FRONT COVER



FRONT COVER

NOW PLAYING:

The Allentown Jewish Community Center's

JEWISH & ISRAELI FILM SERIES 2002

Expanded to include 12 Films in 8 programs at 6 locations!

Sunday, February 3, 2002, 1:30 pm

TIME OF FAVOR (HADESDER)

The 19th Street Theater, 527 N. 19th Street, Allentown

Sunday, February 10, 2002, 1:30 pm

I’M ALIVE AND I LOVE YOU

The Roxy Theater, Main St., Northampton

Saturday, February 16, 2002, 7:30 pm

TREMBLING BEFORE GOD

Moyer Hall, Muhlenberg College, Allentown

Sunday, February 24, 2002, 7:30pm

FINBAR LEBOWITZ

WOULD I LIE TO YOU?

Whitaker Lab Auditorium, Lehigh University, Bethlehem

Sunday, March 3, 2002, 1:30 pm

JIHAD FOR KIDS

PROMISES

Kirby Hall (Department of Gov’t & Law), Lafayette College, Easton

Saturday, March 31, 2002, 7:30 pm

PACKING FOR TWO

AUTUMN SUN

Tompkins Center, Cedar Crest College, Allentown

Saturday, March 16, 2002, 7:30 pm

ONE DAY CROSSING

SOBIBOR

Kirby Hall (Department of Gov’t & Law), Lafayette College, Easton

Thursday, April 11, 2002, 7:00pm

THE LAST ENEMY

Whitaker Lab Auditorium, Lehigh University, Bethlehem

LETTER

Dear Film Lovers,

There is no question that the events of September 11, 2001, have changed how we view our world. The mission of our JCC Film Committee is "to bring to the Lehigh Valley quality, entertaining films that explore Jewish and Israeli life and experience." In our quest to do so at our JCC Film Committee meeting on September 12th, we realized that many of the films we had been considering the week before suddenly seemed dated, irrelevant, or trite.

It’s been a challenge but we believe the 12 films we have selected for this year's Jewish & Israeli Film Series 2002 will provide you, our audience, with a wide range of choices that are not only entertaining but also offer opportunities to discuss the current Middle East crisis, learn more about our history, and wrestle with our own issues of Jewish identity and even have a laugh or two. Highlights of this year's series include:

-Our opening film is a thriller, TIME OF FAVOR (19th Street Theatre), winner of 6 Israeli Academy Awards. It’s one of three programs including JIHAD FOR KIDS and PROMISES (Lafayette) and THE LAST ENEMY (Lehigh) that address the crisis in the Middle East. Our thanks to the Counsel General of Israel, Giora Becher, for taking time to be with us to open the series.

-Probably the most thought-provoking program in this year’s series is Sandy Simcha Dubowsky’s respectful documentary TREMBLING BEFORE GOD (Muhlenberg) which explores the issue of homosexuality within the Orthodox Jewish community. We are pleased that national Jewish educator Scott Fried will be able to join us for the panel discussion afterwards.

-Two programs have Holocaust themes: the touching feature I’M ALIVE AND I LOVE YOU (The Roxy Theatre) and Academy Award nominated short feature ONE DAY CROSSING shown with the documentary SOBIBOR (Lafayette) fresh from a run in New York City.

-Older adults will especially appreciate PACKING FOR TWO and AUTUMN SUN (Cedar Crest).

-Finally, since everyone feels the need to simply have a good laugh in these troubling times, there’s an encore screening of WOULD I LIE TO YOU? preceded by the amusing short FINBAR LEBOWITZ (Lehigh).

We are proud to tell you that last year’s series was recognized with the Tri-State Jewish Community Center Association’s Best Program/Model of Professional Excellence Award in May, 2001.

Once again the JCC's Film Committee has sought out the best of the films currently featured in the major Jewish Film Festivals throughout the world-films that you would not otherwise have an opportunity to see. We hope you will find them engaging, entertaining and thought-provoking. Let us know what you think. Enjoy the films!

Shalom,

The JCC Film Series Committee:

Steve Fogel (Chair)

Dr. Ruth Knafo Setton

Sam Smith

Sarina Berlow (Staff)

INSIDE SPREAD

NOW PLAYING:

The Allentown Jewish Community Center's

Jewish & Israeli Film Series 2002

Presented by the Allentown Jewish Community Center in cooperation with the following co-sponsors: the Muhlenberg College Hillel; the Philip & Muriel Berman Center for Jewish Studies and the Lehigh University Hillel Society Jewish Student Center; the Lafayette College Hillel, and Cedar Crest College. We also appreciate the cooperation and support of the Nineteenth Street Theatre, the Roxy Theater and the Institute for Jewish Christian Understanding. Please note the time and location of each film. Written directions to each location available upon request at the JCC front desk. Each screening will be followed by a short panel discussion.

Sunday, February 3, 2002, 1:30 pm

The 19th Street Theater, 527 N. 19th Street, Allentown

TIME OF FAVOR

Israel, 2000, 35mm, color, 100 min., Hebrew, w/Eng Subtitles. Direction: Joseph Cedar. Winner of six Israeli Academy Awards including Best Picture.

TIME OF FAVOR is a timely, gripping thriller that transcends genre and stereotypes, taking the viewer inside the Orthodox world that 27-year-old director Joseph Cedar knows firsthand. Pini, a brilliant young settler, takes the teachings of his charismatic rabbi (Assi Dayan) literally, and masterminds a violent plot to assume Jewish control of the Temple Mount by blowing up the Dome of the Rock mosque the quintessential symbol of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Menachem (played by Israeli heartthrob Aki Avni) is Pini's best friend and rival for the rabbi's daughter, Michal, (the popular Israeli sensation Tinkerbell) whose father has planned for her to marry Pini. Menachem is an army officer in the Hesder Yeshiva program, which combines yeshiva studies with service in a combat unit. When he discovers Pini's plot, Menachem's allegiances are put to the test and he must decide where his loyalties lie.

Director Joseph Ceder was raised in an Orthodox home and lived for a year in a settlement on the West Bank. Messianic nationalist activism is a growing undercurrent in modern day Israel. The film is a study of the motivations behind a movement that is willing to take Israel to the brink.

Welcoming remarks from guest panelist Rachel Feinmesser of the Israeli Consulate in Philadelphia.

Sunday, February 10, 2002, 1:30 pm

The Roxy Theater, Main St., Northampton

I'M ALIVE AND I LOVE YOU (JE SUIS VIVANTE ET JE VOUS AIME)

France, 1998, 35mm, 95 minutes, French w/ English subtitles. Roger Kahane, Director. Winner of five Audience Awards including Cannes, 1998; Namur (Belgium) International Festival, and the Washington Jewish Film Festival, 1999.

It's March 1944 in occupied France. Julien, a railroad worker, checks the axle-bearings underneath a sealed boxcar filled with Jews bound for the death camps. He finds a scrap of paper with an address and a few words on it: "I'm alive and I love you. Sarah." The address on the message eventually leads the railway worker to Sarah's four-year-old son, who escaped the Nazi raids that claimed first his mother and then his grandparents. Jérôme Deschamps gives a quietly remarkable performance as the railway worker who through his growing attachment to the little boy becomes involved with the French Resistance. A gentle, heart-warming testament to the power of love and morality, I'm Alive and I Love You is based on a true story.

Film reviewer Ron Mangravite says I’M ALIVE AND I LOVE YOU is “a little gem” that “may be the best little film you’ve never heard of.”

Saturday, February 16, 2002, 7:30 pm

Moyer Hall, Muhlenberg College, Allentown

Co-sponsored by the Muhlenberg Hillel.

TREMBLING BEFORE G-D

Israel, United States, 2000, Doc., video, color, 94 min, English, Hebrew, Yiddish wEng subtitles. Director: Sandi Simcha DuBowski. 2001 Sundance Film Festival; 2001 Berlin Film Festival, Teddy Award, Best Documentary; The Mayor’s Prize for the Jewish Experience at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

"A man who lies with a man as one lies with a woman, they have both done an abomination: they shall be put to death, their blood is on them." Leviticus 10:13

Director Sandi Simcha Dubowski's taboo-shattering, award winning film is a measured and powerful documentary that, for the first time, brings to light the subject of homosexuality within the Orthodox Jewish community. Built around intimately told personal stories of Hasidic and Orthodox Jews who are gay or lesbian, the film portrays a group of people who face a profound dilemma - how to reconcile their passionate love of Judaism and the Divine with the clear-cut Biblical prohibition that forbids homosexuality. As the film unfolds, we meet the world's first openly gay Orthodox rabbi; closeted, married Hasidic gays and lesbians and out lesbian and gay people who were abandoned by religious families. Vividly shot over five years in Brooklyn, Jerusalem, Los Angeles, London, Miami and San Francisco, TREMBLING BEFORE G-D is a project with global implications that strikes at the very essence of religious identity and tradition in a modern world. What emerges is a loving and fearless testament to faith and an affirmation of the universal struggle to belong.

Panelists will include special guest Scott Fried, a Jewish educator who travels throughout this country and

Israel lecturing on the topics of HIV, tikkun olam, God, homosexuality and the value of every person. Scott is gay man who is friends with many of those who are interviewed in this documentary.

FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS ONLY! The Muhlenberg Hillel invites other college students to a party at the Hillel House, 2238 Chew St., Allentown, immediately after the panel discussion.

Sunday, February 24, 2002, 7:30pm

Whitaker Lab Auditorium, Lehigh University, Bethlehem

Co-sponsored by the Philip & Muriel Berman Center for Jewish Studies

FINBAR LEBOWITZ

USA, 2000, video, 25 min., English. Rona Mark, Director; Jennifer Smith, Producer. Winner, Best Comedy and Best Producer at the Polo Ralph Lauren Columbia University Film Festival, 2000; Winner, 1999 HBO Producer’s Development Award.

Finbar O’Leary is 17 years old, gawky, and the ‘head’ of his dysfunctional, fatherless family. He’s also in love with an “older, intellectual” woman. The problem is that she’s Jewish. In this funny, sweet short film, Finbar decides to do something to win the girl of his dreams.

WOULD I LIE TO YOU?

France, 1997, 35mm, 96 minutes, French w/English subtitles. Director: Thomas Gilou. Nominated, Cesar Award 1998 (France's National Film Awards). One of Franceís highest grossing films in 1997.

We laughed so much we brought it back! Set in the Sentier, Paris' Tunisian-Jewish garment district, this whimsical, romantic comedy explores the questions “What does it take to pass as a Jew and be accepted in the Jewish community?” Edouard, a gentile, is down on his luck and out of a job. Fleeing from a street brawl, he is saved by Victor Benzakem, a wealthy businessman who mistakes him for a Jew. Taken under Victor's wing, Edouard is given a job and is welcomed into the local Sephardic community where he is soon surrounded by a number colorful friends, including Sandra, the boss's beguiling daughter. If you didn’t see it last year and are in need of some comic relief, don’t to miss this lighthearted tale! Brief nudity and sexual content.

FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS ONLY! Preceding this program at 5:30pm Saturday, the Lehigh University Hillel Society invites Hillel students from other colleges to a light supper at the Jewish Student Center, 216 Summit Street, Bethlehem. Reservations requested through your Hillel director or call Terrie Goren, Director of the Lehigh Hillel at 610-758-4896 by February 20th .

Sunday, March 3, 2002, 1:30 pm

Kirby Hall (Department of Gov’t & Law), Lafayette College, Easton

Co-sponsored by the Lafayette Hillel.

JIHAD FOR KIDS

Israel, 1998, Doc., video, 7 minutes, Hebrew, English & Arabic w/Eng. subtitles. Produced by Peace for Generations.

In actual footage from children’s programming taped in 1998 from Palestinian television, we see and hear what Palestinian children are being taught.

PROMISES

United States, Israel, PA, 2001, video, color, 106 min., Doc., Arabic, English, Hebrew, w/Eng. Subtitles. Direction:, B.Z. Goldberg, Justine Shapiro, Carlos Bolad. Jerusalem Film Festival, Audience Awards: 2001 Rotterdam Film Festival; Golden Gate Award, 2001 San Francisco International Film Festival.

The award-winning Promises documents the lives of seven Israeli and Palestinian children who live within a 20-minute radius of one another during a period of relative calm from 1997 to 2000. Through first hand interviews these highly articulate and endearingly honest children all aged between 11 and 13 tell their stories of growing up amid conflict and violence. With the need for dialogue more critical than ever, the story veers in a surprising direction when several Jewish and Arab children come together. It is in this poignant segment that the film truly lives up to its title.

LAFAYETTE HILLEL INVITES YOU TO BRUNCH! Prior to the Sunday screening, the Lafayette Hillel invites those attending to come as their guests to a Bagel Brunch at 12:00 noon at the Lafayette Hillel House, 524 Clinton Terrace, Lafayette College campus, Easton. Non-students are asked to call the Hillel House for directions and to reserve by Friday, March 1st, 1:00pm: 610-252-0984.

Saturday, March 9, 2002, 7:30 pm

Tompkins Center, Cedar Crest College, Allentown

Co-sponsored by Cedar Crest College

PACKING FOR TWO

USA, 1999, English, video, 12 minutes. Grand Prize: Angelus Award for Filmmaking Excellence, Audience Award, Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival.

A widow packs for a trip to Florida with a little help from her husband in this touching and comic short.

AUTUMN SUN

Argentina, 1996, video, 103 minutes, Spanish w/Eng Subtitles. Winner of 5 Silver Condor Awards in 1997 including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Actress, and Cinematography from the Argentinian Film Critics Awards; San Sebastian International Film Festival, 1996, Best Director and Best Actress.

AUTUMN SUN is a tender love story set in Buenos Aires, starring two of Argentina's most noted actors. Clara Goldstein (Norma Aleandro) is a lovely, middle-aged Jewish woman comfortable with her own solitude, however, due to an impending visit from her American brother, Clara feels compelled to feign a relationship with a Jewish man to appease her family. When the man who answers her ad in the personals turns out to be Gentile, she initiates a crash course in Judaism, and unintentionally sets in motion a surprisingly meaningful relationship. This beautiful and humorous film brings us a heartfelt story of two mature people, risking one last chance at a meaningful relationship in the autumn of their lives. Brief sexual content.

Saturday, March 16, 2002, 7:30 pm

Kirby Hall (Department of Gov’t & Law), Lafayette College, Easton

Co-sponsored by the Lafayette Hillel.

ONE DAY CROSSING

U.S.A., 2000, video, 25 minutes, Hungarian w/ Eng. Subtitles. Joan Stein, Director. Nominated for an Academy Award, Best Short Feature, 2001. Starring Erika Marozsan (Gloomy Sunday).

In the middle of the Holocaust, a Hungarian Jewish young woman, posing as a Christian, tries to save her family from the Nazis. A powerful, beautifully photographed and acted film about one parent's sense of honor, another's sense of protectiveness, switched identities and survival.

SOBIBOR

France, 2001, Doc., video, 95 min., Hebrew & French w/Eng subtitles. Director Claude Lanzmann.

The title notes the place, month, day, year, and hour of the only successful uprising in a Nazi extermination camp. This latest documentary by Claude Lanzmann, the acclaimed director of Shoah (1985), artfully merges the Warsaw and Minsk of today with a 1979 interview with survivor Yehuda Lerner. Lerner's story is extraordinary. Taken from the Warsaw ghetto at 16, he escaped from eight different camps over the course of six months, only to be one of the 250,000 people sent to the death camp Sobibor. Lerner describes how he and his fellow inmates planned and carried out an uprising whose success depended on German punctuality, and how he, a non-violent man, dealt one of the guards a fatal axe-blow. This remarkable film is a tribute to those who died at Sobibor, as well as to those who survived.

Thursday, April 11, 2002, 7:00pm,

Whitaker Lab Auditorium, Lehigh University, Bethlehem

Sponsored at NO CHARGE by the Philip & Muriel Berman Center for Jewish Studies

THE LAST ENEMY

Israel/ England, 1999, Doc., video, 58 min, Hebrew, Arabic, English. Director: Nitzan Gilady. Audience Award at the Leipzig Documentary & Animation Film Festival in 1999.

3 Palestinians, 3 Israelis, 2 Jordanians and one Israeli-Arab together on one theatre stage? In this film we follow the making of The Last Enemy, the American playwright Jim Morriones new play, which is based upon the conflict in the Middle East. The main purpose was to bring actors from the different countries together in an intense working process and create a tight union during rehearsals. Both on and off stage old and new problems occur, but the context of the play brings it out of the "reality" of the region and into the staged "fiction." This powerful and dramatic documentary captures the essence and the subtleties of the middle-East conflict.

CENTER PANEL ACROSS THE BOTTOM:

Advance Tickets: Adults $7, Seniors (60+)/Students $6. Call the Jewish Community Center: 610-435-3571.

BACK COVER

SPECIAL THANKS:

Fogel & Associates Creative Group (Market & Pomotion)

Sandy Freeman (Graphic Design)

Rob-Win Press (Film Output & Printing)

Barry Glassman and Scott Snyder of the Nineteenth Street Theater

Dick Wolf, owner of The Roxy Theater

SINCERE THANKS also to:

Cedar Crest College, Elaine Deutch, Vice President of Finance and Administration, Mary Pat Phillip, Assistant to the Director of Tompkins College Center and Kevin Gallager, Technical Director.

The Lafayette College Hillel, Dr. Bob Weiner, Director

The Philip & Muriel Berman Center for Jewish Studies at Lehigh University, Dr. Laurence Silberstein, Director and Shirley Ratushny, Administrative Associate.

The Lehigh University Hillel Society Jewish Student Center, Terrie Goren, Director.

J. Conrad & Hazel J. Seegers Union of Muhlenberg College, Glen Gerchman, Director, Alice Lieberman and Bob Lenig, Media Services.

The Muhlenberg College Hillel, Patricia Mittleman, Director

The Institute for Jewish Christian Understanding, Rev. Doctor Peter Pettitt, Director

The JCC Film Series Committee: Dr. Ruth Knafo Setton, Sam Smith, Steve Fogel (Chair) and Sarina Berlow (Staff).

PANEL D - TICKET ORDER FORM

Tickets are available in advance at a discount through the JCC front desk or by phone 610-435-3571 with VISA/MC. Prices at the door will be higher.

Advance Individual Tickets:

Adults: $7.00; Seniors (60+)/Students*: $6.00

Advance Series Tickets:

Full Series: Adults $42.00; Seniors (60+)/Students*: $38.00

Order Form

Name

Address

Phone (Day) (Evening)

E-mail

___TIME OF FAVOR

___I’M ALIVE AND I LOVE YOU

___TREMBLING BEFORE GOD

___FINBAR LEBOWITZ & WOULD I LIE TO YOU?

___JIHAD FOR KIDS & PROMISES*

___PACKING FOR TWO & AUTUMN SUN

___ONE DAY CROSSING & SOBIBOR*

(THE LAST ENEMY--No ticket required)

*Seating in Kirby Hall is limited to 134.

Ticket sales are on a first come, first served basis.

FREE TICKETS FOR ELIGIBLE COLLEGE STUDENTS:

Muhlenberg, Lehigh, Lafayette, & Cedar Crest students may attend all films in the series at no charge with student ID. While tickets may be available at the door, to be assured seating, students may obtain tickets in advance through their Hillel, the Berman Center or the JCC front desk 610-435-3571. Muhlenberg students, call Patricia Mittleman at 484-664-3244; Lehigh students call Terrie Goren at the Lehigh Hillel 610-758-4896 or Shirley Ratushny at the Berman Center 610-758-3352; Lafayette students call Hillel House at 610-252-0984.

TO PURCHASE TICKETS:

1. MAIL ORDER: Fill out order form and send with your check made out to "ALLENTOWN JCC," 702 N. 22nd St., Allentown, PA 18104. Tickets will be sent by return mail.

2. BY PHONE: Call the JCC at 610-435-3571 and have your VISA/MC credit card ready to charge your tickets.

3. IN PERSON: Fill out order form and bring to JCC front desk with cash, check or VISA/MC.

4. AT THE DOOR: All tickets priced higher and subject to availability. Don't wait!

NOTE: Ticket sales are on a first come, first served basis.

DIRECTIONS:

Printed directions to each location available upon request at the JCC front desk

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download