AFME Presents: The K Effect

An Additional Film of Jewish Interest: The Albuquerque Film & Media Experience is proud to present:

The K Effect

Stalin's Editor

Thursday June 6 ~ 1:00 pm

Guild Conema

The K Effect reveals the curious and amazing story of Maxim - actor, instigator of the revolution, forger, Hollywood producer and Stalin's film editor - through his amateur footage and personal home movies.

A road movie through the most significant events of the 20Th century: a century shaken by fascinating utopias, which spawned cheerful dreams and horrible nightmares.  A fiction movie made with fragments of reality. An historical documentary made by mingling fictional elements.

The odyssey of all those who dared dreaming and were swollen by their dreams.

Purchase tickets here at Hold My Ticket. View the trailer here.

This is only one of the Films of Jewish Interest that the Albuquerque Film & Media Experience is presenting this year. Click here to learn more.

And there's much more to the Albuquerque Film & Media Experience than just Films of Jewish Interest. Click here to learn more about AFME Films, Panels, and Special Events.

AFME Presents: Israeli Shorts

A Film of Jewish Interest: The Albuquerque Film & Media Experience is proud to present:

Israeli Shorts

Plus talk with John Mancini of the Lamb Foundation

Wednesday June 5 ~ 3:30 pm

The Lobo Theatre

The Burnt House (Excerpt)
In Jerusalem, the skeletal remains of a young Jewish girl killed during the siege and destruction of Jerusalem, the Temple, and the majority of the Jewish people by the Roman Empire in 70 A.D., 2,000 years ago are found on an archaeological excavation.

Tozeret Bait (Dir. Lior Sagi) (Israel, 2013)
A mother from a kibbutz convinced that her son, who was arrested on suspicion of rape of a minor, is innocent and she is commits to clearing his name despite her husband's wishes.

Court (Dir. Dekel Nitzan)

Erez accompanies his son Uri, to the neighborhood basketball court, after some kids stole Uri's ball. The two will find themselves in a difficult situation, in which Erez will try to avoid trouble, while Uri hopes to see his father fight for him.

The Predator’s Return (Dir. Jerald Fine)

Abe, a former concentration camp survivor, is a resident of a nursing home. The newest resident of the facility is the same Nazi officer that murdered his entire family 60 years earlier.

Purchase tickets here at Hold My Ticket.

These are only some of the Films of Jewish Interest that the Albuquerque Film & Media Experience is presenting this year. Click here to learn more.

 

And there's much more to the Albuquerque Film & Media Experience than just Films of Jewish Interest. Click here to learn more about AFME Films, Panels, and Special Events.

AFME Presents: Refuge

A Film of Jewish Interest: The Albuquerque Film & Media Experience is proud to present:

Refuge

Stories of the Self-Help Home

Wednesday June 5 ~ 1:00 pm

The Lobo Theatre

In the late 1930s, following the ferocious anti-Jewish violence of Kristallnacht, a determined group of young German Jews left behind everything that was dear and familiar and immigrated to Chicago.

Here, these refugees set out to create a supportive community for themselves and others fleeing Nazi persecution, eventually establishing the Selfhelp Home for the oldest among them.   

Refuge weaves together historical narrative, archival footage and deeply personal testimony to explore the lives of six Chicagoans against the context of the Nazi cataclysm and how a small group of them came together to care for their own.

Purchase tickets here at Hold My Ticket. View the trailer here.

This is only one of the Films of Jewish Interest that the Albuquerque Film & Media Experience is presenting this year. Click here to learn more.

 

And there's much more to the Albuquerque Film & Media Experience than just Films of Jewish Interest. Click here to learn more about AFME Films, Panels, and Special Events.

AFME Presents: Films of Jewish Interest

Here's The Lineup!  Abq Jew is thrilled to remind you (see Moses in Albuquerque!) that the Albuquerque Film & Media Experience (AFME) is bringing a number of Israeli and American films of Jewish interest to Abq in early June:

Refuge: Stories of the Self Help Home

Israeli Shorts and talk with John Mancini of the Lamb Foundation

The Invisible Men & Everything is Alright

The Lion of Judah & Moses On The Mesa

plus

Uprising (2012)

The K Effect: Stalin's Editor

Abq Jew may have mentioned the fact that the Film Editor for Moses On The Mesa (you can look it up on IMDb!) is his son, Dov Yellin the Film Editor.

Shabbat Shalom, Albuquerque!
Good Shabbos, New Mexico!

Preparing for Shavuot

Preparing to Repair:  Shavuot (שבועות‎), the Feast of Weeks, is a Jewish festival that occurs on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Sivan. This year, Shavuot begins on the evening of Tuesday May 14. The festival days are Wednesday and Thursday, May 15-16.

Wikipedia describes Shavuot thusly:

Shavuot commemorates the anniversary of the day God gave the Torah to the entire nation of Israel assembled at Mount Sinai ....

The holiday is one of the Shalosh Regalim, the three Biblical pilgrimage festivals.

The word Shavuot means weeks, and the festival of Shavuot marks the completion of the seven-week counting period between Passover and Shavuot.

Shavuot is one of the lesser known Jewish holidays among secular Jews in the Jewish diaspora, while those in Israel are more aware of it.

One of the customs associated with Shavuot is the all-night study session - the Tikkun Leyl Shavuot. Lesli Koppelman Ross (in My Jewish Learning's discussion of Tikkum Leil Shavuot) explains:

Following the holiday meal, many people proceed to synagogue for Ma'ariv [the evening service], followed by an all-night (or into-the-night, as many last only until midnight) Torah study session based on the kabbalists' [mystics'] practice.

This specifically refers to the sixteenth century mystics of Safed, Israel, under the leadership of Isaac Luria. Many people recite Ma'ariv before the meal, go home to eat, and return to synagogue for the study session. All in all, Tikkun Leyl Shavuot is a relatively recent development.

We remain awake to show that, unlike the situation of our heavy-lidded ancestors at Sinai, there is no need to bring us to our senses; we are ready to receive Torah. The tikkun (which refers both to the study session and to the text used for it) was the only observance developed specifically for Shavuot ....

This Shavuot, the Albuquerque Jewish community is doubly blessed  (Tikkun Leyl Shavuot 2013).

• First, with the community Tikkun at Congregation B'nai Israel (7:00 pm), with guest speaker Tammy Kaiser, Director of Lifelong Learning at Congregation Albert.
• And second, with a special Tikkun at the home of Rabbi Chavah Carp (10:00 pm), led by Rabbi Carp and Rabbi R Karpov.

Here is how Rabbi Karpov describes the Tikkun text and the Tikkun proceedings:

A ‘Tikkun’, in the context of the writings of the Lurianic Kabbalists of Tzfat - the circle of Rabbi Isaac Luria of “L’cha Dodi” fame -  is a ceremonial text.

The sacred text Tikkun Leil Shavuoth, THE traditional text that the Kabbalists of Tz’fat sat up and studied all night on the first night of Shavuoth, so as to make a ‘tikkun’ in the sense of a ‘repair’ for what we had not completed on its archetype, the night when we were to have stayed up all night in anticipation of receiving Torah from Mount Sinai in the morning.

All Jewish souls ever born and ever to be born were there. And yet, even in anticipation of this momentous occasion, we were unable to remain awake that long.

To do a ‘tikkun’ – a repair – on our former faithless behavior, we sit up and study this text, a “Reader’s Digest” edition of core Jewish texts that implies, in both our subconscious and supraconscious minds, these texts in their totality, the entire night. This time, we can make it right.

The book’s structure is a sequence of selections, mostly juxtaposed snippets, from:

• TaNaCh: Each Torah parsha; Prophets including Josha, Judges, and Habbakuk (my father’s favorite); and Writings (the entire Megillah of Ruth, and snippets from others);
• Similarly juxtaposed selections from each tractate of Mishnah, and
• Later Kabbalistic texts -- Zohar and Sefer Yetzirah (short version),

framed by a few Kabbalistic prayers and Kaddishes, with Abulafia sound-meditations embedded throughout.

The text of Tikkun Leil Shavuoth has been untranslated from the original Hebrew and Aramaic until now, when in 1991 Rabbi R Karpov, PhD, made - of an original 1812 Vilna edition mocked-up version spanning a number of thick loose-leaf notebooks containing the original text and the English translation, together with scholarly annotations in the ‘Torah’ section - a good resource for weekly Torah Study.

For example, the selections for Chayyei Sarah are the three verses at beginning and end, mentioning the life and death of Sarah our Matriarch; and the life and death of Ishmael.

At first blush this would appear incongruous, but American poet Gertrude Stein wrote, “the question of juxtaposition is very important,” and these six verses now become their own text, with the subtext of Sarah’s having first conceived Ishmael’s existence in thought, and her therefore owing him her life, despite her later behavior towards him.

This year, Albuququerque Rabbi Chavah Carp’s home, the selective introduction to this text rarely used in modern times -- despite the current resurgence of interest in both sitting up all night and studying for Shavuoth, and simultaneously of interest in Kabbalah – will draw from each of the text’s major sections.

This sacred study session around this text of authentic Lurianic Kabbalah, wants to make a comeback. So enjoy.

A Song for Mother's Day

What I Learned From Mom: On the eve (kinda) of Mother's Day, Abq Jew reflects on the Life Lessons he learned from his mother, Roselyn Yellin, of blessed memory.

Religion

You better pray that this will come out of the carpet.

Logic

Because I said so, that's why.

Foresight

Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you get into an accident.

Justice

One day you'll have kids, and I hope they'll turn out just like you.

Here's another Mother's Day lesson, which Abq Jew learned from Matron Mama Morton (Dana Elaine Owens of Newark, New Jersey, aka Queen Latifah) in the film Chicago:

And perhaps the most important lesson of all, especially as Abq Jew gets older. This one is from 88 year old Great Grand Mama Sheila Kronrot, may she live to 121 (she shouldn't go suddenly at 120)!

Shabbat Shalom, Albuquerque!
Good Shabbos, New Mexico!

Volunteer @ Holocaust Museum

High School Juniors Invited: The Holocaust & Intolerance Museum of New Mexico invites high school juniors to register for a unique opportunity.

The Museum has an excellent volunteer opportunity for high school students approaching their junior year to be greeters this summer.

Those who greet this summer could qualify as docents next summer.

This rare chance to serve and learn certainly will distinguish students on their college applications.

This volunteer opportunity offers students the chance to hone teamwork, customer service, and communication skills. Responsibilities include welcoming visitors, answering the phone, and working in small teams.

A short orientation is scheduled for

Saturday June 1 ~ 10:00 am
Holocaust & Intolerance Museum of New Mexico
616 Central Avenue SW, Albuquerque

A make-up day will be scheduled for those who can’t attend on June 1. Students are encouraged to ask friends to join them. All are welcome.

Register for orientation by May 25 by emailing info@nmholocaustmuseum.org
with your name and contact information.

Download the volunteer application from our website and bring it with you. or include it in your registration email.

If you have any questions, email info@nmholocaustmuseum.org or call (505) 247-0606.

The museum, a beneficiary agency of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico, is open Tuesday through Saturday, 11:00 am to 3:30 pm.