{"id":2864,"date":"2012-12-19T08:04:06","date_gmt":"2012-12-19T06:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/?p=2864"},"modified":"2012-12-19T08:04:35","modified_gmt":"2012-12-19T06:04:35","slug":"new-israeli-made-documentary-takes-us-to-the-fringes-of-jewish-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/2012\/12\/new-israeli-made-documentary-takes-us-to-the-fringes-of-jewish-life\/","title":{"rendered":"New Israeli-Made Documentary Takes Us to the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Fringes\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of Jewish life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The most remarkable thing about Paula Weiman-Kelman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s new documentary, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ruthfilms.com\/fringes.html?SID=8bhj3c0ihtamfdekb4p62n6ma0\">Fringes<\/a>,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is how unremarkable it is.<\/p>\n\n<!-- YouTube Embed v5.2 -->\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" itemprop=\"video\" itemscope itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/VideoObject\">\n\t<meta itemprop=\"url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/pVRqgKeHnqo\" \/>\n\t<meta itemprop=\"name\" content=\"New Israeli-Made Documentary Takes Us to the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Fringes\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of Jewish life\" \/>\n\t<meta itemprop=\"description\" content=\"New Israeli-Made Documentary Takes Us to the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Fringes\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of Jewish life\" \/>\n\t<meta itemprop=\"uploadDate\" content=\"2012-12-19T08:04:06+02:00\" \/>\n\t<meta itemprop=\"thumbnailUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/pVRqgKeHnqo\/default.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta itemprop=\"embedUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pVRqgKeHnqo\" \/>\n\t<meta itemprop=\"height\" content=\"342\" \/>\n\t<meta itemprop=\"width\" content=\"560\" \/>\n\t<iframe style=\"border: 0;\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"560\" height=\"342\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pVRqgKeHnqo?modestbranding=1&fs=0&rel=0\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n<!-- End of YouTube Embed code. Generated in 0.00885 seconds -->\n\n<p>I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean that in a bad way. Rather, the Jerusalem-based filmmaker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s latest movie, which opened to a sold-out theater at the Jerusalem Cinemateque\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Jewish Film Festival last week, presents the lives of three communities on the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fringes\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of Jewish life in a way that makes them seem like they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re your next door neighbors; folks who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem as far out as they might to those who hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been introduced through Weiman-Kelman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sensitive directorial hand.<\/p>\n<p>The 70-minute documentary focuses on two couples and one larger community: Leibish and Dena, the founders of the open\u00c2\u00a0<em>haredi<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0Ghetto Shul which also doubles as a rock club and performance space in Montreal; Pablo and Esther, Jewish organic farmers plowing away at their Stoney Lonesome Farm in Virginia; and the first cohort of the Secular Yeshiva in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n<p>If you met any of these three groups outside the lens of the film, you might marvel at how they seemingly cope so well doing the difficult dance between tradition and a much wider world perspective on sex, lettuce and rock and roll.<\/p>\n<p>How does Leibish with his black beard,\u00c2\u00a0<em>payot<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0and ultra-Orthodox garb, also run a music club with men and women mingling freely? How can Pablo and Esther live a satisfying traditional Jewish life so many miles from the nearest\u00c2\u00a0<em>shul<\/em>, and when they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sell their produce on Shabbat (the main market day for local organic farms)? And what the heck is a secular yeshiva, anyway, especially one whose study hall is populated with stacks of thick Talmuds and bareheaded and tank topped co-ed yeshiva\u00c2\u00a0<em>bochers<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>Weiman-Kelman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gift is to introduce us in these unique individuals\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 lives, so that they seem as much a part of the mosaic of modern Jewish life as the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153usual\u00e2\u20ac\u009d polarized exchanges that make the headlines. Indeed, when women wearing\u00c2\u00a0<em>tallitot<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0at the Western Wall are being hauled into jail, Weiman-Kelman insists on showing us that there are vibrant Jewish communities where pluralism and tolerance are the norm.<\/p>\n<p>Weiman-Kelman was quoted in Haaretz prior to the film\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s opening. &#8220;I think that nowadays, especially in Jerusalem, there&#8217;s a tendency to see divisions and not to see unity,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I hope people walk away from my film with an openness to enrich their lives with connections to other people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>My take on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Fringes\u00e2\u20ac\u009d may not be entirely objective, however. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m already pretty immersed in these types of fringe communities in my own life. Our daughter studied at a year-long\u00c2\u00a0<em>mechina<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0(a pre-army program recognized by the military) that mixed men and women, religious and non religious, much like the Secular Yeshiva. We regularly shop at the organic food store, compost our garbage, and for a while bought from a local community farm like Pablo and Esther\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s.\u00c2\u00a0 And at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, just down the street from us, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not at all unusual to see a black bearded rabbi teaching a co-ed group including women wearing\u00c2\u00a0<em>kippot\u00c2\u00a0<\/em>of their own.<\/p>\n<p>So what might be eye opening or even shocking for the average Israeli was not so out of the ordinary for me.\u00c2\u00a0 Nor was it, I suspect, for many of the familiar faces attending the Cinemateque on opening night.<\/p>\n<p>That shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t detract from your interest. Wherever you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re coming from, if Weiman-Kelman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s movie is playing in a theater near you (maybe at your next Jewish Film Festival), you certainly won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be on the fringes if you rush out and buy a ticket.<\/p>\n<p>More information from the distributor:\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ruthfilms.com\">Ruth Films<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>I reviewed &#8220;Fringes&#8221; yesterday on <a href=\"http:\/\/israelity.com\/2012\/12\/18\/new-israeli-made-documentary-takes-us-to-the-fringes-of-jewish-life\/\">Israelity<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The most remarkable thing about Paula Weiman-Kelman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s new documentary, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Fringes,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is how unremarkable it is. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean that in a bad way. Rather, the Jerusalem-based filmmaker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s latest movie, which opened to a sold-out theater at the Jerusalem Cinemateque\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Jewish Film Festival last week, presents the lives of three communities on the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fringes\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of Jewish [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,47],"tags":[71,65,29,32,53,100],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2864"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2864"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2866,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2864\/revisions\/2866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}