For the fourth year, The Jewish Federation of Greater Toledo will host the annual Toledo Jewish Film Festival. The Festival, which spans six weeks, will feature a variety of films touching on a cross section of the Jewish cultural experience. According to the event organizer Hallie Freed, the festival is “a cinematic exploration of Jewish experience through culture and history, life in Israel, and the work of Jewish artists…. Every year we make it a little different and more exciting.”
The films
“Highlighting anything to do with the Jewish culture,” according to Freed, the selected films will range from the lighthearted to the serious.
“The Art Dealer,” Freed explains, is “about recovering paintings that were lost to the Nazis during the Holocaust.”
A documentary about the life of Julius Rosenwald, the founder of Sears who “worked with Booker T. Washington to create over 5,000 schools in the South that served underprivileged African Americans,” champions “one of the biggest philanthropists ever.” The director of the film, Aviva Kempner, will present a Q&A after the screening of "Rosenwald" on Monday, May 2.
In celebration of Yom Ha’Atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day on May 14, the festival will screen, 'In Search of Israeli Cuisine', while viewers enjoy ice cream and Israeli snac
ks to go along with the movie’s theme. Food seems to be a unifying topic. “Last year, one of the films we showed was about delicatessens in America,” says Freed, as she describes the huge turnout. “There were about 160 people there, many of them love the ‘deli’,” she says.
The mission
Freed explains the goal of the festival, to “promote awareness and create a sense of community.” “We really hope a lot of non-Jewish people attend,” as through the medium of film, we want this festival to foster cultural solidarity, as “something fun but which teaches awareness of Jewish culture.”
Discover the many stories of the Jewish experience at 7pm on the following Monday evenings at the Maumee Indoor Theatre:
April 5: The Art Dealer. ($5)
April 18: Once in a Lifetime— A history teacher at a French high school motivates her troubled students through lessons of the Holocaust. ($5)
May 2: Rosenwald. ($5)
May 9: In Search of Israeli Cuisine. ($10, includes Israeli snacks and Israeli-flavored ice cream specially made by Rachel’s Handmade Ice Cream. Celebration begins at 6:30pm)
May 16: Dough— A Jewish baker’s business is saved by a young Music apprentice. ($5)
Maumee Indoor Theatre, 601 Conant St., Maumee | 419-724-0362 | [email protected]
