Reviews By: Lucy Cruell
Documentary, 2008
Director: Sadia Shephard
India, USA/ English, Hindi with subtitles
36 minutes
This documentary short follows the two-year journey by the filmmaker to reconnect with her grandmother's Indian Jewish community in Bombay. It is the interesting tale of a once thriving community, with its own legends of being a lost, shipwrecked tribe of Israel from 2000 years ago, now dwindling away through intermarriage and immigration to Israel.
Documentary, 2007
Director: Joe Balass
Canada/ English
33 minutes
A poignant tale of another once thriving Jewish community in another country, this film gives us a snapshot of Iraq's Jewish society told through the history of one family and their photos, archival footage, and super 8 home movies tied together by the voice of the filmmaker Joe Balass's mother Valentine Balass who narrates the story of her life. Memories of joyful family gatherings and pride in being both Iraqi and Jewish slowly give way to fear, discrimination, and government persecution and even detainment before, during, and after the Six Day War in 1967, which heightened tensions between Jews and Arabs across the Middle East as Israel won the war and many Jews felt forced to finally abandon what they considered to be their home country.