J-Dar. Do you have it? As a straight jewish male, I’d probably argue that my Gaydar is a bit more reliable. Being Jewish means you may share some common traits and physical features, (I have the curly devil’s locks) but a lot of people that I meet assume I’m some kind of african-american mix or who knows what else.
J-Dar is a very tricky thing, us Ashkenazi Semites are truly an invisible minority, and while you can also make assumptions in the film world, you can NEVER BE TOO SURE. Which is why the Toronto Jewish Film Fest (TJFF) in partnership with DDB, have created this technological wonder of a site that will help your mom, dad, and other jew loving friends determine which movies are jewish enough to show the kids, grand kids, and rest of the fam.
Or you can see what happens when you remove a good chunk of the Jewishness from a series like Star Wars. See what happens when you get rid of the J-Factor?
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You see, the differences are quite striking. Thus by the system we’re going by, Star Wars: Episode 1 should never be shown to young jewish children, or any children what so ever.
Or is it any wonder that every edition of Anne of Green Gables that I searched for got ein big fat gunish?
Are you curious? Want to win free tickets? Post the most jewish film you can find in the comments section and the winner with the highest percentile wins 2 tickets to Tuesday’s screening of Eran Barak’s documentary, Hunting Time at 8 pm at U of T’s Innis Theatre.
Here’s a brief description from the TJFF site. “When photographer Eran Barak moves into an apartment in Haifa, he spends his days observing the neighbourhood: three high-rise residential buildings under construction, forever changing the neighbourhood; a photograph of two eternally smiling teenagers killed in a car accident, taped to a small monument; an aging Nazi hunter looking for recognition. As he absorbs it all, these seemingly unrelated elements enter his apartment in the form of photographs that line his walls. Reminiscent of the work of Chris Marker, Barak’s Hunting Time is a poetic and moving meditation on memories and remembrance, history and documentation, reality and imagination.”
