Chevra Cinema 2023
"Saturdays at Seven"
Hosted by
The Jewish Museum
&
Cultural Center
607 Effingham Street
Portsmouth, VA
757-391-9266
Thank you for joining us.
We look forward to seeing you next year!
January 7, 2023
“Anita” (2009) Drama, 104 Minutes
Anita is set in 1994 Argentina following the largest terrorist attack in
Argentine history. Explosion of a car bomb in front of the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina Building in downtown Buenos Aires kills 85 people, wounds 300 others. This scene early in the film sets the trajectory of the story about a young girl with Downs Syndrome who lives with her mother in the inner city. After the bombing, Anita doesn’t understand what has happened, is separated from her mother, and becomes lost in the ensuing chaos.
The showing of this movie is dedicated to Jewish children displaced in humanitarian crisis around the world and acknowledges our recent 3,000+ bulb planting, the Daffodil Project, in memory of 1.5 million children murdered in the Holocaust.
January 14, 2023 “Liberty Heights” (1999)
Comedy-Drama, 127 Minutes
Liberty Heights is a 1999 American comedy-drama film written by writer-
director Barry Levinson. The film is a semiautobiographical account of his
childhood growing up in Baltimore in the 1950s. Portrayed are the racial
injustices experienced both by the Jewish and African American populations.
Both of Nate Kurtzman’s sons find women “prohibited" to them, In Van’s case
because he is Jewish, for Ben the main issue is being white. Their father goes
to prison for running a burlesque show with Little Melvin, an African American, and a known drug dealer.
The showing of this movie is dedicated to the memory of Charles Greenhood, whose formative years in Chevra T’helim Synagogue became the foundation for his generosity as well as his active involvement in social issues affecting the wellbeing of all people.
January 21, 2023
“The Yellow Ticket” (1931)
Drama, 88 Minutes
Set in Imperial Russia in 1913, "The Yellow Ticket" tells the story of a young Jewish girl, Marya (Elissa Landi), who lives in the Pale of Settlement. She learns that her father, imprisoned in St. Petersburg, is seriously ill. She desperately wants to travel to St. Petersburg to see him, but Jews were prohibited from leaving the Pale without a passport issued by the state. After the authorities refuse to issue her a passport, she discovers that she
can travel freely anywhere in Russia if she gets a Yellow Ticket- a license to engage in prostitution. She obtains a Yellow Ticket and goes to find her father. In St. Petersburg, she encounters Baron Andrey (Lionel Barrymore), a lecherous, corrupt police official, and Julian Rolphe (Laurence Olivier), a dashing British journalist. Rolphe's articles anger Baron Andrey, who deduces that Marya is Rolphe's source of information. Baron Andrey sets a trap that would put Marya in his clutches and Rolphe in Siberia.
"The Yellow Ticket" is probably the first film made by a major Hollywood studio (20th Century Fox) that portrays oppression of Jews.
January 28, 2023
“Fiddler on the Roof” (1971)
Musical, 179 Minutes
Fiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by
Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set in the Pale of Settlement
of Imperial Russia in or around 1905.It is based on Tevye and his
daughters (or Tevye the Dairyman) and other tales written in Yiddish by
Shalom Aleichem. The story centers on Tevya, a milkman in the village
of Anatevka, who attempts to maintain his Jewish religious and cultural
traditions as outside influences encroach upon his family’s lives. He must
cope with the strong-willed actions of his three older daughters who wish to marry for love: their choices of husbands are successively less palatable for Tevye. An edict of the Tsar eventually evicts the Jews from their village.
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$5 suggested donation
per ticket
is appreciated.
