Spring Break
JEWISHFILM.2008-guess where
The National?Center for Jewish Film is holding its 11th annual festival at
by Elizabeth Pauker
Arts | 4/1/08
Posted online at 11:48 PM EST on 3/31/08
Lately, I've come to accept that Brandeis is like the Trix rabbit: No matter how hard you try to shake it, it just keeps showing up everywhere. And so it is no surprise that Brandeis (the University, not the person) happens to be the surprise hero in The Last Jews of Libya, one of the films playing at JEWISHFILM.2008, the National Center for Jewish Film's 11th annual film festival. NCJF is a nonprofit film archive located on campus. They'll be playing films until April 13 in the Wasserman Cinematheque. (The festival began last weekend.) With films coming from Israel, France, Germany, Sweden and the United States, the festival marks the New England premiere for all 10 films being shown.
Like many of the Festival's films that focus on the effects of the Holocaust, Libya is a documentary, one that traces the final decades of the Sephardic Jewish community in Benghazi, Libya. Through interviews with the surviving members of one family, the Roumanis, Libya uses old footage, diaries and family photos to document how the tense relations between Jews and Arabs in a Muslim country eventually led to the extinction of a community that was 2500 years old and could be traced back to the time of the Romans.
While little can be said about the film's cinematic merits, the movie succeeds in creating an informative piece of work about the Jewish struggle to survive under various foreign governments, from the Ottomans to the Italians to, eventually, the Germans. It was not Hitler, however, but Arab nationalism that eventually pushed the Roumani family to choose between living a life in fear at home or risk venturing into the unfettered new state of Israel. However, they chose neither. When the first hints of Western culture hit the Middle East, it didn't take long for one of the Roumani children, Maurice, to attempt to move to America in hopes of freedom, sock hops and rock 'n roll. Cue Brandeis University. Like Superman saving the day, Brandeis accepts Maurice as a student and brings him to the land that flows with Jews and money.
Like many of the Festival's films that focus on the effects of the Holocaust, Libya is a documentary, one that traces the final decades of the Sephardic Jewish community in Benghazi, Libya. Through interviews with the surviving members of one family, the Roumanis, Libya uses old footage, diaries and family photos to document how the tense relations between Jews and Arabs in a Muslim country eventually led to the extinction of a community that was 2500 years old and could be traced back to the time of the Romans.
While little can be said about the film's cinematic merits, the movie succeeds in creating an informative piece of work about the Jewish struggle to survive under various foreign governments, from the Ottomans to the Italians to, eventually, the Germans. It was not Hitler, however, but Arab nationalism that eventually pushed the Roumani family to choose between living a life in fear at home or risk venturing into the unfettered new state of Israel. However, they chose neither. When the first hints of Western culture hit the Middle East, it didn't take long for one of the Roumani children, Maurice, to attempt to move to America in hopes of freedom, sock hops and rock 'n roll. Cue Brandeis University. Like Superman saving the day, Brandeis accepts Maurice as a student and brings him to the land that flows with Jews and money.
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