Sunday, March 23

The Celluloid Closet of Yiddish Film
Film Talk!
2:00 pm
National Yiddish Book Center, Amherst

Film scholar Eve Sicular explores the lesbian and gay subtext in Yiddish film during its heyday, from the 1920's to the outbreak of WWII, revealing distinctly Jewish concerns of the time intertwined with a striking array of allusions to this highly-charged subject. Discussion will be accompanied by film clips, archival stills, and period home movies.
Co-sponsor: National Yiddish Book Center

http://www.metropolitanklezmer.com/celluloid.html
 

Monday, March 24

Praying in Her Own Voice
Film Talk!
7:00 pm
Smith College, McConnell Hall 103, Northampton
 
An outcry protesting religious coercion, Praying in Her Own Voice documents the courageous struggle of Women of the Wall for the right to wear prayer shawls and read aloud from a Torah scroll Ð acts that Jewish religious law permits women to perform but is fiercely objected by the orthodox establishment in Israel. Film Talk! moderated by Prof. Martha Ackelsberg.
Co-sponsors: Beit Ahavah, Congregation B'nai Israel Sisterhood, Jewish Community of Amherst, Smith College Hillel, Office of the Jewish Chaplain & Program in Jewish Studies
Documentary | 2007 | Hebrew w/subtitles | 60 min. | Director: Yael Katzir

elmsintheyard.blogspot.com/2007/03/praying-in-her-own-voice-women-of-wall.html
 

Tuesday, March 25

Adio Kerida
7:00 pm
Holyoke Community College, Kitteridge Center 301, Holyoke

Evoking themes of expulsion and departure, Adio Kerida documents the journey of Cuban-born Ruth Behar as she returns to Cuba as an adult to chronicle her family's flight to the U.S. as Cuban-Jewish exiles. The film meshes personal reflections, intimate interviews, and music to offer a bittersweet, lyrical, and often humorous portrait of modern-day Cuba.
Co-sponsor: One Book Holyoke
Documentary | 2002 | Spanish w/subtitles | 57 min. | Director: Ruth Behar  | Free

http://www.ruthbehar.com/AKAboutEnglish.htm

 

Wednesday, March 26

Special Event
Opening Springfield Reception
6:30 pm
Showcase Cinema, West Springfield

Come early to the opening film screening in Springfield to shmooze with your friends and neighbors and enjoy a bagel nosh generously provided by Springfield Smoked Fish.

Someone to Run With
7:30 pm 

Based on the bestselling novel by David Grossman, Someone to Run With captures the original's unrelenting pace, suspense and heartfelt drama as it sends viewers on a riveting ride through the streets of Jerusalem at the end of a Labrador's leash. While trying to track down the owner of a lost dog, a shy 17-year-old named Assaf pieces together the incredible story behind the disappearance of the dog's owner.
Drama | 2006 | Hebrew w/subtitles | 112 min. | Director: Oded Davidoff

http://www.someonetorunwith.com/
 

Thursday, March 27

Special Event
Souvenirs
Lunch’n Film
12:00 pm
Jewish Community Center, Springfield

Out-of-work filmmaker Shahar Cohen and his father Sleiman - an 82-year-old Yemeni-Israeli - take to the road, following Sleiman’s WWII path through Europe with the Jewish Brigade. Shahar hopes they discover a “souvenir” - that is, his father’s offspring by a wartime Dutch girlfriend. Winner, 2006 Israeli Academy Award for best documentary.
Documentary | 2006 | Hebrew, Italian & Dutch w/subtitles | 75 min. | Director: Shahar Cohen & Halil Efrat | $15 w/reservations

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV2qwVv4TlE
 

Constantine’s Sword
Film Talk!
7:00 pm
University of Massachusetts, School of Management 137, Amherst

James Carroll, a former Catholic priest is on a journey to confront his past and uncover the roots of religiously inspired violence. Focusing on Christian anti-Semitism as the model for all religious hatred, the film brings to life the history of religious intolerance, tracing it as a source of the fanaticism that threatens the world today. Film Talk! w/scholar Philip Cunningham. Dr. Philip A. Cunningham is a member of the Advisory Committee on Catholic-Jewish Relations for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and a contributing editor to jcrelations.net, the resource website of the International Council of Christians and Jews. The founding Executive Director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College, he has served as a delegate for the Vatican at international conferences concerning Catholic-Jewish relations.
 
Co-sponsors: Newman Catholic Center, The Ark Episcopal Church, UMASS Amherst Office of Jewish Affairs
Documentary | 2007 | 95 min. | Director: Oren Jacoby

http://www.umass.edu/jewish/programs
 

Nicholas Winton: The Power of Good
Film Talk!
7:00 pm
Springfield College, Fuller Arts Auditorium, Springfield

A warm and inspiring documentary about the courage and determination of a young English stockbroker who saved the lives of 669 children. In 1939, Nicholas Winton organized eight transports to take children from Prague to new homes in Great Britain. He kept his efforts secret until his wife discovered a scrapbook documenting his unique mission in 1988. Film Talk! w/Eva Fleischmann Paddock, one of “Nicky’s Children.”
Co-sponsor: Springfield College Holocaust Committee
Documentary | 2002 | 64 min. | Director: Matej Minac | Free

http://www.powerofgood.net/introduction.php
 

Friday, March 28

Saturday, March 29

The Band’s Visit
Call for times
Amherst Cinema, Amherst

Winner of eight Israeli Oscars, The Band’s Visit follows the comic plight of the Alexandrian Police Orchestra. These eight slightly bewildered Egyptian officers, after getting lost at the airport, arrive in a remote, slightly empty Israeli village, their powder-blue uniforms standing out against the desert landscape. Fortunately, they connect with Dina, a tough, sexy cafe owner who helps them find lodging for the night.
Comedy | 2007 | 86 min. | Hebrew, Arabic, w/subtitles | Director: Eran Kolirin | Tickets available only through Amherst Cinema.

Note: The Band's Visit will be playing at the Amherst Cinema through April 3. Details at www.amherstcinema.org / 413-253-2547.

http://www.thebandsvisit.com/
 

Sunday, March 30

The World Was Ours: The Jewish Legacy of Vilna
Film Talk!
2:00 pm
National Yiddish Book Center, Amherst

Actor Mandy Patinkin narrates this poignant documentary containing first-hand accounts of the vibrancy of Jewish life in the once-thriving community of Vilna, Poland, known before WWII as the “Jerusalem of Lithuania.” Film Talk! w/scholar Justin Cammy and filmmaker, Mira Jedwabnik Van Doren.
Co-sponsor: National Yiddish Book Center
Documentary | 2006 | 60 min. | Director: Mira Jedwabnic Van Doren

www.thevilnaproject.org/film.html
 

As Seen Through These Eyes
Film Talk!
1:00 pm
Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield

Maya Angelou narrates as Holocaust survivors tell their stories through the art they created during their imprisonment. Using interviews, archival footage and stunning artwork, we hear from these "defiant witnesses who fought back with the only weapons they had" -  paint brushes, charcoal and pencils. Film Talk! w/Ela Stein Weissberger, survivor of Theresienstadt and member of the original cast of Brundibar.
Co-sponsors: Hatikvah Holocaust Education Center, Springfield Museum of Fine Arts
Documentary | 2007 | 70 min. | Director: Hilary Helstein

Special Event!
Brundibar: Commonwealth Opera Performance
4:00 pm
Elms College, Veritas Auditorium, Chicopee

An opera for youth that comes out of the Holocaust,  Brundibar was performed 55 times at the Nazi concentration camp at Theresienstadt, Czeckoslovakia. The musical piece (which lasts under one hour) has symbolic characters who represent oppression (Hitler) and innocence, beauty and hope (a brother and sister and chorus of children and animals). Also on the program is the lovely song cycle for soprano, "I Never Saw Another Butterfly," based on the poems written by the children at the camp. At each performance, a survivor from Theresienstadt who actually performed in Brundibar will give a short talk.
Co-sponsors: Hatikvah Holocaust Education Center, Commonwealth Opera of Western Massachusetts.
For regular tickets call Commonwealth Opera: 413-587-0067. For Hatikvah Patron tickets call 413-734-7700.

http://www.commonwealthopera.org/opera.html
http://www.hatikvah-center.org/events/future.html

Monday, March 31

My Mexican Shivah
Film Talk!
7:30 pm
Mount Holyoke College, Blanchard Campus Center

Set in the Jewish Quarter of Mexico City against a rich tapestry of Spanish, Yiddish, and Hebrew, My Mexican Shivah is a dramatic comedy about how the death of a man results in the celebration of his life. Based on a story by Amherst College professor Ilan Stavans, produced by John Sayles, featuring an original score by The Klezmatics. Film Talk! w/Ilan Stavans.
Co-sponsors: Mount Holyoke College Jewish Studies Program and Jewish Student Union
Comedy | 2006 | 102 min. | Spanish, Hebrew, Yiddish w/subtitles | Director: Alejandro Springall

http://www.emergingpictures.com/my_mexican_shiva.htm
 

Tuesday, April 1

Special event
Art Opening, Reception, Film Talk!
Beyond Genocide

“As Jews who know firsthand the consequences of silence from the international community, we must do all that we can to prevent or stop deliberate attempts to annihilate any people.” Ruth Messinger, American Jewish World Service

Kabul Transit
7:00 pm ~ Art Opening
7:30 pm ~ Film
Smith College, Helen Hills Hills Chapel, Northampton

Beyond Genocide is an exhibit of contemporary illuminated manuscripts by artist Amy Fagin, honoring worldwide victims of genocide, past and present. Kabul Transit, a street-level documentary, explores the soul of a city devastated by nearly three decades of war, attesting to the often overlooked cultural genocide taking place in Afghanistan. Film Talk! w/director David Edwards.
Co-sponsors: 20th Century Illuminations, Smith College Hillel, Smith College Office of the Jewish Chaplain
Documentary | 2007 | 84 min. | Directors: David Edwards, Maliha Zulfacar, Gregory Whitmore.

http://www.20thcenturyilluminations.com/theilluminations.html

http://www.kabultransit.net/

Praying with Lior
7:00 pm
Jewish Community Center, Springfield

As Lior Liebling, a young man with Down Syndrome, prepares for his bar mitzvah, he inspires his congregation with his passionate embrace of God. He is, by turns, a burden, a best friend, an inspiration, and an embarrassment, depending on which family member you ask. Ilana Trachtman's intimate documentary challenges viewers to rethink the relationship between disability and divinity.
Documentary | 2007 | 87 min. | Director: Ilana Trachtman

http://www.firstrunfeatures.com/lior_synopsis.html

Wednesday, April 2

Special Event
Music for Peace
7:00 pm 
Academy of Music, Northampton

Music education is transformative for many young people, especially for those living in challenging situations. Is the power of music strong enough to unite young people separated by differences in religion and politics? The Springfield Symphony Youth Orchestra and the Jewish Film Festival join forces to present a special program of music and film dedicated to nurturing hope in the power of music to make a difference.

Springfield Symphony Youth Orchestra ~  Knowledge is the Beginning

World-renowned conductor Daniel Barenboim and late Palestinian scholar Edward Said generated controversy and admiration with the founding of their West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in 1999. This documentary follows their unique musical collaboration, dedicated to furthering the cause of peaceful coexistence in the Middle East, bringing together young musicians from both sides of the divide: Syrians, Jordanians, Egyptians, Palestinians and Israelis. Performance by the Springfield Symphony Youth Orchestra precedes the film.
Co-sponsor: Springfield Symphony Youth Orchestra
Documentary | 2006 | 114 min. | Arabic, English, German, Hebrew w/subtitles | Director: Paul Smaczny

http://www.knowledge-is-the-beginning.com/
 

Thursday, April 3

Hot House
7:30 pm 
University of Massachusetts, School of Management 137, Amherst

Almost ten thousand Palestinians are imprisoned in Israel jails on “security” charges. Most Israelis consider them murderers and criminals, but most Palestinians regard them as freedom fighters. Filmed inside high-security prisons, Hot House offers a rare look at the experiences, motivations, and mindsets of a number of key inmates, men and women, from Fatah and Hamas.
Co-sponsor: UMASS Amherst Office of Jewish Affairs
Documentary | 2006 | 89 min. | Hebrew, Arabic w/subtitles | Director: Shimon Dotan

http://www.umass.edu/jewish/programs/
 

Beaufort
Film Talk!
7:30 pm 
Basketball Hall of Fame, Springfield

A brash, young commander must defend Beaufort Castle, the last outpost in southern Lebanon that Israel held before the army’s withdrawal in 2000. Hiding in underground tunnels and bunkers, the lieutenant tries in vain to protect his troops from Hezbollah missiles and low morale. A powerful and heartbreaking drama. 2008 Academy Award Nominee, Best Foreign Film. Film Talk! w/Professor Justin Cammy
Co-sponsor: Brandeis in the Berkshires
Drama | 2007 | 130 min. | Hebrew w/subtitles | Director: Joseph Cedar

http://www.kino.com/beaufort/
 

Friday, April 4

Saturday, April 5

Bad Faith
Film Talk!
8:15 pm
Smith College, Seelye Hall 106, Northampton

Clara and Ishmael are gorgeous, happy, in love and in Paris. How nice is that? Like many cosmopolitan Parisian couples, the fact that she’s Jewish and he’s Muslim barely crosses the minds of these oh-so-secular lovebirds ... until Clara announces that she's pregnant. That's when the troubles start in this charming and timely romantic comedy. Film Talk! w/Rabbi Lev Baesh of InterfaithFamily.Com.
Co-sponsors: InterfaithFamily.Com, The Mother’s Circle, a program of Jewish Family Service and the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, Smith College Hillel, Smith College Office of the Jewish Chaplain
Comedy | 2006 | 88 min. | French w/subtitles | Director: Roschdy Zem

http://www.mauvaisefoi-lefilm.com/
 

Sunday, April 6

A Life in Song: A Portrait of Ruth Rubin
Film Talk & Performance!
2:00 pm
National Yiddish Book Center, Amherst

Octogenarian Ruth Rubin has spent her life collecting, preserving and transmitting the legacy of Yiddish folksongs. Yiddish love songs, work songs and protest songs are interwoven with historical photographs of shtetl life in Eastern Europe. A celebration of the publication of Yiddish Folk Songs from the Ruth Rubin Archive. Film Talk! w/editor Mark Slobin, and a performance by vocalist Judy Bressler and Hankus Netsky.
Co-sponsor: National Yiddish Book Center
Documentary | 1994 | 38 min. | Director: Cindy Marshall

http://wsupress.wayne.edu/judaica/folklore/mlotekyf/mlotekb.html
 

At Home in Utopia
Film Talk!
4:30 pm
National Yiddish Book Center

A portrait of secular Jewish values, Black-Jewish integration, communists, and immigrants catapulting out of tenement life. At Home in Utopia traces the fascinating history of the United Workers Cooperative Colony-a.k.a. “The Coops”-one of four radical, utopian, cooperative apartments built in the Bronx in the 1920s by visionary Jewish garment workers. Film Talk! w/director Michal Goldman. 
Co-Sponsors: Hampshire College Jewish Studies and the Posen Foundation Program for the Study of Secular Jewish History and Cultures, National Yiddish Book Center
Documentary | 2007 | 57 min. | Director: Michal Goldman

http://www.filmmakerscollab.org/films/production.htm
 

Bad Faith
Film Talk!
7:00 pm
Majestic Theatre, West Springfield

Clara and Ishmael are gorgeous, happy, in love and in Paris. How nice is that? Like many cosmopolitan Parisian couples, the fact that she’s Jewish and he’s Muslim barely crosses the minds of these oh-so-secular lovebirds...until Clara announces that she's pregnant. That's when the troubles start in this charming and timely romantic comedy. Film Talk! w/Rabbi Lev Baesh of InterfaithFamily.Com.
Co-sponsors: InterfaithFamily.Com, The Mother’s Circle, a program of Jewish Family Service and the Harold Grinspoon Foundation,
Comedy | 2006 | 88 min. | French w/subtitles | Director: Roschdy Zem

http://www.mauvaisefoi-lefilm.com/
 

The Longing: The Forgotten Jews of South America
7:00 pm
Mount Holyoke College, Dwight Hall 101

Isolated in Catholic countries and raised with persistent but vague hints about their ancestry, a small group of South Americans believe they are among the millions of South Americans descended from crypto-Jews, the Spanish and Portuguese immigrants who secretly practiced Judaism during the Inquisition. Gabriela Bohm poignantly portrays their anguished search for identity.
Co-sponsors: Mount Holyoke College Jewish Studies Program and Jewish Student Union
Documentary | 2006 | 75 min. | English, Spanish w/subtitles | Director: Gabriela Bohm

http://www.bohmproductions.com/
 

Monday, April 7

Storm of Emotions
7:30 pm
University of Massachusetts, School of Management 137, Amherst

The Israeli government’s decision to order the evacuation of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip in 2005 caused great political and social upheaval. This emotional documentary charts this sensitive mission from the points of view of religious and secular Israeli Army officers and border police.
Co-sponsor: UMASS Amherst Office of Jewish Affairs
Documentary | 2006 | 83 min. | Hebrew w/subtitles | Director: Yael Klopmann

http://www.umass.edu/jewish/programs/
 

Tuesday, April 8

Rain in a Dry Land
Film Talk!
7:00 pm
Smith College, Helen Hills Hills Chapel, Northampton

Two Somali Bantu families leave behind a legacy of slavery in Africa and find new homes in urban Springfield, Massachusetts. Rain in a Dry Land chronicles two years in the lives of two extended Somali Bantu families as they leave behind a 200 year legacy of oppression in Africa to face new challenges in a strange new land. Film Talk! w/director Anne Makepeace.
Co-sponsors: Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts, Smith College Hillel & Office of the Jewish Chaplain.
Documentary | 2006 | 52 min. | Anne Makepeace

http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2007/raininadryland/about.html
 

Saint Clara
8:00 pm
Hampshire College, Franklin Patterson Hall, Amherst

A futuristic Israeli film about a clairvoyant 7th grader named Clara, a Russian immigrant to a small town in the Negev. The town is thrown into a tumult by her arrival. Clara must deal with her fame as a fortune teller, forced to choose whether to lose her gifts in return for the love of the local rebel hunk or to keep her mystical powers.
Co-sponsors: Hampshire College Jewish Studies and the Posen Foundation Program for the Study of Secular Jewish History and Cultures
Drama | 1996 | 85 min. | Hebrew, Russian w/subtitles | Directors: Ari Folman & Uri Sivan

http://clara.israel.net/index78.html
 

Wednesday, April 9

Special Event
Kosher Mexican Dinner ~ My Mexican Shivah
6:30 pm
Jewish Community Center, Springfield

A delicious kosher Mexican dinner will heighten your appetite for the film.

Set in the Jewish Quarter of Mexico City against a rich tapestry of Spanish, Yiddish, and Hebrew, My Mexican Shivah is a dramatic comedy about how the death of a man results in the celebration of his life. Based on a story by Amherst College professor Ilan Stavans, produced by John Sayles, featuring an original score by The Klezmatics. Film Talk! w/Ilan Stavans.
Comedy | 2006 | 102 min. | Spanish, Hebrew, Yiddish w/subtitles | Director: Alejandro Springall | $18 for both dinner and film.

http://www.emergingpictures.com/my_mexican_shiva.htm
 

Trumpet in the Wadi
8:00 pm
Hampshire College, Franklin Patterson Hall, Amherst

Alex and Huda are lovers and outsiders in Israeli society - Alex is a new immigrant from Russia and Huda an Arab woman from Haifa. She works in a Jewish travel agency and reads Hebrew poetry; he plays the trumpet marvelously. An impossible love story that can be described as a Middle Eastern nod to Romeo and Juliet.
Co-sponsors: Hampshire College Jewish Studies and the Posen Foundation Program for the Study of Secular Jewish History and Cultures
Drama | 2001 | 97 min. | Hebrew, Arabic w/subtitles | Directors: Lina & Slava Chaplin

www.rikishelachproductions.co.il/atrumpetinthewadi.htm
 

Thursday, April 10

Just an Ordinary Jew
4:00 pm & 7:30 pm
Amherst College, Stirn Auditorium, Amherst

Journalist Emanuel Goldfarb (Ben Becker) is an assimilated Jew who has become a well-respected essayist in modern Hamburg. When he receives an earnest request from a local schoolteacher to speak to a group of students about what it means to be Jewish in today's Germany, it triggers a private emotional avalanche.
Co-Sponsors: Amherst College Department of German, Amherst College Hillel.
Drama | 2005 | 90 min. | German w/subtitles | Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel | Free

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMqulTps0eE
 

Friday, April 11

Saturday, April 12

Three Mothers
8:15 pm
Basketball Hall of Fame, Springfield

Nominated for nine Israeli Academy Awards, Three Mothers is a multigenerational saga of beautiful triplets born in 1942 in Alexandria, Egypt, to privileged Jewish parents. Inspired by director Dina Zvi-Riklis’ real-life mother, a triplet, this tale follows the family to Israel and, over the course of 60 years, reveals the Hakim sisters coming to terms with long-buried family secrets and passions.
Co-sponsors: Anna P. Housen Israel Desk of the Jewish Federation of Western Massachusetts, Consulate General of Israel to New England.
Drama | 2006 | 106 min. | Hebrew w/subtitles | Director: Dina Zvi-Riklis

www.3mothers.co.il/default_en.html
 

Sunday, April 13

The Ashkenazim
2:00 pm
National Yiddish Book Center, Amherst

At once seminal and wacky, this documentary offers a profound look at how Zionism constructs and deconstructs Jewish identity. Through avant-garde comedy and wrenching emotional confession, young Jews of Ashkenazi (European) descent wrestle with how and why they reclaim or reject their cultural patrimony in this melting pot called Israel.
Co-sponsor: National Yiddish Book Center
Documentary | 2005 | 50 min. | Hebrew w/subtitles | Directors: Dalia Mevorach & Dani Dothan

www.nfct.org.il/movies/The_Ashkenazim_e.htm
 

Mechina: A Preparation w/Neshomeleh
Film Talk!
4:00 pm
Smith College, Hillyer-Graham Auditorium, Northampton

In Israel, military service is mandatory for all teenagers after high school graduation. Living with her cousin Amitai and his five friends as they prepare for their army service, film director Maital Guttman uncovers the complexity of being young and idealistic in a time of war. Neshomeleh, a short film by Smith student filmmaker Dawna Sirad will open event. Film Talk! w/director Maital Guttman.
Co-sponsors: Smith College Hillel & Office of the Jewish Chaplain, B'nai Tzedek & Teen Initiative of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation.
Documentary | 2006 | 45 min. | Director: Maital Guttman

www.mechinathemovie.com/site2.swf
 

Special Event
Israeli Tea Party
3:00 pm
Jewish Community Center, Springfield

While adults and teens enjoy the film, children ages 4 and up can get creative with ArtVenture or delve into MovieMadness. Following the hour-long film, all are invited to an Israeli Tea Party with music, refreshments, games, and a good time for all.

Like a Fish Without Water

Meet Argentinean immigrant, Marcelo, a non-religious single parent and struggling actor. Seeking to improve his Hebrew, he turns to his religious Hebrew teacher, Anat, who has problems of her own; a mother who is desperate to get her married. Snappy humor and a quirky talented cast make this tender romantic comedy a charmer.
Co-sponsors: Anna P. Housen Israel Desk & Young Leadership of the Jewish Federation of Western Massachusetts
Comedy | 2006 | 56 min. | Hebrew w/subtitles | Director: Leonid Prudovsky | $10 adults; $5 children 4-13.
 

Monday, April 14

Praying with Lior
7:00 pm
Amherst College, Keefe Campus Center Theatre

As Lior Liebling, a young man with Down Syndrome, prepares for his bar mitzvah, he inspires his congregation with his passionate embrace of God. He is, by turns, a burden, a best friend, an inspiration, and an embarrassment, depending on which family member you ask. Ilana Trachtman's intimate documentary challenges viewers to rethink the relationship between disability and divinity.
Co-sponsor: Amherst College Hillel
Documentary | 2007 | 87 min. | Director: Ilana Trachtman

http://www.firstrunfeatures.com/lior_synopsis.html
 

Tuesday, April 15

Wednesday, April 16

Special Event
Raffle Drawing & A Bottle of Bubbly!
7:00 pm
National Yiddish Book Center, Amherst

Enjoy some celebratory treats, applaud the three lucky winners of the Film Festival raffle, and meet the artists: Molly Cantor, Nancy Katz and Emmett Leader.

Click here for details
 

A Cantor’s Tale
Film Talk!
7:30 pm
National Yiddish Book Center, Amherst

The tradition of Eastern European Jewish cantorial music is alive and well in modern America thanks to the efforts of Brooklyn-born Cantor Jacob Mendelson. “Jackie” as he is affectionately called, explores the American roots of “hazzanut” (Jewish liturgical music) with a nostalgic journey through family, neighborhood, and tradition. Film Talk! w/Jacob Mendelson.
Co-sponsors: UMASS Magic Triangle Jazz Series, National Yiddish Book Center
Documentary | 2005 | 95 min. | Director: Erik Greenberg Anjou

www.acantorstale.com/
 

Thursday, April 17

Special Event
Magic Triangle Jazz Series
Frank London & Hazonos
8:00 pm
University of Massachusetts Fine Arts Center, Amherst

A member of the Klezmatics, trumpeter and composer Frank London is one of the most important musicians of the New Jewish Renaissance. His Hazonos project features the sparkling rhythm section of Anthony Coleman, David Chevan and Gerald Cleaver, and Chazzan Jacob Mendelson, whose soaring voice gives the music a unique spiritual quality. Frank London and Jacob Mendelson also appear with A Cantor’s Tale on Wednesday evening, April 16. | For tickets call UMASS Fine Arts Center: 413-545-2511.

www.umass.edu/fac/magictriangle/index.html