More than 40 years ago, the phone rang in Anny Stern's New York City home. It was a man she didn't know, calling to giver her a notebook. Covered in brown paper, its pages hand-sewn together, this was no ordinary notebook. It was one in which her mother, Mina, had hand-written recipes while inter...

The story of the White Stork Synagogue in modern-day Wroclaw, Poland (Breslau, Germany before World War II) provides a window into the life of a Jewish community from the establishment of the synagogue in 1829 until today.

Directed by Curt Fissel and Ellen Friedland
United States, 2001
Documenta...

Though Nev is happily situated with his family in Los Angeles, he has yet to reveal his secret to his old school Jewish parents who are coming over to visit their new grandson for the first time.

A Film by Yaniv Rokah
United States, 2020
Drama, Comedy, Jewish Culture
English
15 minutes

Vasermil tells the story of three teenagers who live in a tough neighbourhood, growing up in an unforgiving environment, pinning their hopes on football as a way out. Shlomi, a pizza delivery boy, lives with his widowed mother, little sister, and step-father. Adiel, of Ethiopian descent, has to l...

Seeking safety and asylum, some 60,000 Africans have fled to Israel over the past decade. The country, founded as a haven for persecuted Jews in the aftermath of the Holocaust, has no policy, infrastructure or political will to handle this wave of migrants. 'African Exodus,' a documentary film by...

Idealistic pharmacist Alice (Alice Taglioni) is totally obsessed with the movies of Woody Allen. She continually quotes lines from his films, engages in imaginary conversations, and even prescribes her customers his classic works to help alleviate their ailments; it's a little wonder she's still ...

Living in the wake of the Idi Amin reign of terror and institutional discrimination, one Ugandan coffee farmer organized a group of Christian, Muslim and Jewish neighbors to challenge historical (as well as economic and environmental) hurdles. He formed the 'Delicious Peace Coffee Cooperative' to...

An old Jewish couple is planning a summer vacation. She wants to go to Israel, and definitely not to Switzerland, a country that once refused her as a refugee. But for him Israel is too hot, and anyway full of Arabs. So off to Switzerland they go, where he suffers from a heart attack. The nurse w...

Police investigator Micha Stein receives a tip that a singer, Shalom Shalom, is responsible for a recent robbery. Stein, who is excessively ambitious, arrests Shalom. A cat-and-mouse follows with two equally stubborn men playing off the contradictions of the characters. A wedding photographer wit...

At the end of the 1950s, Rachel (Virginie Efira, "Other People's Children", "Benedetta"), a young office clerk living in a provincial town, meets Philippe (Niels Schneider), a well-educated man from a wealthy family. They share an intense but short-lived romance, from which a daughter is born. Ov...

Abraham Bursztein, an octogenarian Jewish tailor, embarks on the adventure of a lifetime. Escaping a family intent on confining him to a nursing home, Abraham leaves Buenos Aires in search of the man who, over 70 years ago, saved him from certain death. With assistance from a roll call of generou...

YELLOW STARS OF TOLERANCE documents a project to preserve yellow stars that were painted during the Holocaust in World War II on a synagogue exterior wall in Normandy, France to terrorize the local Jewish community. The intent of the recent preservation project is to serve as a testament to that ...

Autumn 1947: Elisha, a young Jew, learns that he has been chosen to kill the hostage John Dawson (Jason Isaacs, "Harry Potter"), a captain in the British Army occupying Palestine. Will Elisha, himself a survivor of the holocaust, be able to commit this irrevocable act?

Based on the Novel by Elie...

Amos lives alone with his schizophrenic teenage son, whom he refuses to intern in the psychiatry ward - he knows only too well how they treat their patients there. One day, Amos brings home a Thai young woman, an illegal alien called Bena. Amos hopes to find some "normality" through this female p...

Ansis earns his living as a sign painter, a seemingly innocent occupation. His craft is needed in every regime – the authoritarian Thirties, the following Communism, as well as Nazism. Ansis is compelled to cooperate. He paints the signs of the city green, later replaced by red and finally brown....

WEDDING DOLL follows a young impulsive woman, Hagit, who dreams of love, marriage and freedom from the strict guidance of her mother, an overprotective divorcee. Hagit strikes up a relationship with her boss' son at the toilet paper factory where she works. While hiding the blossoming romance fro...

Léon Blum, the Jewish French socialist politician and three-time Prime Minister, stands at the heart of a new film. Jeanne Reichenbach (Elsa Zylberstein) fell in love with Blum (Hippolyte Girardot) when she was only sixteen. Years later, when they could finally be together, the Nazis arrived in F...

Helene (Julie Depardieu), Lili (Johanna ter Steege) and Rose (Suzanne Clément) met in Auschwitz, where the three twenty-year-old Jewish girls were deported. Thanks to German-speaking Dutch Lili, who was working in the camp kitchen, the two French girls survived. Determined to find her old compani...

'Klezmer Musicians Travel Home to Krakow' intersperses traditional and nouveau-Klezmer music with introspective thoughts and feelings of some of today' s greatest Klezmer-style musicians, examining why they return annually to the Krakow Jewish Cultural Festival. This documentary, narrated by Theo...

Judith Golden owned and ran a small hotel, and her husband Leo Fleischmann had a successful textile business in Memel, Lithuania. Being Jewish was not a liability in this port city on the Baltic Sea, yet Adolf Hitler had ambitions beyond what anyone could know when he ascended to power in 1933. "...

Shlomi, the star player of a minor league soccer team, dreams of leaving his small hometown and playing for Maccabi Tel-Aviv. Unfortunately for him, his local team manager needs Shlomi to stay and help the team advance, in order to prove his worth to the league officials. When Maccabi Tel-Aviv sc...

'Flory's Flame' weaves the life story of 90-year old Sephardic US National Heritage Fellow musician Flory Jagoda with her 2013 Celebration Concert at the US Library of Congress. Raised in a musical household in Bosnia, Flory’s family roots go back centuries to pre-Inquisition Spain. With most of ...

In the town of Mitzpeh Ramon, afflicted by unemployment and closing factories, a security guard of an armored car and the owner of a local printing house join together in a sophisticated sting operation to switch the money, taken from an illegal Casino, to fake bills which they have printed in ad...

When many people think of Israel, it is often in terms of modern war or ancient religion. But there is much more to the Jewish state than missiles and prayers. In his debut as a documentary filmmaker, Michael Lucas examines a side of Israel that is too often overlooked: its thriving gay community...

'Sylvia: Tracing Blood' plots the clandestine and violent path of international spy Sylvia Raphael, a South African woman who infiltrated Israel's enemies, emerging as a top female Mossad agent.

Directed by Saxon Logan
United Kingdom, 2016
Documentary, Jewish History
English
105 minutes

This feature-length film introduces viewers to Soraida, a Palestinian woman who lives in Ramallah. In her neighbourhood the women do not all wear veils, the men do not rattle off empty political slogans, the young people do not strap bombs to their belts, and the children play together like kids ...

Ariel, a well-off, childless man gets a phone call from his college girlfriend. She needs to tell him a couple of very surprising things: first, when they broke up twenty years ago, she was pregnant and went on to have a lovely boy. The second thing will make Ariel explore the hidden aspects of p...

Moshe and Tami are a couple, Moshe is in his fifties and Tami is in her early twenties. They live together in a cruel and violent relationship, from which Tami seems unable to set herself free. Tami and Moshe are father and daughter.

Official Selection (Un Certain Regard) - Cannes Film Festival ...

Three young childhood friends wish to escape their alienated life in the Israeli kibbutz and become London’s hottest rock band. The lack of audience, the cultural differences and the lifestyle of illegal immigrants will all force them to reevaluate their choices.

"A unique and authentic musical ...

A powerful exploration of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six Days' War. The film documents the lives and encounters of two young men. About to begin his military service, Tal, an eighteen-year-old Israeli, is torn be...

The year is 1962, and Holocaust survivor Menachem Goldfarb (Arie Muskuna) now lives in Israel with his family. Because tensions between Israel and Palestine are growing worse, Menachem wants to get his family out of the country. However, money is tight. But when an old friend, Morris (Moti Giladi...

A short film from Israeli director Noam Stolerman. After ten years in the firm, Yehoshua is getting fired out of the blue. Shocked and frustrated, he tries to think of a way to break the news to his wife and wonders if there's still a chance to get his job back.

Directed by Noam Stolerman
Israel...

This animated short from Sheldon Cohen (The Sweater) tells the true story of a "nice Jewish boy with Buddhist inclinations" who suffers a heart attack. At the crossroads of documentary and animation, the film combines wry humour and philosophical musings to show that, sometimes, what feels like t...

Michael Aloni (Shtisel) stars in the story of one platoon at an Israeli army training base as they struggle through a 3-month boot camp for non-combatants during the hot summer days. Comprised of veterans from cooperative settlements, kibbutzes and towns, Ashkenaz Jerusalemites, new immigrants fr...

*Parental Advisory: This film includes sensitive scenes including portrayals of violence and sex*

In this bold, stunning film, 12-year-old Adar (Shira Haas, "Unorthodox", "Shtisel") and her stepfather (Ori Pfeffer, "The Testament") push their role-playing games into dangerous territory while he...

With her provocative debut music video, “Eshet Chayil of Hip Hop,” Lea Kalisch presents a transgressive 21st-century update on the traditional Jewish song Eshet Chayil (Woman of Valor). As she clashes together the seemingly unrelated worlds of hip hop and hasidism, Kalisch reveals that these male...

This documentary follows a Holocaust survivor in 1965 on an emotional pilgrimage to Bergen Belsen, the last of 11 concentration camps where he was held by the Nazis. He and 30 other former Jewish inmates travel through the new Germany. Scenes still vivid in his mind are recalled in flashback. The...

A man and a woman meet in a hotel to live out their sexual fantasies. The pair are celebrating their tenth anniversary, and such no-holds-barred meetings have become a tradition - the role-playing breaks up the routine of their marriage. This year however, things go differently: more and more lie...

Based on a true story, Extra Innings is a beautiful, powerful family drama that will have you laughing one minute and crying the next! Set against the enchanting backdrop of 1960's Brooklyn, Extra Innings tells the story of David Sabah who is caught between pursing his dream of playing baseball a...

Based on a Jewish folk tale adapted by playwright John Lazarus, this animated short tells the story of Shmendrik, a simpleton living in a small Polish village. Weary of daily life in his native Chelm, Shmendrik sets out on a quest for knowledge that brings him to a new Chelm, a place eerily remin...

The filmmaker did not suspect that meeting a philosopher would have such a profound effect. It compelled her to shed light on the exceptional life of Raymond Klibansky, his uncommon destiny and his path to humanity. As a German Jewish philosopher of action, he lived in times of upheaval, war and ...

Amsterdam, summer 1942. Walter Suskind can count himself lucky that he's found a job with the Jewish Council, which offers him and his family protection from deportation to Germany. It is Süskind's task to arrange for the detainees to be sent to "work" in Germany. But when he discovers what is re...

Yiddish live theater, a formerly lively theatrical form, is barely sustained by a few aging aficionados and its loyal but aged audience. Laura Adler is a big star of one of these troupes. She is attractive, middle-aged and quite content to spend her days performing obscure theater in her backwate...

A group of airport porters are planning on stealing 2 sacks of rough diamonds. The diamonds arrive on schedule on commercial flights to the airport. Being that the porters are the first to come in contact with the sacks from the moment they land in the airport, it goes without saying that they wi...

In this short film set in 1933 England, runaway siblings Kitty (Bella Ramsey, "Game of Thrones") and David's game of soldiers takes a surprising turn when they find their clifftop hideout occupied by Jewish refugee Albert Einstein.

Directed by Luke Rodgers
United Kingdom, 2018
Shorts, Drama, His...

Ovadia is the strongest doorman of all the night clubs in Tel Aviv. His biggest dream is to become a father, but he and his wife Rachel have been struggling to get pregnant for almost five years. One day, small time gangster named Shalom Rozental offers Ovadia a job, which Ovadia sees as a great ...

(Content warning: Contains nudity and mild sexual content)

Experience an Israeli classic, starring Israeli screen icons Ronit Elkabetz and Lior Ashkenazi.

Zaza (Lior Louie Ashkenazi) is an eligible 31-year-old bachelor who has done his best to remain unattached. His traditional Georgian-Jewish...

In this popular and award-winning feature from director Eyal Halfon, residents of a West Bank community are in an uproar over an aging lion that escaped from a Russian circus.

Ophir Award - Best Film
Ophir Award - Best Actor (Yoram Hattab)
Ophir Award - Best Actor (Amos Lavi)
Ophir Award - Best ...

Two generations after the Holocaust, its aftermath has faded, but the small, seemingly banal moments of everyday life are still present. Through interviews with strangers and intimates, as well as views of contemporary Berlin, filmmaker Alexa Karolinski investigates how history reverberates throu...

The film follows the research of historian Sidney Aguilar, beginning with the discovery of bricks marked with Nazi swastikas on a farm in the countryside of São Paulo. It reveals something really frightening: during the 1930's, fifty black boys were taken from an orphanage in Rio de Janeiro and l...

Featuring haunting accounts from the front lines, 'Raised to Be Heroes' introduces the latest generation of Israeli soldiers to selectively object to military operations undertaken by their country. After years of executing missions against the Palestinians, often involving violence and oppressio...

This short documentary affords us an unusual and privileged view of the old city of Jerusalem, before and after the redevelopment of certain key sectors took place in the early 1970s. The man appointed to try to reconcile the need for change with traditional values is Montreal architect Moshe Saf...

After her family moves from Russia to Israel, 13-year-old Clara (Lucy Dubnichek) finds herself in the unenviable position of being the new girl at Golda Meir Junior High School. Thanks to her psychic powers, however, she quickly becomes a popular friend to have. Why study when Clara knows what's ...

One morning Galia and her boyfriend board a local Jerusalem bus. It is packed with passengers, among them a suicide bomber. The bus explodes, leaving Galia with severe burns and memory loss. She has no memory of the day of the terrorist attack and the days leading up to it. A necklace sent to her...

In the middle of the Negev Desert lies the Israeli city of Be’er Sheva. Home to the football club HaPoel Be’er Sheva, the city has equal number of Muslim and Jewish residents and sits only 20 km south of the West Bank. Hapoel Be’er Sheva was plagued by a 40-year championship drought until a new o...

This short documentary tells the story of the first Jewish settlers to Winnipeg, people who fled European persecution at the turn of the century and founded a new community in a Canadian city.

Directed by Bill Davies
Canada, 1973
Documentary, Canadian Culture, Jewish Culture
English
27 Minutes

In this beguiling short film by German director Milan Carl Bath, a woman prepares to leave her flat. She seems to be following a strict plan as she, step by step, readies herself and her home for departure. THE DEPARTURE reflects on the correlation of technocratic rationality and the Holocaust.
...

Haunted from the beginning to the very end, Still Alive (Noch Am Leben) is the story of a woman’s recollection of her mad Holocaust survivor great aunt. Through the ghetto to cradling her dying sister, Eva Nagler left her mind on the beaches of the Baltic Sea during one of the largest death march...

On September 9, 2002, a scheduled appearance by former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked heated debate at Montreal's Concordia University. By the end of the day, the "Concordia riot" had made international news, from CNN to Al-Jazeera. This film documents the fallout from that eve...

This documentary looks at some former Israeli soldiers, most under age 25, who fly to India after being discharged from the military. About 90 per-cent will use drugs during their stay, and each year some 2,000 of them will need professional help after a psychotic episode referred to as “flipping...