed, the sight of you wearing your uniform from the concentration camp and a tallit in the film is extremely powerful. Can you talk about what motivated you to do this?

Mosberg: Before the war, I had my whole family, and then everybody was murdered. This is what motivated me to do everything. My wife can’t talk about the war and what she lost because she was ashamed that she survived. Many tried to cover or eliminate the numbers on their arms. I was never ashamed. It is my duty to tell the world and show them what happened. I was wearing that tallit in Birkenau when I donated a Torah to the Israeli army. This was the end of the line of the railroad tracks: whoever came in there didn’t leave. Soldiers were saluting my wife at that time, and it was very powerful.

Jewcy: Ed, I read that you donated a Torah to Steven Spielberg’s synagogue. Can you tell me about some of the philanthropic work that you can do?

Mosberg: I’ve rescued about twenty Torahs from the Holocaust. I make them kosher, and then donate them. My mother was a religious woman – I think she would be very proud of it. I donate to Yad Vashem, to the Shoah Foundation, to rabbinical schools. Anyone who needs, I give to them, especially places where the Holocaust is involved. It’s very important that they teach people what can happen. When the camps were liberated in May 1945, Americans didn’t let them out from the camps because they were afraid that they would kill the Germans. When Patton was in charge of the camps, he said, “I cannot give to the Jews better food than other prisoners they will say I am discriminating. They want to go to Palestine, and English don’t want to let them in.”

If you were not there, you don’t know what it was. This was a terrible life. In October 1943, a group of rabbis came to talk to President Roosevelt to get him to bomb railroad tracks leading to the camps but he wouldn’t meet with them. If he had, maybe my family would be alive today.

Jewcy: What stands out to you most from your experiences?

Mosberg: When they liquidated the ghetto, I was there. I saw a baby taken from his mother and shot. Parents put a child in a knapsack and then the Germans shot into the knapsack. They made sick people run across to the other side or be shot. It was like a game for the Germans. Mauthausen was the worst concentration camp. There were 186 steps we had to walk on from morning to night, and whoever fell behind or couldn’t do it was punished horribly. They were burning and shooting those people. The smell never left me. I always smelled this. I can never forget this.

Jewcy: What lessons do you think today’s generation can learn from the Holocaust?

Mosberg: We should not forget and not forgive. We have no right to forgive! Only the dead can forgive. As long as I love this is my duty and obligation to go and talk and talk until the last day of my life. Whenever I talk, they should listen and hear it. There are plenty of deniers. If you didn’t live through this, you can’t understand.

Destination Unknown opens in New York and Los Angeles on November 10, and November 15 in Bangor.

Image: Ed Mosberg in Destination Unknown.

The post ‘Destination Unknown’ appeared first on Jewcy.

The Pirate Captain Toledano, a ten-minute short from Modern Orthodox director Arnon Shorr, is making the festival circuit with screenings in New York and Los Angeles over the next few weeks. Jewcy had the chance to talk to star Stephen DeCordova about the many things that led him to get involved with this memorable project.

Jewcy: Can you talk a bit about your heritage?

My mother was born in Kingston and her family had been in Jamaica for hundreds of years. They escaped the Spanish Inquisition. Growing up in the United States, all the cultural images of Jews I saw were Eastern European; Holocaust victims, that sort of thing. Not so much my mother – she had a New York accent. My grandparents and their extended family sounded like Harry Belafonte. I was aware, however, of the fact that there were Jamaican Jews and actually quite a rich heritage. It was so unknown – when I would say to someone that, on my mother’s side, we’re Jamaican, people would look at me so strangely. I became proud and valued that.

Jewcy: So, you think you might be descended from Jewish pirates?

When Edward Kritzler’s book Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean came out, I bought it and was surprised to see that, in spite of its somewhat flippant title, it was actually a scholarly work. A lot of the names in that book were surnames that existed in my family. I was lucky enough to sit my grandmother down before she passed away and have her make a list of all the surnames she could remember that were in our family in Jamaica. One name in the book stood out – the greatest of the Jewish Caribbean pirates, Moses Cohen Henriques. He and his brother were both merchants, which is how a lot of the Jews got into piracy to begin with. The Church didn’t want Christians to be touching money, so Jews were the merchants and traveled in their work importing goods. They learned how to navigate by the stars between Europe and the Far East. When navigation became sea navigation, they became captains. When a new continent was discovered on the other side of the world, they were among the first to be going there. Some Jews who were expelled from their homes wanted revenge on Spain, so it makes a lot of sense. I think it’s very cool that I could be descended from Jewish pirates of the Caribbean!

Jewcy: How did you become involved with this short film?

I had worked previously with Arnon. He directed a web series called Mad Mentsch, a Jewish spoof of Mad Men. I got cast for a role and we had become Facebook friends. When he discovered the book and realized he had a story to tell, he found a great way to craft it that could be produced on a small budget. He got to the heart of what had created Jewish pirates. He put out a note on Facebook and I wrote to him about my heritage. I said that I would like to do anything I could to support him in getting this story told. I said that if he would like to hear the words of your script read aloud by actors, I would be happy to do a table read. In a subsequent note, I said, “Do you have any roles for an old guy?” He sent me the script and, lo and behold, the captain is in his sixties. When I went in for the table read, I met Dan Shaked, the young man who played the stowaway. We weren’t sure if we had booked these roles since Arnon was talking about production schedules already. Clearly, Arnon liked what he saw and we became the spine of the cast of the movie. This was one of those things in my life that was just clearly meant to be. It just bloomed like a flower.

Jewcy: The kiddish cup used in the film is a family heirloom, correct?

The script called for a kiddish cup. My grandfather’s had been in my family for I don’t know how many generations, so I brought it along. It was as though Arnon was struck by lightning, just like the captain is in the movie, when he saw it. It was a beautiful thing to experience. We used it in the movie.

Jewcy: What was it like filming a pirate movie?

We got to where the ships we were using were an hour early and all these guys were there carrying on cannons and props they had. It was just bustling. I had no idea that Clan Darksail [pirates for hire] even existed. They were all in costumes with sabers. It was a miracle – one of the happiest moments of my life.

Jewcy: What’s next for you?
I’ve actually just done a project I’m not at liberty to discuss a whole lot— a post-apocalyptic piece where we are a small band of people who are surviving in a desert where there’s no air. I’m the leader of the band. It’s very different from the pirate captain. We’ve just finished principal photography, so there will still be some additional shoots and ADR. Like most actors, I don’t know what’s next. I’m doing a little project at UCLA in the law school helping out as an actor in mock trials. For most working actors, it’s a short fuse work timetable, since they always audition the actors last. I don’t know what’s coming tomorrow, but something always comes!

Jewcy: Is there anything you’d like Jewcy readers to know?

For me, Toledano was an opportunity to tell the background story, in a graphic way because movies are a graphic, living, breathing medium, not just words on a page. This is the first time this story has been told at all – that there were Jewish pirates, Jewish settlers in the Caribbean. Jews were an important and vibrant part of the New World. This is a heritage that I really cherish.

Catch this short at the Crown Heights Film Festival Thursday, October 26 in New York or at the LA Sephardic Film Festival on November 7th.

Photo of Stephen DeCordova as the Pirate Captain Toledano

The post The Pirate Captain Toledano appeared first on Jewcy.

It’s rather unnerving to talk with one of your idols, and when I called Eleanor Bergstein last week—the writer and co-producer of Dirty Dancing—I was unreasonably nervous.

“I’ve loved Dirty Dancing for as long as I can remember, so this is just a huge honor for me,” I gushed.

“Always sweet to hear, thank you,” she replied.

Jewcy is on a summer residency! To read this piece, and our others for July and August 2017, go to our big sister site, Tablet Magazine!

The post A Conversation with Eleanor Bergstein, Writer and Producer of ‘Dirty Dancing,’ on its 30th Anniversary appeared first on Jewcy.

During her time abroad in Copenhagen last fall, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) senior Amanda Lalezarian immersed herself in the Danish Jewish community. Her time abroad became Against the Odds: Embracing Judaism in Denmark, a powerful documentary that explores both the history of and the current state of affairs for Jews in this Scandinavian country. 

At 20 minutes, Against the Odds provides a comprehensive picture of how Danes view religion, what occurred in Denmark during the Holocaust, and the varied experiences of Danish Jews in the 21st century. The film, which is Lalezarian’s senior honors thesis, is designed for an American audience that is not familiar with the Jews of Denmark. Much like her audience, Lalezarian, who hails from Long Island and whose mother is Swedish and father is Persian Jewish, had limited knowledge about Danish Jews when she embarked on this project. 

Lalezarian screened the film for the first time in late April at UNC, and has made it available on Vimeo. You can watch it yourself, embedded below this interview!

What inspired you to make a documentary about the Jews of Denmark?

It was mid-August, school was starting in two weeks, and I still didn’t have an idea for my thesis. I was home for less than 48 hours in between covering the Olympics in Brazil and going abroad to Copenhagen — which is nuts but that’s what I do — and I was having dinner with my parents and my dad asked, “You have an idea yet?” And I said, “No.” He said, “Do you know anything about the Jewish community in Copenhagen?” And I said, “No.” I just did a quick Google search and found out they’re a very small population of the country. I was like, “This sounds interesting; it could be an interesting project because I don’t know anything about them.”

Then two, three weeks later the program that I was on had a club fair where you can walk around the building and see what organizations have clubs for students. And I walked by the Chabad table and the first Jew that I met in Denmark was the Chabad Denmark Rabbi Yitzi Loewenthal. I told him that I had this idea and he said, “Oh yeah, that sounds interesting. We can chat later if you want to come to my office,” and it just started from there.

When you began, did you have any idea where this documentary would end up going?

At the beginning, I knew that I had to cover past, present, and future. For me, someone who didn’t know anything, I knew that an audience from America that didn’t know anything about the issues, they would need that background. I knew that I had to meet a Holocaust survivor. A majority of the project was about the Copenhagen attacks in 2015. That became a part of the story I didn’t expect going into it. 

How did you approach finding individuals to interview?

The first person I met was the Chabad Rabbi. He gave me the numbers for three Holocaust survivors, and the one who is in my documentary, Dan Edelsten, is the one I ended up connecting with. Through Dan Edelsten, I met his granddaughter. I met the kosher butcher just by looking him up. Everyone is connected and everyone knows everyone so people just kept introducing me to other people.

As you went about making the documentary, what did you learn about the Jews of Denmark?

The Jews came to Denmark in the 1640s and there was a small group of maybe a 1,000 of them. They came from Eastern Europe, and today there is 6-8,000. The number has increased, but not really that much and I think it’s amazing that they haven’t left. I think it’s amazing that they’ve continued to carry out their religion and culture and not shy away because of hard times. I think there they really hang onto their religion; I think that’s changing, but I think that’s amazing that they’ve continued to do it. 

The end is really powerful. You just don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. 

I kind of wanted to leave it that way. It is open ended because there isn’t an answer. There won’t be an answer until you look back at it. There is a conclusion, but not really— because who am I to say what’s going to happen?

From making this documentary, what sense did you get about the future of the Jews in country?

I asked everyone the same question: What is the future of Judaism in Denmark? And people would laugh and say, “I’m not a prophet.” “I don’t know.” One guy said, “People have been staying for the past 400 years . . . and we’re still here.” I just think some people will move, but I don’t think that many people will move. I think they will just become more cultural. 

But I really don’t see the numbers getting stronger because there’s not much opportunity. Not that you need a kosher market or a Jewish school to be Jewish … they have one daily active synagogue and the other one is a progressive. It’s just hard. I would be interested in seeing what happens 20, 50 years from now.

Do you think this experience changed or added to your own perspective on Judaism? 

It just added to my knowledge I think, to my understanding of Judaism. I think living in the States and being a Jew, you just have such a different perception of what that means compared to people who are from Europe who are Jewish. I think it’s opened my eyes to what Judaism is like in another country. 

What do you hope viewers take away from this experience? 

I just want them learn one thing they didn’t know before. So if you watch it, not that I expect everyone to get the same understanding out of it, but for them to at least acknowledge the story and whatever they walk away from it learning, and it can be different from one person to the next. And that’s kind of what I like to do with my projects, leave it open for interpretation. 

***

When asked the following question, “Did the interviewees feel it was very important to discuss the state of Jews in Denmark?,” Lalezarian felt it was best to ask an interviewee directly. The answer to this question comes from interviewee Mette Bentow, a Jewish activist, whose daughter Hannah’s bat mitzvah took place during the 2015 terrorist attack in Copenhagen. 

Why did you feel it was important to be part of Against the Odds: Embracing Judaism in Denmark? 

Mette: Firstly, I will always do my utmost to help out a fellow Jew, especially when a young Jewish student needs a helping hand. Secondly, having had the experience we did, I feel it is my obligation to share that story – for the sake of my kids and for the everlasting memory of Dan Uzan, Z”L. [Dan was Jewish, and killed in the 2015 terrorist attack.]

Jews in Europe, all of Europe, is experiencing a rise in anti-Semitism, verbal attacks, bias from the media in their reporting of the Israel/Palestinian conflict. In Denmark, we have had a long, peaceful Danish-Jewish history, without much anti-Semitism and persecution of Jews — even during the Holocaust we had the unique story of the rescue of 95% of the Danish Jewish population.

But these days, exemplified to the extreme by the terrorist attack, Danish Jews are not in the safe haven they used to be in. I think that it is very important to speak out, to insist on our rights and to be an active part, instead of bowing my head and wait for others to fix it for me — or even worse, take the abuse and degradation.

Against the Odds: Embracing Judaism in Denmark can be viewed on Vimeo, or below:

Image from Against the Odds.

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Looking for a truly fresh perspective on time travel? Check out Tomorrow Ever After, a new film about a woman named Shaina who is accidentally sent hundreds of years back in time to the present, where she can’t understand why people aren’t warm to one another. Jewcy had the chance to speak with Israeli-American filmmaker (and its star) Ela Thier to discuss the interesting journey she took to arrive at this film.

Jewcy: Where did the idea for your film originate?

Somewhere in my head, I imagine. I get asked that and I’m not quite sure. I vaguely remember I was working on another script that wasn’t going anywhere. When I’m blocked, I just start scribbling and doing something I’m never going to take seriously. This was one of those things. I started scribbling and a whole movie just came out. I wrote it in a few days and I fell in love with it. I knew this was the movie I had to make.

Jewcy: There are so few elements of society that still exist in Shaina’s time, but she does confirm that she’s Jewish. What is it about Judaism that helped it survive all of these centuries?

I’ll have to think about that. I think what mattered to me more was to make that point alone – that Judaism survives. It was like a shout-out to my people that we’re not going anywhere. I think we’ll be around for the same reason that we’ve been around, that our culture is not centered around something material. It’s about how we think about the world.

Jewcy: I read that you studied in an Orthodox seminary and that you try to embody the spirit of Tikkun Olam. How do you think your Jewish upbringing influenced this film?

Probably in very subtle and profound ways that I may not even be aware of. I do think that Tikkun Olam, the responsibility and passion for it, is in our bones. It’s passed on to us, and I’m glad it is. I don’t think it’s possible to be a Jewish artist and not be influenced by that. I very much believe artists and filmmakers are the architects of our society. We shape the way people think. It’s a tremendous power and we have a responsibility to use that well. When I make a movie, I think, what kind of movie would I want our children to see? What kind of movie would move us toward the society that I want to see us build?

Jewcy: How did you decide which things and social cues Shaina would understand, like her desire to give hugs, and which ones she wouldn’t, like the fact that one of the first people she meets only speaks to her because he’s trying to mug her?

The things that make sense to her are the things that we’ll still see in the future that I describe, where people are more human with each other. Things that don’t make sense are inhuman. She would understand relationships or friendships but she wouldn’t understand an impersonal receptionist where there’s no human connection.

Jewcy: What was the most challenging part of making this film?

The most challenging thing about it is the most challenging thing about making any film. As an artist, the harder you work, the less money you have. With that comes a sense of insecurity. It’s very hard to tell when you’re in the midst of working that what you’re doing is any good or that anyone will get to see it. You’re sort of walking upstream.

Jewcy: Did you draw any inspiration from existing films about time travel or the future?

I am not a science fiction person. Someone told me that the best science fiction writers are the ones who don’t read or watch science fiction because we’re most interested in the story and characters. (Of course, I will be seeing the sequel to Guardians of the Galaxy.)

Jewcy: No one auditioned for this film. Can you explain that process?

Writing can be one of the tougher parts of filmmaking because it’s something you do alone. I discovered a little trick to it. If you write for people you know, you’re less alone. I had a blast writing for actors that I’ve worked with and I believe in. Every single character was written for someone I knew. I used their actual names up until the moment that I sent it to them for the table read. It really brought it to life, and I could see the movie. I was laughing out loud at times because I could picture that person in it. It made writing it a much richer experience. I am in this dilemma as a filmmaker, however, since it’s hard to develop and distribute a film where you don’t have known actors.

Jewcy: Was the casting of all immigrants in the film purposeful?

I’m very proud of the fact that all of my films have very diverse casts. It’s not that I set out to do that, but rather that it’s a reflection of what my life looks like. I set out to bring diversity into my actual life, and these are the people that I have relationships to and that I’m close to. That does need to happen by decision. Our society, even though it’s not in the bylaws, is very segregated. If you don’t step out of your comfort zone and get to know people you might not have felt encouraged to get to know, you’re missing out. If I don’t do something about that, I do end up in a white bubble where I’m shut out from the majority of the world population. This was more about the fact that in my life I stepped out of my white middle class comfort zone. What you see in the movie is the reward you get from that.

Jewcy: Can you talk about the Independent Film School?

Almost everyone in the film behind and in front of the camera is someone I met at my workshop there. I make a point of holding diverse classes. The Independent Film School came to be by accident. I needed a job. I interviewed for a dog-walking job and didn’t get it. I was part of a writing group and people kept coming to me for input, and at some point I realized I was spending so much time helping writers that I should charge for it. Eight people showed up for my first screenwriting class, and ten years later it’s been thousands and thousands of people. It really came to life, and it started out as a writing workshop, then evolved as I started to produce and direct.

The school is an organic outgrowth of what I do as a filmmaker. It was the greatest accident of all time. The people that I’ve gotten to know and work with in my workshop has built a community that now supports my work and theirs. One of our guiding principles is that we reject the idea that competition makes us better artists. Supporting each other does that. One of the things I got to learn through teaching is that it’s really everyone’s aspiration to have a positive impact as an artist. My vision is not just for me to make films that have a positive impact but to be part of a whole community of artists that share that vision to help the world move in that direction.

Jewcy: What’s next for you?

I am a prolific writer, so there’s a very hefty pile of unproduced scripts in my office, and some of them are actually really fabulous. Some of them I wouldn’t produce, but some of them I would if I could. I have to be strategic about what I choose to work on. If you’ve seen this film, you know that it’s designed for a sequel. I’ve started writing it for some of the same characters. I have to figure out what to do so I can continue to derive the benefits of working with people I believe in who are extremely talented and figure out how to give the project traction. It’s at least a trilogy, but possibly more than that. The premise of this story really lends itself to endless possibilities. I could probably write these storylines for the rest of my life. I don’t know that I will, but I probably could.

Tomorrow Ever After opens this Friday, May 5th, in New York and Los Angeles.

Image: Ela Thier from Tomorrow Ever After

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The true story of Antonina Zabinski and her husband Jan, who helped save many Jews during the Holocaust by sheltering them in their zoo in Warsaw, is currently playing in theaters across the country as The Zookeeper’s Wife. Jewcy had the opportunity to pose some questions about the experience of bringing this film to the big screen to actor Daniel Brühl, who plays German zoologist Lutz Heck, and screenwriter Angela Workman, who adapted Diane Ackerman’s 2007 book.

Jewcy: What originally drew you to this project?

Daniel: First of all, I was fascinated by the story of this very courageous Polish couple who saved so many lives and risked everything in order to do so. My character was a famous scientist at the time who had this crazy vision and idea of recreating and rebreeding extinct animals. He’s a charming smart guy at the beginning, the likable man, and throughout the story is becoming a very different man, quite an evil character. That was an interesting journey, and an interesting arc.

Angela: I was drawn to the project because, as the daughter of Jewish immigrants, whose parents were refugees from Eastern Europe, I felt that writing a film about this subject might honor them. Diane Ackerman’s book is so detailed and colorful that it sparked cinematic images in my head. I felt I could see all the images I needed to make a film. I loved the themes about the natural world: animal nature, animal instincts, and who are the beasts, really?

I loved the idea that nature survived a despot. That this shy, self-effacing woman, Antonina Zabinska, with her singular instincts to protect animals), essentially faced off against Adolf Hitler in his attempts to exterminate the “Jewish animal.” And she saved nearly every person who hid in her zoo. Hitler tried to control nature, he tried to define and perfect the human animal. But he couldn’t control nature, in the end. He lost the war, he died. He took many people with him, we know that, of course. But he didn’t take us all. The Zabinski family, a family of zookeepers, defeated a despot. I loved that idea.

Jewcy: How different is the movie in the end from the book it’s based on?

Angela: The book has been called a novel, but it’s not a novel, it’s nonfiction. It’s stuffed to the gills with Diane’s years of research — she has a very curious mind, she researches everything, and everything went into her book. I had to leave most of that out. I had to find a three-act structure, a very firm storyline, focus, and characterizations. I had to figure out how to move time forward through all the events of the entire second world war. The film is quite different than the book.

Jewcy: What makes this is a story about the zookeeper’s wife rather than about the zookeeper or both of them?

Angela: The story is focused on the zookeeper’s wife simply because that’s Diane’s focus, and that was the focus we chose for a point of view. Most of the film’s focus is on Antonina, although we do see her husband, Jan, in his own personal fight with the underground army. But we’ve seen those male-driven war stories before. We’ve never seen a film story like Antonina’s before.

Jewcy: Can you talk about how the zoo setting enhances or defines this story?

Angela: The zoo setting is everything. It’s what drew all of us, who decided to make a film from the book, into the story to begin with. The film almost entirely takes place inside the zoo, except for scenes in the Warsaw ghetto, and some in Lutz Heck’s flat in Warsaw. The first part of the film establishes the zoo with its animal life (non-human) — eventually the zoo is bombed. Then the Zabinskis create a secret sanctuary for the human animal. The zoo is a metaphor for the whole story.

Jewcy: What was it like working with the animals on set? Can you share any memorable stories?

Daniel: I was a bit annoyed that Jessica [Chastain] was such an incredible animal whisperer – I don’t know how she did it. All of the animals just loved her. They wouldn’t listen to me that well. The elephant was very smart – it took him just a couple of minutes to understand what we wanted. I think he wanted the lunch break as much as we wanted it. There were other animals that Jessica had to deal with, and I was quite impressed because we were dealing with wild animals, which are unpredictable and dangerous, but she was fearless.

Jewcy: When we first meet Lutz, he is an enthusiastic German zoologist, and the next time we see him he is a Nazi official coldly commanding the execution of all the animals because they won’t survive the winter. Did he really change, or is he still an animal lover at heart?

Daniel: He does change, and that was another interesting aspect. That’s one of the very crucial questions for every German, the question of guilt. What would I have done in a situation like this? You can see a man who has probably had other ideals and other human values before. By being given the power of the Nazi regime and supported by guys who are willing to fulfill all his professional dreams, he plays with that power and changes. Giving up his human values was something that interested me, to play that twist. It was also important to keep the balance of never losing his humanity entirely.

Jewcy: Can you talk about working with Jessica and with director Niki Caro? What was it like on set?

Daniel: Niki was very focused and well-prepared, and she had a very clear vision. I think that, as a female director, she had much more authority than most of the male directors I’ve worked with. She was tough and courageous. She wanted the real thing, not CGI, for all of the animals. Maybe because she’s from New Zealand, I can feel that she’s very connected to nature and wanted it to be real and authentic. As we all know, shooting with children and animals can become a nightmare, but it was quite impressive that she always kept her cool. I never saw her becoming nervous or angry.

Jessica is a wonderful actress. I was her biggest fan beforehand and I’m an even bigger fan now. It was such a psychologically demanding part for her, with a lot of emotions and crying involved. I was impressed to see that, off-camera, she would give you as an actor just the same amount of energy.

Jewcy: You played a Nazi hunting for traitors in Alone in Berlin, and you’re well-known for your part as a Nazi film star in Inglourious Basterds. Do you ever feel like you just want to play the good guy in a movie about Nazis?

Daniel: I’ve played the good guy for many, many years, and I’ve become bored of it. With these parts, they are never the cliché, evil Nazi part that you can see in so many other films. In Alone in Berlin, for instance, I’m not a Nazi; I’m a police inspector who has been working a long time before the Nazis came to power, but he’s intimidated by them and is part of the Gestapo. It’s clear in the film that he hates them and he’s an old-school police investigator who’s not part of the Nazi regime.

In Inglourious Basterds, it’s also about a guy who by accident becomes a war hero, and he’s actually the only likable German Nazi guy in the film, at first at least. In this case, I saw it more as a scientist who is seduced by the Nazi ideology. The uniform that he’s wearing wasn’t the most important aspects of the part; he’s a human being who is very ambitious professionally losing his humanity as he gets power.

Jewcy: What was the most challenging part of adapting this story, and what was the greatest opportunity?

Angela: The most challenging aspect of the adaptation is that it really isn’t an adaptation; this is a book of nonfiction, it is heavy with facts and statistics. I needed to turn the story into a dramatic narrative, a story about a six year war that could be told in two hours. I had to leave many, many things out, delicious, colorful, sometimes painful things. And even then, I wrote a very long and very developed screenplay that turned out to be too expensive and big to shoot. It was painful to have to cut, and then it was edited further. The opportunity, though, to tell a female-driven story about zookeepers, animal lovers, who turn their attention to the human animal during the atrocity of the Holocaust, was a great gift for me. I feel grateful to have been able to do it.

Image courtesy of Focus Features

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Serena Dykman is a granddaughter of survivors. She has directed, and appears in, Nana: A Transgenerational Documentary on Tolerance. This groundbreaking film tells the story of her grandmother, Auschwitz survivor Maryla Michalowski-Dyamant, and the journey of her mother, Alice, and herself to come to terms with their past. If you believe that you have seen every statement of resilience and every vision of horror eloquently related, you will find a renewed and different connection to the legacy of the Shoah after you see this film.

Jewcy: How did you conceive of this project, of presenting the experience of your grandmother, who had died when you were eleven years old, to a new generation?

Dykman:  It happened quickly.  I always knew that my grandmother was a survivor. I was completely aware, but I did not understand what that meant.  I am from Paris and Brussels.  I went to Brussels the day of the attack at the Jewish Museum; the next time I traveled to Europe was after the attacks on Charlie Hébdo and the kosher supermarket.  I had been traveling with the memoir my grandmother had written, but I had not opened the book.  When I came back to New York, I realized what she had stood for.  Saddened that she was not here to tell her story, I realized that her message of tolerance and hope needed to be heard by a new generation.

In my last semester at NYU I took a documentary film class.  Three weeks after the course I was filming on location at Auschwitz.  If I had thought carefully, I would not have had the courage to go through with it. I retraced my grandmother’s memories, reading aloud while physically retracing her steps.  Back in NY, many people who had heard about the project sent me archival footage, over 100 hours, including interviews with my grandmother. Then the film started taking a different shape.  I discovered my grandmother more in the editing room than I had in her memoir.

Jewcy:  Some explorations of the lives of survivors, their children, and grandchildren, report the continuation of unspoken trauma, even dysfunction, in these families.  Your film is centered in the strong bond between mother and daughter.  How did your relationship with your mother inform your vision in this film?

Dykman: I have always been close to my mother.  It all came together; I began to realize, to learn, “this is why she reacts this way.”   I finally understood how heavy the weight of the heritage has been for her entire life.  My grandmother was outspoken. As a child, when my mother asked her mother, “where are your parents?” the response she received was that they had been gassed by the Nazis.  The second generation had to suffer for what their parents suffered. They had the responsibility to pass on their parents’ survival story.  It was hard because they were so close. As a member of the third generation, I was close, but not so close that the process would kill me.

Jewcy: Your grandmother’s personality is strong, ironic, proud.  In footage of her interviews by those learning about the Shoah, she seems at times surprised by their naivité. In response to the question, “Why did Hitler choose to persecute the Jews?” she answers “I don’t know. Hitler didn’t confide in me.”

Dykman:  My grandmother was changed by the war, but not completely.  She had an incredible sense of humor. People who see this ask if she was like that before the war.  Her memoir reveals this characteristic in her childhood and teenage years.  After the war she met and married my grandfather, a non-Jewish Pole. She was not, she believed a “regular person.” She educated herself after the war. She studied the Bible and wanted to understand society and human intolerance.   She had been raised in a liberal setting and was not religious.  Speaking for myself, my Jewish identity is more cultural than religious.  People would sometimes ask my grandmother if she believed in God.  She would answer, “After what I just told you, do you think I believe in God?  

Jewcy: Your grandmother relates several instances of the Nazis’ sadistic use of language and of the attempt of your grandmother to subvert this torture.  In one anecdote, she describes hauling rocks as part of her slave labor in the camp.  A Nazi guard repeatedly asks her what she is carrying; every time she answers, “a rock” he threatens her, finally telling her it is not a rock, but a stone. How does your film try to recover language from this lethal assault?

Dykman:  Reading aloud is what started the whole film.  My grandmother had a distinct way of phrasing things. French was not her first language; her syntax was unusual.  Her style was to never complain.  Rather, she would act out what she was saying, but not in a theatrical way.  She speaks as if the story takes place in the present and acts out dialogue.  People who refer to the Holocaust as something that happened seventy years ago hear her speak and learn of its relevance today.

Jewcy: How did recent terrorist attacks in Europe become a framework for your film?

Dykman:  My perspective changed while making the film.  I made the film after witnessing the attacks in Paris and Brussels.  The first screening was after the subsequent airport attacks in Brussels.  What had happened to the Jewish people was also happening to others, and my grandmother’s call for tolerance needed to be timeless. Rather than add references to more specific acts of terror, I wanted to film to be timeless, and to exclude no one. I worked with an amazing editor who understood the framework of the film.

Jewcy:  As your mother states with conviction in one of your conversations about her struggle as a child of survivors, “Long live life. Long live Nana.”

Nana: A Transgenerational Documentary on Tolerance premieres on November 6 (Maryla’s Birthday), at the St. Louis International Film Festival.

Image from Nana.

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Director Jesse Sweet has already passed his $30,000 goal on Kickstarter to finish the movie that he started several years ago: an unbiased look at Kiryas Joel, an insular shtetl in Upstate New York that has stirred up plenty of conversation. The film isn’t done yet, but here’s what Sweet had to say about his project.

Jewcy: What’s your relationship with Judaism?

I grew up Reform in Springfield in Western Massachusetts. I knew about Hasidic culture from what I saw in movies. It was the 1980s, when we were all growing up with immigrants as grandparents. They were the closest sense to the Holocaust – it was a more unifying sense of Judaism. As I’ve grown up, there has been a split in the Jewish community. We no longer have a sense of shared identity as we keep moving another generation from the Holocaust. Each group is flourishing in its own way.

Jewcy: How did you get interested in this project?

My producing partner, Hannah Olson, and I both live in Crown Heights and were fascinated by aspects of being in this shtetl. Most work about ultra-Orthodox communities is sensational – it looks at the treatment of women and homosexuals. We started to think about the people who left, but then we realized that we probably would have left too if we had grown up in that environment. We don’t get the people who stay. We started this three years ago, and it has been rich enough to sustain interest. We went up to Kiryas Joel and discovered the land use battle as our hook, something to frame the narrative. What is this community about and how does it function? A lot of people are resistant to those who aren’t Satmar, especially if you have a camera. The land use battle helped because it’s going to go to courts, and this could help their image and counteract the bad press. I told them that I want to tell their story in their own words. I’m there to document and tell both sides, and include the opposition, but give the most rich and textured view inside their world so that they can decide.

Jewcy: What has surprised you most in this process?

Definitely the fact that they’re anti-Zionist. For the most part, most of them don’t think there should be a State of Israel. It’s hard to fundraise because most Jewish documentary funders don’t like that. I don’t tell anyone that I’m going to take them down. I’ll let the critics make their points.

Jewcy: Can you talk about this being an insular community?

At first, the insularity seemed like an accident, but a lot of it is a coordinated attempt to wall off from popular culture. They see pop culture as in decline and a threat. The internet is dangerous and they need to have kosher smart phones so that pop culture can’t infect their community. While non-Satmar Jews want their kids to grow up to be doctors and pillars of the community, they want to be the stone in the melting pot. That gives them strength and creates tensions since they have an Orthodox view on what it means to be Jewish, and there are certain sects within their community that disagree about proper interpretations. What’s crazy is that in 2008 Kiryas Joel was the poorest town in America. When you go there you don’t see panhandling. To opponents, it’s proof that they don’t want to work, just study Talmud and live off the social safety net. They do, however, have the highest birth rate and highest marriage rate. They need to be especially entrepreneurial because they go to yeshiva and they have huge families.

Jewcy: What challenges did you face?

Early on, the false starts were a real pain. We’d come to a Passover Seder and get chased out. We asked ourselves, how many of these times are you going to waste? There was a big gate at each place, but once we got in it was very warm and welcoming. That made each rejection worth it. It was much harder to find a female voice willing to talk. It took a year and a half but we finally found an opinionated and strong collaborator. It’s difficult to find a line between romanticizing and vilifying – a middle ground.

Jewcy: How has it been working with Kickstarter?

I love it! The way I designed it made it harder to fund since I didn’t have a perspective. I’m not taking them down. If I was going to make the more salacious documentary, I could have found funding right away. I wanted a character-driven, objective immersive style. Funders always say to show it to them when it’s done. Kickstarter steps in place of the network executives that want something sexy, which is really refreshing.

Jewcy: What’s left to do?

I’m close to finishing it. I’ve shot about 99%. There are coda things that haven’t happened like the court ruling. I’m about at a rough cut. We’re hoping to jam to make the fall festival deadlines with an editor and a composer.

Jewcy: Who do you think will want to see his film?

I suspect that the most interested audience will probably be Jewish people like you and me.

Jewcy: Can you add anything else?

I’ve gotten to the point where I’m being recognized. I was shopping for a camera battery at B&H Photo Video in New York City and one of the employees was excited when he realized who I was and mentioned that he saw the Kickstarter campaign.

Check out a trailer for the film at the official Kickstarter page (the minimum may have been hit but there’s still time to donate)!

Image courtesy of City of Joel

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