Between two worlds Film Review

By Jim Miles

(Between two worlds: a documentary film by Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman)

This documentary presents a powerful and evocative discussion on a personal level to the changing and challenging nature of Jewish values in the United States.  Outside the Jewish community, for anyone interested in Palestinian-isrælske issues and Middle East issues in a broader context, it is a must see film.  There is no workaround for document control, it is an expression of exploration and discovery of Jewish beliefs and the unresolved divisions of identity-changing borders of the Jewish people in America.

The personal explorations of Directors begins with the Jewish Film Festival in San Francisco and showing of a film about Rachel Corrie, who was the Centre of controversy over what was to be shown as the represent Judaism-in a pro or anti-isrælske dialogue-at the festival.  From the beginning, the big question concerns the divisions within the Jewish community: who decides what is Jewish is all about, from extreme accepts whom self-identifies as a Jew or to view Orthodox Jewish matrilinealt heritage.

Very well-known themes ladder, familiar to those who have read the arguments on the isrælsk-Palestinian questions from all sources.  The concept of demographics and the Jewish population is not explored in depth but occurs twice in significant references.  This is exemplified in Dr. Bernard Kaufman, whose own family comprised Muslim converts and radical social activism lives.  His "final blessing" was to accept the change, and yet at the same time remaining torn within his own militant Zionist convictions.

The theme of the holocaust is omnipresent in all Jewish references have "replaced the exodus as orienting the myth" of "master narrative" of Jewish history.  Two different views increase in this discussion, which supports the need for a strong, independent State, to counter arguments says abuse others and has been "small, tribal and insularity."

This discussion centers on the Wiesenthal Center and its Museum of Tolerance, of which one is planned for Jerusalem on an ancient Palestinian grave site.  The argument for the Centre is that the world must remember the holocaust, to grow against tolerance; the argument against it is "we can't do it [desecrate the grave sites] If we expect the world to treat our cemeteries with respect."  The discussion continues with a look back at the connections between Jewish values and workers social movements in the 1930s in the United States.  Out of this discussion than the statement that "radical measures against injustice is also a kind of Jewish continuity."

These themes and the others are all internal within the Jewish community itself.  Situations and speakers, presented all concern them within the Jewish faith.  The internal rift is about how present and act upon the Jewish people's concerns and how that has an impact on Israel and the United States.  It is about real people responding to the changing world around them, memoirs and transitions in the previous generations, and the questioning and searches of the current generation.

This is a brilliant film presents the current state of Jewish thought in the United States.  Discussion about values-Jewish values, not necessarily exclusively Jewish-must be seen to the discussion can be brought to the awareness of those not directly within the Jewish community.

(To learn more about the film visit: www.snitow-kaufman.org)

-Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor/columnist opinion pieces and book reviews for The Palestine Chronicle.  Miles ' work is presented also globally through other alternative sites and news publications.