Pilgrimage to Uman

Almost 200 years after Rebbe Nachman’s death, his followers flock to a once-closed Soviet town to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. by Nadine Epstein I’m on a bus to Uman, the provincial Ukrainian town where the Breslover Rebbe Nachman chose to be buried. I am the only passenger not transfixed by the blaring Ukrainian sitcom flitting across the television screen in the front. Rather I am plastered against the window, compulsively humming tunes from Fiddler on the Roof, soaking in the fields, the chestnut trees and villages mile after mile. Ukraine, the birthplace of my four grandparents, is a land I have often imagined. We’re racing along a new highway through the south central part of the country, traversing the cradle of Hasidism, the movement that sprang forth in various garbs to take back Judaism from overly cerebral rabbis...

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Jewish Film Festivals

Film festivals are one of the most popular expressions of Jewish culture today, providing unparalleled opportunities for moviegoers to plumb every aspect of the Jewish psyche and experience. The first one made its debut in 1981, when the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, supported by the Judah L. Magnes Museum, the American Film Institute in Washington, DC and the UCLA Film Archives, invited audiences to view 10 independently produced “Jewish films” from around the world. Today, the Jewish film festival scene is vibrant and a genre unto itself. From São Paulo, Brazil, to Salt Lake City, Utah, more than 100 Jewish film festivals inform, entertain and provoke audiences in cities large and small. Herewith we present the first annual Moment Magazine Jewish Film Festival Guide, your 2009-10 calendar to selected events around the globe. We...

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Great Jewish Films

September/October 2009
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Features
From Arab to Palestinian Israeli
Dina Kraft

In the first of a Moment series on Israel’s Arab citizens, we meet three generations of one family. Unlike her grandmother and mother, Sham Kalboni, 35, is a political activist. Still, she has no intention of leaving the country she considers home. Read the introduction to Moment’s series on Israel’s Arab Citizens.
Pilgrimage to Uman
Nadine Epstein

Every Rosh Hashanah, tens of thousands of men flock to this Ukrainian town to pray at the grave of Rebbe Nachman, nearly 200 years after his death. Once closed to foreigners by the Soviets, Uman morphs into an international Jewish happening of the first degree.
Great Jewish Films
Maxine Springer

From The Dybbuk to The Producers, Annie Hall , to Waltz with Bashir, Hollywood blockbusters to independent foreign productions, essayist Phillip Lopate, Entertainment Weekly’s Lisa Schwarzbaum and other top movie critics and scholars pick jewish movies that are not to be missed. Plus, 100 films to add to your must-see list.

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From Arab to Palestinian Israeli

In the first of a Moment series on Israel’s Arab citizens, we meet three generations of one family. Unlike her grandmother and mother, Sham Kalboni, 35, is a political activist. Still, she has no intention of leaving the country she considers home. Read the introduction to Moment’s series on Israel’s Arab Citizens.

Continue reading