Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library

From the movie “For your Consideration,” which we have on DVD for you to borrow.

Happy Purim!

As you can see the picture below our DVD collection grew significantly. Now we have about 30 feature films for you to choose from. Each of them will be introduced one by one on this blog, but you can start borrowing them right away.

The great reorganization of our VHS is also finished. The photo below shows how our VHS tapes are organized on the news shelves. On the top right you see the feature films and on the top left the films with music, including musicals, song collections, sing-a-longs, and individual artists’ concerts. On the second shelf from the top are all the tapes created for children and their families. The bottom two shelves have the most extensive part of our VHS tape library: the documentaries. We are hoping that this separation by topic will make it easier for to you pick up a tape or two that interests you.

A few weeks ago our library’s name officially changed to Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library. With this alteration (including the “Jewish Community” in our name) we would like to emphasize that the library is open to the whole community. Members of Congregation Beth Ami created and supported (and keep supporting) the library with their money, time and attention. It is owned and used by you. These same CBA members also hoped that the library would grow to be a true community resource, to be enjoyed by and benefit the whole local Jewish community. The name change reflects a step towards fulfilling this dream.

To serve the community’s needs; we would like to provide you with the kind of information and entertainment you seek. Our assessment is that new novels, movies on DVD and books related to Kabbalah and spirituality are in highest demand, as these are the items with the strongest circulation numbers. Therefore, we will strengthen these areas of our collection.

Last month I recommended some of our newer novels in this spirit. As you can see below I am recommending some of the new DVDs the library acquired. We are actively working on growing our DVD collection with a particular focus on feature films related to Jews, Judaism and Israel. Let us know which movies you would like to see in our collection and we will try our best to purchase them. Meanwhile here are some of our recent acquisitions:

• Broken Wings – (2002, 87 min, rated R)
  As a family seems to fall apart after the abrupt death of husband/father, a sudden incident gives them a chance to heal their ‘broken wings’.
• Kedma -  (2002, 100 min, not rated)
  In May 1948, shortly before the creation of the State of Israel, hundreds of immigrants from across Europe arrive in Palestine–only to risk arrest by British troops.
• Munich -  (2005, 164 min, rated R)
  The world was watching in 1972 as 11 Israeli athletes were murdered at the Munich Olympics. This is the story of what happened next.
• Yellow Asphalt -  (2001, 87 min, not rated)
  Three stories set among the Bedouin of Jahalin in the hills of the Judean desert.
• When Do We Eat? – (2005, 86 min, rated R)
  A family’s Passover gets screwy after the patriarch unknowingly ingests a hit of Ecstasy.

Reviewed by S Miller
Yellow Asphalt, a Film by Danny Verete, is startling story of how western culture infiltrates the Judean desert, once home of the Bedouin tribes. The desert story depicts scenes where Israeli and Bedouin converge. There are three main sub themes happening: an accident on the highway by a Israeli petroleum truck, a frightful marriage between a German woman and her Bedouin husband and lastly a forbidden love affair between an Israeli and his Bedouin maid.

The filmmaker shoots on location with the participation of the Bedouin tribe “Jahalin”. Seeing this film is disappointing as it shows the true human condition and their weaknesses. Most of the Israeli main actors are depicted with their dark side. I don’t want to give the movie away, but ‘Yellow Asphalt’ is a metaphor for placing a highspeed highway where it does not belong. The Highway’s link to modern civilization changes the livelihood of the Israeli’s who live in the desert, but more the culture of the Bedouins. The audience is given a glimpse of how Bedouin society is governed, the role of women and tight grip of their culture in spite of living side by side to a western culture. The movie is shocking, but has an important story to be told.

In order to make it easier to find a title and to browse our DVD collection I changed the call numbers of the DVDs. The call numbers are the short combination of letters (and numbers) on the spine of the boxes. In the past they have followed the order we received the DVDs, i.e. we had “DVD 01″ for the longest time, followed by “DVD 02″ and so on.

In preparing the new system I first separated the documentaries from the feature films. Thus making it similar to our books, where you can find fictions in a different section of the library than the non-fiction. As you might have noticed the call numbers for novels start with “F” followed by the first few letters of the author’s name. The feature film DVDs follow now a similar system and their call number starts with D (signifying that it is a DVD, not a book), followed by an F and ending with the first three letters of the movie’s title. The call numbers for the documentaries are assigned similarly, except of course without the “F”.

When time permits the same system will be applied to our VHS tapes, with the additional category for children films. Here is the full list of the DVDs we currently have with their new call numbers (and the old in parenthesis). For more information about them check our DVD page:

Documentaries:

D Int: Into the arms of strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport (DVD 01)
D Her: Heritage: Civilization and the Jews (DVD 03-10)
D Rel: Relentless (DVD 02)
D Tri: The Tribe (DVD 11)

Feature films

D F Bro: Broken Wings (DVD 18)
D F Edg: Edges of the Lord (DVD 16)
D F Est: Esther Kahn (DVD 12)
D F For: For your consideration (DVD 19)
D F Fre: Free Zone (DVD 13)
D F Ked: Kedma (DVD 20)
D F Kee: Keeping Up With the Steins (DVD 17)
D F Mon: Monsieur Ibrahim (DVD 15)
D F Mun: Munich (DVD 21)
D F Wal: Walk on Water (DVD 14)
D F Yel: Yellow Asphalt (DVD 22)

36 years ago, on September 5, 1972 Israeli athletes, who were in Munich for the Olympic games were taken hostage by members of the Black September group. BY the end of the ensuing drama 11 Israelis were killed. Israel retaliated with several operations. These are the center of the 2005 film titled Munich, directed by Steven Spielberg. The library purchased a copy of the 2 hour and 44 minutes long, R-rated movie. Here is the trailer, so you could decide to check it out or not. I hope for the former.

The summer filmclub ended on Wednesday. The ten movies were altogether seen by 82 people. Each occasion was announced in a blog entry and after the event summarized in another one. The table below provides a full summary of our series. I am happy to announce that six of the movies shown are available for borrowing on DVD. I just created a new webpage that lists all of our DVD offerings, including these new additions.

Last Wednesday 10 and a half of us watched Walk on Water. By “half” I refer to the gentleman who missed the first 25 minutes or so the movie. Apologies to him, I am sure he got a lot out of it as well, so I should have written 11 of us, but 10 ½ was catchier. As far as I can tell the mood of the audience was great throughout the movie. There were plenty of one-liner jokes and humorous situations that we all got and laughed at together. Then we were at the edge of our seats when events turned more dramatic.

Let me share an observation about the movie that I realized now, that I watched it for the third time. A main motif seems to be that everybody has relatives and for them s/he will always be dear no matter what s/he did. The very opening scene, where the protagonist assassinates a Hamas activist on the street already conveys this message. The Palestinian’s son is crying on the street and this image will haunt our hero later, when his unconscious is struggling with the morality of killing people. The same problem arises with the old Nazi officer whom he is sent to kill. Even he has family, who care for him, no matter what he did during Hitler’s regime. Here I have to contradict myself. The Nazi’s granddaughter was disturbed enough–when she learned she was lied to and her grandfather was still alive—to cut her ties from the family. Her brother on the other hand managed to consolidate the similarly mixed feelings. (But I will not tell you how, so I would not spoil the end of the movie for you.)

For those of you are wondering why the movie’s title was Walk on Water here are the very last lines from the movie.

Axel Himmelman: You need to completely purify yourself. Your heart needs to be like it’s clean from the inside: no negativity, no bad thoughts.
Eyal: And then?
Axel Himmelman: And then you can walk on water. I’m sure of it.

The DVD is available now for borrowing from our library.

On the last night of July nine of us watched FreeZone. We were still struggling with the volume issue. If I crank it up it gets distorted if I lower it, not everybody hears it. Luckily we were running the subtitles for this film. One of the viewers suggested that we should always do that, no matter no the sound quality to help the hearing impaired. We will follow this advice form now. Unfortunately there were no subtitles in this movie when the actors were speaking English, which was about third of the movie.

What a difference subtitles make, particularly in the opening. First time I saw it without subtitles, the opening scene seemed intensely long. It was a full screen profile shot of Natalie Portman, sitting in a car, running for what seemed ten minutes. Meanwhile a woman sang a beautiful song. This time I could read the lyrics and that made the whole scene full of meaning and much more exciting. It was the well-known “Chad gadya” song, sang at Passover with an extra section,

I have only asked four questions
But, tonight
I have thought of another question
How long will this hellish circle last?
I have thought of a question tonight
How long will this hellish circle last?
That of the oppressor and the oppressed,
Of the executioner and the victim
How long will this madness last?

These lines set the tone for the whole film. It is no longer the story of three women who more or less accidentally meet and travel together. They start to represent their respective nations, American, Israeli, and Palestinian. Looking at the interactions from this new perspective every single word can eb reinterpreted what it might mean in terms of the relations between these groups, as opposed to between these individuals.

I copied the lyrics above from the package (PDF file)  the film’s distributor put together. For those of you who has seen the movie I recommend to check the file out, because it includes additional information that helps gaining a deeper understanding of the movie. My favorite part was the revelative interview with Amos Gitai, the writer/director. Here are some excerpts/teasers

Does the free zone in the film actually exist?
Yes, in eastern Jordan, an area has been set up as an economic free zone. There are no customs and no taxes. People from neighboring countries like Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Israel come here to sell and buy cars….

And peace exists in this free zone?
Yes. Complete peace.

Borders play an important role in the film…
In the Middle East, borders are a real issue. It’s always physical borders, political borders, which lead to mental borders.

Did you write the role of Rebecca for Natalie Portman?
The screenplay went through a lot of transformations. The original version was written about men and at one point I decided to make it the story of three women.

The car seems to be more than just a means of transportation…
I think that the car can definitely be considered the fourth main character. It imposes a restricted territory. When the three women are in the car, or when two of them are in the car, they cannot be far from each other.

For the first time, you shot a film in Jordan…
Inititially, of course, there was a kind of resistance between the Israeli and Jordanian crews, but this melted down after only a few hours and relations became very warm. I think that just the shooting of the film is a good example of how political borders can be crossed. It was really a great experience.

For the rest read the interview for yourself. If you have not seen the movie I recommend you check it out from the library.

Last Thursday four of us watched through Esther Kahn and it made all of us think a little. For those who missed it I am happy to report that the DVD is available for borrowing from the library.

In retrospect this movie is better watched from a chair or sofa at the comfort of your home, than at a public place, which could not be darkened fully for the first third of the movie due to being daylight. Most of the film consisted of dark inside shots. The audio had varying volume too, but most often it was too low, even at the loudest setting. Some of us did not fully enjoy the way the camera followed Esther, the jumpiness due to the fact of being a handheld camera and/or the direction it was shooting at. There might have been some other unraised objections too.

Nevertheless we agreed that it was a thought provoking movie. Here are some of the thoughts that occurred in me while I watched. The rest of this post may contain spoilers so if you plan to see the movie, you may want read afterwards only.

Esther was brought up in a busy Jewish household and was explicitly asked as a young girl to suppress her coping mechanism of copying other people’s speech and mimicry. She internalized this and by the time she became a young woman (the movie does not show the intervening years) she seems to have repressed her emotions to the point where she was not even aware of them. She could not even express them even if she wanted.

I think the reason she chose acting as a career has a lot do with this suppression. Yes, she had natural talents that had to come out. What better way to learn to show emotions than acting? But, I also think that it was her way of assimilation. There were not too many routs to get out of her old circles that suffocated her. She physically and literally crossed the river to start afresh. She only went back once for support, when she was not sure in her own talent. She forced her own assimilation shedding away her Jewish roots. The angriest we’ve seen her was with her encounter with the rabbi. She expressed her anger at G-d, saying that because she was poor G-d did not care about her. This was the only outward expression she shared about anything related to Judaism. She was angrier at being poor, than being a Jew. But in her mind the two seemed to have been connected.

The biggest criticism I have against this movie is that we do not really see the development in Esther’s intonation. She spoke throughout the movie with a closely lips, barely opening her mouth. The film would have been more convincing if it had shown the flowering of her thespian gifts in terms of dramatic changes in her acting. But I could not really tell the difference from when she started up in a minor role with two lines to the end when she was the diva of a major play.