Chevra Cinema 2023
"Saturdays at Seven"
Hosted by
The Jewish Museum
&
Cultural Center
607 Effingham Street
Portsmouth, VA
757-391-9266
Chevra Cinema Movies are back!
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
When martial law is declared in Russia, all Jews are restricted to their villages. The authorities are unsympathetic to Marya (Elissa Landi), who desperately wants to travel to St. Petersburg to see her dying father. Marya learns that a special card, called the “yellow ticket”, is issued to prostitutes, and allows them to travel freely. Marya manages to get a yellow ticket. In St. Petersburg, Baron Andrey (Lionel Barrymore), a corrupt police official, prevents his lecherous nephew, Captain Nikolai, from forcing himself on Marya. She later meets Julian (Laurence Olivier), a British journalist, and tells him about the injustices the government has kept him from learning about, including the yellow ticket. When Julian’s articles are published, Andry, a womanizer, guesses that Marya has been giving him information.
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.
