Young, Jewish, and Left - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Young, Jewish, and Left is an American documentary that presents several US-based leftist Jews grappling with identity, politics, and culture.

Synopsis

Young, Jewish, and Left combines queer

Queer

Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...

culture, Jewish-Arab history, secular Yiddishkeit
Yiddishkeit
Yiddishkeit literally means "Jewishness", i.e. "a Jewish way of life", in the Yiddish language. It can refer to Judaism or forms of Orthodox Judaism when used by religious or Orthodox Jews...

, anti-racist analysis, and religious traditions into a multi-layered picture of the circa 2006 Jewish Left

Left-wing politics

In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...

. Personal experiences from many of the era's leading Jewish activists frame Jewish identity in what it the official website says is "a fresh and constructive take on race, spirituality, Zionism, queerness, resistance, justice, and liberation."

Dan Berger, in Left Turn
Left Turn
Left Turn is a bimonthly activist news magazine that focuses on international social justice movements. Based in New York and produced by an all volunteer editorial collective, the magazine promotes anti-imperialism and anti-authoritarianism....

magazine, writes: "Young Jewish and Left provides a beautiful cross-section of today's visionary thinkers, activists, and artists. The film celebrates the profound legacy of resistance among Jews—and criticizes the reactionary elements in Jewish communities, from the occupation to assimilation, patriarchy and homophobia. And it calls the Left to task for generally lacking an understanding of Jewish history or culture.

Jennifer Bleyer, on Nextbook

Nextbook

Nextbook is a nonprofit, Jewish organization founded in 2003 to promote Jewish literature, culture, and ideas. The organization sponsors public lectures, commissions books on Jewish topics, and publishes an online magazine, Tablet Magazine....

argues that it "... proves that the legacy of Jewish socialists, anarchists, feminists, Yippies, hippies, organizers, and agitators of the past century lives on..."

People featured

The following people are featured in the documentary:

Vicki Alcoset – Working class, mixed-race Jew
Micah Bazant – Co-author of the Love & Justice in Times of War Haggadah
Rabbi Haim Beliak – Co-director, Stop Moskowitz Campaign
Jenine Bressner – Artist
Lena Broderson – Hebrew school teacher
Julia Caplan – Co-founder of Jewish Voice for Peace
Jewish Voice for Peace
Jewish Voice for Peace is a United States Jewish organization which describes itself as "a diverse and democratic community of activists inspired by Jewish tradition to work together for peace, social justice, and human rights [to] support the aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians for security...

, San Francisco Bay Area(near the Moscow area in Ayrshire, Scotland to be precise!)
Yonah Diamond – Union organizer
Nava Etshalom – Writer and activist
Harmony Goldberg – Educator, SOUL (School of Unity & Liberation)
Miriam Grant – Former participant and staff, Jewish Youth for Community Action
Shira Hassan – Social worker
Haddasah Ladies for Homos
Molly Hein – Media artist and Klezmer singer
Julie Iny
Julie Iny
Julie Iny is an American activist and author of The Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Heritage, she is committed to ending oppression, racism, and antisemitism...

– Community organizer and historian of Arab Jewish Left
Loolwa Khazoom
Loolwa Khazzoom
Loolwa Khazzoom is an Iraqi American Jewish writer who writes about Jewish multiculturalism and the cultural traditions and modern struggles of Sephardi, Mizrahi, Yemenite and Ethiopian Jews...

– Editor, The Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Heritage
Paul Kivel – Violence prevention educator
Rabbi Michael Lerner
Michael Lerner (rabbi)
Michael Lerner is a political activist, the editor of Tikkun, a progressive Jewish interfaith magazine based in Berkeley, California, and the rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue of San Francisco.-Family and Education:...

– National chair, The Tikkun Community, and author
And A. Lusia – Rabble rouser
Josina Manu Maltzman – Feygelech for a Free Palestine
Rachel Marcus – Student, Oberlin College, grew up going to Kinderland
Camp Kinderland
Camp Kinderland is a summer camp located in Tolland, Massachusetts for boys and girls aged nine through sixteen. The camp's motto is summer camp with a conscience since 1923. The main topics of the curriculum are: equality, peace, community, social justice, activism, civil rights, Yiddishkeit,...

– Jewish socialist summer camp
Emily Nepon – Co-creator of Suck My Treyf Gender, Bar Mitzvah-boy drag performer, author of [www.newjewishagenda.net NewJewishAgenda.net]
Steve Quester – Early-childhood educator and queer Jewish activist
Penny Rosenwasser – Jewish Voice for Peace, board member
Jna Shelomith – Revolutionary
Deb Shoval – Playwright, director of An Olive on the Seder Plate
Dara Silverman – Director of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice
Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Arthur Waskow
Arthur Ocean Waskow, born Arthur I. Waskow, is an American author, political activist, and rabbi associated with the Jewish Renewal movement.-Education and early career:...

– Director of Shalom Center and author
Liz Werner – Writer/translator/teacher, grandparents blacklisted in McCarthy
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...

era

Festivals and conferences

The film was featured at the following festivals and conferences:

2006 ARPA International Film Festival
2007 Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival
2007 Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival
2007 Not Quite Kosher Film Festival, San Diego State University Hillel
2007 Big Muddy Film Festival, University of Southern Illinois
2007 Jewdas Jewish Film Festival, London
2007 National Conference on Organized Resistance
2007 Practicing Jews: Art, Identity, and Culture Conference
2008 Maine Jewish Film Festival

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.