00:28.479 --> 00:31.190
It was the first night of Passover and I had
nowhere to go.

00:32.970 --> 00:36.400
Every year my family has a Seder on the first
night, which I lead,

00:36.889 --> 00:38.599
but for some reason we didn't that year.

00:40.049 --> 00:44.799
I was sitting around feeling sorry for myself
when my friend called and invited me to this

00:44.799 --> 00:46.630
alternative Seder in Brooklyn.

00:48.439 --> 00:52.229
Looking back on it seven years later, you could
say it was meant to be.

00:53.709 --> 00:56.159
As soon as I walked through the door, I saw her.

00:57.220 --> 01:01.279
She was stunning.
But I thought she was straight,

01:01.720 --> 01:03.450
and besides, I already had a girlfriend.

01:09.139 --> 01:11.750
By the end of the night, I knew I was in
trouble.

01:17.690 --> 01:20.440
I sat next to her at this queer Seder in
Brooklyn.

01:21.230 --> 01:25.019
She looked Irish, and at first I thought she
was just there to observe the Jews,

01:25.389 --> 01:28.349
an ethnographic experience at a Passover Seder.

01:30.400 --> 01:33.980
Ironically, we're the only two people there who
knew how to lead a Seder,

01:34.629 --> 01:35.860
so we led it together.

01:36.879 --> 01:42.790
Not only was she Jewish, she spoke Hebrew, grew
up in a family of four daughters like me,

01:43.040 --> 01:44.480
and she made videos.

01:47.569 --> 01:49.959
Call me a narcissist, but I was in love.

01:51.819 --> 01:53.069
And then I panicked.

01:54.169 --> 01:55.720
Were we too similar?

01:56.010 --> 01:57.800
Would we drive each other crazy?

01:59.160 --> 02:00.910
Was it all just too Jewish?

02:37.039 --> 02:41.509
This narration cassette is to accompany the
film strip.

02:43.789 --> 02:46.300
Koshering meat and chicken.

02:47.500 --> 02:50.300
Set the film strip to frame number one.

02:51.559 --> 02:53.070
When you hear the sound,

02:56.029 --> 02:58.630
please proceed to the next frame.

03:22.559 --> 03:26.820
You Hello. Hi.

03:27.339 --> 03:29.610
um I'd like a potato knish and a pickle,
please.

03:31.240 --> 03:35.000
When did Katz become unkosher?
I always thought it was kosher.

03:35.160 --> 03:38.559
Katz was never kosher.
A lot of people tell me that guys come up to me

03:38.559 --> 03:41.169
and say, no, I remember before you were born
kosher.

03:41.520 --> 03:42.630
It was never kosher.

03:42.850 --> 03:44.070
Did you grow up kosher?

03:44.960 --> 03:47.229
Kind of, kind of, you know, like.

03:48.559 --> 03:51.399
Sort of pseudo kosher, you know, mixed with
Chinese food,

03:51.479 --> 03:56.770
you know, that was, that was the only thing
that we had.

03:56.779 --> 03:58.639
I grew up kosher kosher, but it's really just
habit.

03:58.720 --> 04:02.800
I, you know, I just can't even try, but I
don't really believe in it anymore.

04:03.789 --> 04:05.470
You don't. I don't need three.

04:06.809 --> 04:10.440
She always says she keeps kosher, but really
she's just a vegetarian.

04:10.690 --> 04:11.850
Is that keeping kosher?

04:12.649 --> 04:14.559
It's not like we have separate dishes or
anything.

04:16.088 --> 04:19.359
I keep trying to get her to eat treif just to
taste it.

04:20.000 --> 04:21.459
I'm pretty sure it won't kill her.

04:23.429 --> 04:25.000
Personally, I love treif.

04:25.510 --> 04:27.149
I love the very idea of treif.

04:30.820 --> 04:32.690
I mean, look at this sandwich: corned beef.

04:33.220 --> 04:34.239
Who wouldn't believe it was treif?

04:35.450 --> 04:37.010
It's a great concept, really.

04:37.739 --> 04:41.250
It's like an insider-outsider term.
You have to be insider enough to know what

04:41.250 --> 04:44.690
treif means, but to be treif is to be an
outsider.

04:45.660 --> 04:47.260
I mean, really, who gets to say what's?

04:48.140 --> 04:49.809
Who's treif?
We're all treif.

04:50.769 --> 04:52.880
And it's not just being a lesbian that makes me
treif.

04:53.660 --> 04:54.920
It's my whole worldview.

04:55.790 --> 05:00.309
It's a worldview that has its roots in Jewish
history, but it's definitely outside the Jewish

05:00.309 --> 05:01.309
mainstream.

05:26.109 --> 05:30.100
Although many Jewish housewives did kosher meat
in their homes,

05:30.390 --> 05:34.750
it was more frequent to see a Jewish mother
koshering chicken.

05:39.470 --> 05:41.000
Yeah, the film's going okay.

05:42.899 --> 05:46.890
No, we're not interviewing anybody in the
family, so don't feel left out.

05:47.260 --> 05:51.260
The film's really about Alisa and my
relationship, about being Jewish lesbians,

05:51.420 --> 05:53.220
about being secular Jews and.

05:56.170 --> 05:59.399
Mom, you just asked me a question.
Don't you want to hear the answer?

06:01.929 --> 06:05.769
My mother sent me this book in the mail last
week, Hollywood Lesbians.

06:06.089 --> 06:07.100
She read the whole thing.

06:07.329 --> 06:11.869
It's really trashy.
And on the inside there's a list in her

06:11.869 --> 06:17.029
handwriting of every woman in Hollywood ever
suspected of being a lesbian or bi.

06:18.100 --> 06:19.470
You gotta see this.

06:20.079 --> 06:23.130
She plays name the lesbian, like she plays name
the Jew.

06:23.760 --> 06:26.010
Soon she's going to be playing name the Jewish
lesbian.

06:27.149 --> 06:30.700
That would be me.
It's funny.

06:30.779 --> 06:35.019
Cynthia's mother can't say the L word, and my
mother is completely obsessed.

06:36.989 --> 06:40.059
Then again, obsession wasn't a foreign concept
to us.

06:40.589 --> 06:41.820
We grew up obsessed.

06:43.549 --> 06:44.980
Obsessed with being Jewish.

06:46.239 --> 06:47.880
Obsessed with who else was Jewish.

06:48.880 --> 06:50.609
Obsessed with who wasn't Jewish.

06:51.649 --> 06:55.929
Obsessed with who was talking about the Jews,
were there Jews on the news?

06:57.170 --> 06:59.000
Was there a Jew in the president's cabinet?

07:00.019 --> 07:02.720
We were obsessed with Israel and its welfare.

07:03.119 --> 07:04.790
We were obsessed with the Holocaust.

07:06.040 --> 07:08.329
We were obsessed with Jewish achievement.

07:08.640 --> 07:10.429
We were obsessed with who looked Jewish.

07:11.239 --> 07:14.399
We were obsessed with who changed their face to
look less Jewish.

07:16.510 --> 07:18.029
Old habits die hard.

07:18.269 --> 07:22.390
We still worry about what's good for the Jews.
It's not all we worry about,

07:22.790 --> 07:26.100
but between the two of us there's a good deal
of Jewish concern.

07:27.350 --> 07:32.730
I worry that my nieces don't identify as Jewish,
that I'm the only one of my sisters to marry a

07:32.730 --> 07:37.209
Jew.
I worry about right-wing Jewish extremists and

07:37.209 --> 07:39.010
the silence of the Jewish left.

07:40.440 --> 07:43.570
I worry that there are too many articles about
Jews in the press.

07:43.899 --> 07:45.809
Too much visibility makes me nervous.

07:46.880 --> 07:49.989
Too much visibility, too little visibility.

07:50.239 --> 07:53.950
It's always that fine line of saying enough but
not too much.

07:54.700 --> 07:57.290
You don't want to feed the fires of
anti-Semitism.

07:58.970 --> 08:01.660
But I just can't worry about whether I've said
too much.

08:02.690 --> 08:07.589
It's as Jewish to question and critique as it
is to worry about what others may think of us.

08:56.960 --> 09:00.359
When I was 5, I asked my mother why everyone
hates the Jews.

09:01.700 --> 09:05.690
She couldn't answer me, but she made sure to
tell me that we weren't supposed to hate them

09:05.690 --> 09:09.919
back.
You shouldn't hate anyone but Hitler.

09:13.289 --> 09:17.409
Hitler haunted me.
I studied his face, his greasy hair,

09:17.539 --> 09:20.169
his miserly mustache to find the key to his
appeal.

09:21.599 --> 09:24.270
All I could see was the crazed glare of a
fanatic.

09:28.159 --> 09:31.549
Hitler and I share the same birthday, April
20th.

09:33.239 --> 09:37.479
Think about what that might do to a little
Jewish girl at the Solomon Schechter Hebrew Day

09:37.479 --> 09:43.700
School.
When I was 12, I received the

09:43.700 --> 09:46.409
Encyclopedia of Who's Who in Nazi Germany.

09:47.929 --> 09:52.559
The inscription read To Alisa Happy bat mitzvah.

09:53.590 --> 09:55.539
In memory of the 6 million who died.

09:59.190 --> 10:01.299
German products never tainted my house.

10:02.250 --> 10:06.340
Polish was a forbidden language, and I was
taught never to forget.

10:07.450 --> 10:08.590
It could happen again.

10:15.900 --> 10:18.880
The Holocaust formed the bedrock of my Jewish
identity.

10:19.409 --> 10:24.159
In this conflation of anti-Semitism and
genocide, there was no way to feel safe.

10:27.750 --> 10:32.979
My irrational fear when I see Jews living in
unassimilated communities makes no sense.

10:33.630 --> 10:36.909
If anything, the Holocaust taught that
regardless of how we dressed,

10:36.989 --> 10:40.789
how we looked, or how we identified, we were
marked as Jews.

10:49.460 --> 10:53.900
As a direct response to the Holocaust, my
parents taught us to love being Jewish with a

10:53.900 --> 10:58.559
vengeance.
The survival of Jewish culture depended on us.

11:00.159 --> 11:01.520
We had plenty of options.

11:02.270 --> 11:08.719
We could love Israel, Hebrew, Yiddish, food,
nostalgia, God.

11:11.989 --> 11:13.799
My parents chose God.

11:14.190 --> 11:17.500
They went all the way, raising me and my three
sisters orthodox.

11:18.700 --> 11:21.409
Not Hasidic but Ashkenazi Orthodox.

11:24.349 --> 11:29.510
We learned a hybrid form of modern Judaism,
enjoying the newfangled pleasures of faking

11:29.510 --> 11:33.669
bacon, kosher Chinese food, and non-dairy ice
cream.

11:35.150 --> 11:40.270
On Shabis, when it's forbidden to use
electricity, the automatic timer promptly

11:40.270 --> 11:43.270
turned the TV on so we could watch our favorite
shows.

11:45.700 --> 11:48.450
There are things I used to love about going to
synagogue.

11:48.940 --> 11:54.099
I loved the Eastern European melodies of the
prayers, the mesmerizing litany of the weekly

11:54.099 --> 11:58.369
Torah portion.
But I hated having to sit in the women's

11:58.369 --> 12:00.039
section behind the curtain.

12:00.539 --> 12:02.840
I wanted to be the one chanting the Torah.

12:03.890 --> 12:07.520
This became less of an issue once I could
understand the Hebrew words.

12:08.130 --> 12:09.570
Then I couldn't pray at all.

12:10.559 --> 12:13.520
When I was 14, I stopped believing in God.

12:16.200 --> 12:19.349
The Judaism I learned had no real place for
someone like me.

12:20.890 --> 12:24.599
And the feminist revisions of Judaism must have
reached me too late,

12:25.000 --> 12:29.190
you know, celebrating the four mothers, using
feminine pronouns,

12:29.400 --> 12:32.890
putting an orange on the seder plate, they
never really grabbed me.

12:35.609 --> 12:39.109
I was committed to my Jewish outsiderness from
an early age,

12:39.440 --> 12:44.789
willingly accepting the orthodox ultimatum, all
or nothing at all.

12:45.320 --> 12:46.909
I chose nothing at all.

12:47.599 --> 12:49.460
Nothing religious.
That is.

12:52.109 --> 12:53.460
I'm not religious either.

12:54.469 --> 12:56.219
I go to synagogue once in a while.

12:57.179 --> 12:59.070
But I always feel a little out of place.

13:03.789 --> 13:06.859
But sometimes I just want to see how it was
done in the old country.

13:09.260 --> 13:16.260
In Brooklyn, I'm in the Babo synagogue up in the
women's gallery.

13:17.390 --> 13:19.909
The men put on a play here every year for Purim.

13:20.710 --> 13:27.710
It's all in Yiddish, so I don't understand a
thing, but it was a good event to

13:27.710 --> 13:30.380
come to because it means I'm not the only one
in costume.

13:33.309 --> 13:37.789
I fantasized about donning a dark suit with a
white shirt and trying to pass as a yeshiva

13:37.789 --> 13:44.539
booker.
If I had come here as a

13:44.539 --> 13:48.900
man, I could have caroused and danced and
fondled with the rest of them.

13:49.840 --> 13:52.229
But I couldn't have spied as inconspicuously.

13:57.450 --> 14:00.880
Standing with the women, I still look like I'm
in drag,

14:01.369 --> 14:04.929
barely passing as male or female, not at all as
a Jew.

14:06.630 --> 14:08.419
I wish Cynthia had come with me.

14:09.010 --> 14:12.679
At least they would have been able to tell she
was Jewish and female if nothing else.

14:14.750 --> 14:17.429
I'm sure we wouldn't have been the first
lesbians up here.

14:18.919 --> 14:20.070
But she would never come.

14:21.190 --> 14:26.619
She hates how I exoticize the ultra Orthodox
field work in the wilds of Borough Park.

14:47.190 --> 14:51.280
The closer I get to these traditional
communities, the more resolved I feel about

14:51.280 --> 14:52.479
being a secular Jew.

14:53.659 --> 14:59.559
I love some of the rituals, but I'd rather
practice them in my own unorthodox ways.

15:00.840 --> 15:00.849
Mhm

15:09.570 --> 15:15.880
No, no, no, Cynthia, Cynthia, look, look, look,
Cynthia, look over here,

15:16.000 --> 15:19.309
look, so you gotta purse your lips.
Put the look.

15:22.500 --> 15:27.559
You got it?
I'm not Jewish.

15:27.869 --> 15:31.020
I try this.
I always wanted to do this in public.

15:36.669 --> 15:37.700
You go, girl.

16:21.479 --> 16:28.239
To be suitable for use as a shofar, the horn
must come from an animal which is kosher,

16:28.820 --> 16:31.969
although a cow or a bull is a kosher animal.

16:32.619 --> 16:35.359
Its horn is not suitable for a shofar.

16:43.289 --> 16:45.369
My parents were not raised with money.

16:46.559 --> 16:51.719
Once they had some, they embraced middle-class
values so completely that I never had to

16:51.719 --> 16:55.429
question my rightful place in the affluent
suburbs where I was raised.

16:56.710 --> 16:58.260
We moved to Long Island.

16:58.789 --> 17:02.469
My relatives stay in the Bronx challenging the
myth of the wealthy Jew.

17:04.290 --> 17:07.219
In the suburbs, Jewish life was a new
construction.

17:08.779 --> 17:10.418
We had Jewish summer camp.

17:13.319 --> 17:14.829
Jewish swim meets.

17:17.079 --> 17:18.199
Jewish soccer.

17:21.578 --> 17:22.848
Jewish sisterhood.

17:26.750 --> 17:31.410
Jewish surgery, yeah.

17:32.780 --> 17:34.699
And then there was the activism.

17:35.569 --> 17:39.930
We had always heard that Jews were
disproportionately represented in all the major

17:39.930 --> 17:42.000
social justice movements of the day.

17:43.089 --> 17:46.819
We were proud of that fact, but we didn't know
any Jews like them.

17:47.790 --> 17:53.189
Jewish issues rarely made it onto the left's
agenda, and anti-Semitism just wasn't a

17:53.189 --> 17:54.660
political priority.

17:55.069 --> 18:01.229
So if you were concerned with the fate of the
Jews, you had to make other arrangements while

18:01.229 --> 18:05.180
others burned the bra, boycotted the buses.

18:06.270 --> 18:09.300
Ban the bomb and dodge the draft.

18:10.709 --> 18:12.109
We march for Jews.

18:13.520 --> 18:20.119
Soviet Jews, poor unfortunate Jews, Jews in
Israel, plant a tree in

18:20.119 --> 18:21.119
Israel.

18:34.979 --> 18:41.189
How I

18:48.079 --> 18:55.069
In my house, it

18:55.069 --> 18:57.180
was Israel above all else.

18:57.459 --> 19:02.219
Growing up, I had no idea that the Israeli Day
parade wasn't an official Jewish holiday.

19:04.589 --> 19:06.859
My parents met at a Labor Zionist meeting.

19:07.349 --> 19:12.430
My grandmother emigrated to Israel in her 50s,
and before I had been anywhere else in the

19:12.430 --> 19:15.000
world, I had been to Israel three times.

19:17.329 --> 19:24.290
Like thousands of American Jews, many
of my rites of passage happened in

19:24.290 --> 19:29.520
Israel.
I learned to swim in the Red Sea.

19:32.239 --> 19:35.030
I stuffed prayer notes in the crevices of the
Western Wall.

19:38.199 --> 19:42.430
I kissed a woman for the first time in the
Golan Heights before I knew what occupied

19:42.430 --> 19:43.650
territory really meant.

19:49.729 --> 19:51.780
But I haven't been back since I was 16.

19:52.619 --> 19:56.560
I know I won't be able to go there with the
same carefree attitude that I used to.

20:00.920 --> 20:05.449
I just can't seem to reconcile the Israel I was
raised on with the one I see today.

20:07.989 --> 20:11.650
Mhm, I loved Israel.

20:12.390 --> 20:17.319
I believed in it.
These days, I've lost my idealism for Zionism.

20:19.300 --> 20:21.109
I'm too aware of its casualties.

20:25.189 --> 20:29.079
But anti-Zionism still seems like a dangerous
cover for anti-Semitism.

20:31.650 --> 20:35.890
Rather than confront this emotional crisis,
I've avoided Israel at all costs.

20:41.420 --> 20:43.160
At least I did until I met Cynthia.

20:44.140 --> 20:45.530
She's always wanted to take me there.

20:47.010 --> 20:51.010
She lived in Jerusalem for 10 years and loves
the city despite its flaws.

20:54.229 --> 20:57.640
At times, she still imagines herself living
there, fighting for peace.

20:58.949 --> 21:03.079
I'm all for peace, but the idea of living there
makes me cringe.

21:05.560 --> 21:07.430
It's a constant tension between us.

21:08.209 --> 21:13.959
The irony is not lost on me that we met on
Passover, and she still asks me year after year

21:13.959 --> 21:16.920
if maybe next year we'll be in Jerusalem.

21:43.349 --> 21:44.790
You seemed tense.

21:46.250 --> 21:47.680
Jerusalem makes me nervous.

21:48.329 --> 21:50.400
I don't like being around so many religious
people.

21:51.839 --> 21:54.339
It's definitely gotten more religious since I
lived here,

21:55.069 --> 21:56.819
but it's still an amazing city.

21:57.310 --> 22:00.069
It's full of fanatics.
Eh, don't be so cranky,

22:00.150 --> 22:01.219
you know it's beautiful.

22:04.459 --> 22:07.650
You want to move back, don't you?
I just want to take you around.

22:08.469 --> 22:11.300
I've been here before, but you haven't seen
where I lived.

22:12.000 --> 22:14.709
I know you're not going to take me to the 15
apartments you lived in.

22:15.119 --> 22:17.310
Hey, I'm just going to take you to my favorite
ones.

22:20.030 --> 22:22.060
You lived in a Hasidic neighborhood.

22:22.380 --> 22:23.650
You never told me that.

22:23.979 --> 22:25.150
Why did you live here?

22:25.380 --> 22:26.489
It was cheap.

22:26.819 --> 22:29.640
It was in the center of town and it was
convenient.

22:30.180 --> 22:33.300
As far as they were concerned, we were
completely invisible.

22:53.390 --> 22:54.900
Lovely, a bunker.

22:58.040 --> 23:00.630
This is the first house I ever lived in with a
girlfriend.

23:01.000 --> 23:04.150
I think the only reason they let us live here
was because we weren't living with men.

23:04.800 --> 23:08.140
We used to have these really, really wild
lesbian parties here.

23:25.530 --> 23:30.160
You were really out as a lesbian when you lived
here as much as anyone was out in Jerusalem,

23:30.329 --> 23:31.640
which wasn't very much.

23:36.849 --> 23:39.359
What's this?
Oh, this is new.

23:40.089 --> 23:41.760
It wasn't here when I lived here.

23:42.050 --> 23:46.319
It's the Jewish National Fund celebrating the
Israeli occupation of this neighborhood.

23:46.569 --> 23:48.290
The Jewish National Fund.

23:48.910 --> 23:50.530
I thought they just planted trees.

23:52.349 --> 23:54.859
This is my favorite house that I lived in in
Jerusalem.

23:55.030 --> 23:57.390
I used to live on the 2nd floor up in the
balcony.

23:58.479 --> 24:01.010
I could see all the way to the desert from my
window.

24:01.510 --> 24:03.430
None of these other houses were here.

24:05.030 --> 24:06.530
Is this your favorite neighborhood?

24:06.780 --> 24:08.630
No, I don't think I'd want to live here again.

24:08.900 --> 24:11.130
Nao is where I'd want to live if we moved here.

24:11.540 --> 24:14.750
Why?
It's the closest thing to guilt-free Jerusalem.

24:14.859 --> 24:17.859
What are you talking about?
Wasn't this a Sephardic neighborhood until

24:17.859 --> 24:20.050
American Jews came and drove the prices up?

24:20.619 --> 24:24.540
Yeah, but it's still one of the few
neighborhoods in Jerusalem that's always been

24:24.540 --> 24:27.670
Jewish.
It looks like a shtetl.

24:28.729 --> 24:29.810
We're not moving here.

24:42.930 --> 24:43.930
No.

24:54.369 --> 24:57.010
Thank you.
I

25:08.219 --> 25:09.910
Yeah, no.

25:16.949 --> 25:22.489
I've been wandering the streets of my favorite
neighborhoods, taking in the vast Jerusalem sky.

25:23.550 --> 25:25.560
The light here is so incredible.

25:28.020 --> 25:31.410
I still have close friends living here and
although we've all changed,

25:31.500 --> 25:32.569
they're like family.

25:33.489 --> 25:36.199
I love being able to call them up and meet for
coffee.

25:38.410 --> 25:43.000
I can imagine myself reconnecting with the
small but vocal group of feminists who are

25:43.000 --> 25:45.709
fighting the government's reactionary policies.

25:47.510 --> 25:50.989
I am lulled into thinking I could slip back
into my old life again,

25:51.339 --> 25:52.770
that Alisa could join me.

25:55.000 --> 25:56.910
And then the reality sets in.

25:57.619 --> 26:00.439
The signs of expansionism are ubiquitous.

26:00.930 --> 26:05.569
The elastic borders of West Jerusalem
stretching into Palestinian territory.

26:07.540 --> 26:11.089
The uprooted olive groves replaced with
settlements.

26:13.030 --> 26:15.760
The erasure of Arabic on the street signs.

26:16.829 --> 26:18.489
The checkpoint apartheid.

26:22.500 --> 26:24.560
I don't think I could ever live here again.

26:26.680 --> 26:31.040
Fundamentally, I have a problem with the
exclusionary practice of the Jewish right of

26:31.040 --> 26:37.709
return.
It may be fair to say, but as a

26:37.709 --> 26:40.310
Jew, I can't find my place here anymore.

26:42.609 --> 26:43.800
I just want to leave.

26:45.270 --> 26:48.890
But when I get back to New York, I know I'll
miss Jerusalem,

26:49.250 --> 26:51.900
not the politics, but the place.

27:00.010 --> 27:01.280
I've got to get out of here.

27:03.069 --> 27:06.709
Everything looks strangely the same as I
remember, but it feels different to me.

27:07.719 --> 27:11.319
The intifada made me notice dynamics that may
have always been present,

27:11.449 --> 27:12.959
but I used to be able to ignore.

27:14.280 --> 27:17.949
Now I see Israelis coming to the old city armed
to the teeth.

27:18.849 --> 27:23.589
The Jewish presence inside these stone walls
has a violent, intrusive quality.

27:25.369 --> 27:27.770
Young Palestinian boys are openly hostile.

27:29.020 --> 27:30.449
There are no saints here.

27:33.010 --> 27:34.609
I can't stand the tension.

27:35.239 --> 27:39.959
People fighting over this tiny piece of land
using ancient mythology as proof of their claim.

27:42.550 --> 27:43.869
There's constant turmoil.

27:45.000 --> 27:47.199
Something's always just about to erupt.

27:48.359 --> 27:50.869
Yet somehow Jerusalem is on millennial time.

27:51.880 --> 27:53.750
Nothing ever really changes.

27:56.150 --> 28:02.130
After three months here, every building, every
stone, every construction site reminds me of

28:02.130 --> 28:06.839
the occupation.
I'm always angry.

28:07.380 --> 28:09.739
I can't believe some of the things I've been
hearing.

28:14.060 --> 28:15.819
We met this American woman the other day.

28:16.709 --> 28:22.869
She came to Israel on a tour, found God, and
was recruited to live on a settlement by some

28:22.869 --> 28:24.250
right-wing vigilantes.

28:24.630 --> 28:26.790
She bought their whole story hook, line, and
sinker.

28:27.630 --> 28:33.140
She was actually quoting scripture to us about
how Jews belonged in Judea and Samaria.

28:33.910 --> 28:35.859
Of course she'd never call it the West Bank.

28:37.949 --> 28:40.310
The names you call things here are always
political.

28:42.719 --> 28:45.750
She invited us to visit her on the house on the
settlement.

28:46.560 --> 28:48.869
We were curious, but more than a little nervous.

28:49.479 --> 28:53.800
We'd been back and forth on these roads before,
visiting Palestinian friends in Ramallah.

28:55.000 --> 28:58.989
But suddenly we were horrified by the thought
of being mistaken for settlers as we drove

28:58.989 --> 29:03.030
through the West Bank.
Roll sound speed.

29:04.030 --> 29:06.550
Uh, illegal settlement, take one.

29:18.319 --> 29:22.949
According to international law, Israel is
prohibited from building settlements on land

29:22.949 --> 29:27.489
taken in the '67 war. Roll. Speed.

29:28.439 --> 29:31.000
Illegal settlement number 22.

29:32.650 --> 29:33.650
Mark.

29:42.050 --> 29:45.479
It's amazing to me how many of the settlers are
Americans.

29:45.599 --> 29:50.010
It's like they've transferred the American
pioneering spirit to the Wild West Bank.

29:57.010 --> 29:59.609
All these shos are different.
They all have a different flavor,

29:59.650 --> 30:00.839
a different character.

30:02.010 --> 30:07.130
Shilo, Shilo's very laid back, and that appeals
to me because I'm California laid back and I

30:07.130 --> 30:09.849
like that.
On the other hand, things don't move too fast

30:09.849 --> 30:15.540
in Shilo.
I think one thing that's very interesting is

30:15.540 --> 30:22.229
that Americans have, I think, an attitude that I
think we were raised with

30:22.229 --> 30:25.260
this: we can conquer the world, we can do
anything.

30:25.630 --> 30:29.219
And, uh, look, you guys drove through Ramallah
with a car without protected windows.

30:29.270 --> 30:32.949
I don't know that others will do things like
that as much as Americans do.

30:33.109 --> 30:38.180
Americans have an I-can-do-it attitude, which
is, you know,

30:38.670 --> 30:43.469
wonderful, and I think that because of
that attitude is why I picked up and left my my

30:43.469 --> 30:44.589
life there and came here.

30:45.510 --> 30:47.540
Illegal settlement number 26.

30:55.589 --> 30:58.780
Illegal settlement number 67, Mark.

31:09.180 --> 31:11.369
She asked us if we wanted to spend Shabbat with
her.

31:12.339 --> 31:16.640
And when we told her we had to go home in a few
days, she looked at us sincerely and said,

31:17.680 --> 31:18.719
You are home.

31:21.109 --> 31:22.650
It's definitely time to leave.

31:27.250 --> 31:29.849
Illegal settlement number 149.

31:36.579 --> 31:37.579
So

32:25.719 --> 32:30.800
This entire country is one big memorial site
full of martyrs and monuments.

32:32.979 --> 32:37.839
Israel was supposed to be our safe haven, the
dream that would alleviate the anti-Semitic

32:37.839 --> 32:39.329
nightmares of the past.

32:41.839 --> 32:43.500
And in some ways it has.

32:43.790 --> 32:47.150
Jewish culture thrives here like no place else
in the world.

32:48.750 --> 32:50.949
Yet the siege mentality continues.

32:52.959 --> 32:56.880
The threat is real, but it's not only external.

32:59.010 --> 33:01.880
We were at the peace rally where Rabin was
assassinated.

33:03.069 --> 33:07.739
Even at that moment, I knew the shooting wasn't
the random act of a madman.

33:08.290 --> 33:12.109
He was part of an organized, aggressive, and
visible faction.

33:13.459 --> 33:15.709
Knowing this only deepened my despair.

33:17.160 --> 33:23.739
I kept asking myself over and over, what could
possibly make a Jew kill the prime minister

33:24.310 --> 33:26.219
in order to stop peace.

33:31.319 --> 33:32.469
Never forget.

33:34.010 --> 33:36.400
What is it, again, we forgot to remember?

34:33.360 --> 34:37.199
No, I'm not moving back to Jerusalem.
I was so relieved to come home to New York.

34:39.399 --> 34:40.800
No, we've been really busy.

34:42.939 --> 34:45.780
We're making all this food for this big shoot
coming up.

34:49.110 --> 34:51.360
Yeah, we've invited like 100 women to it.

34:52.860 --> 34:55.389
It's gonna be like a big party, like a kiddush.

34:57.260 --> 35:01.699
No, Mom, the women who are coming are lesbians.
They're all Jewish lesbians.

35:01.739 --> 35:02.939
I've told you that.

35:20.409 --> 35:22.620
Hey girls, it's Rahula.
How are you?

35:22.770 --> 35:26.290
I can't come to your shoot this weekend, and I
hope that doesn't mean there's not going to be

35:26.290 --> 35:28.120
any working class dykes there.

35:28.449 --> 35:31.330
So anyway, call me and let me know how it goes.
I love you madly,

35:31.370 --> 35:38.370
bye.
Hi, this

35:38.370 --> 35:40.419
is Deb Schwartz.
Um, I'm calling.

35:40.689 --> 35:45.600
I got a message about the film and, um, I'm
totally interested.

35:45.770 --> 35:50.280
I don't know, like, what you're looking for.
Like, I'm not super Jewish,

35:50.689 --> 35:53.370
um, I don't know if that's like a criteria
you're using,

35:53.449 --> 35:59.169
like how Jewish, but anyway, I'm interested, so
let me know what's up,

35:59.290 --> 36:00.409
give me a call back, bye.

36:05.149 --> 36:07.489
Hi Lisa, this is Harriet returning your call.

36:08.010 --> 36:12.739
Um, well, your film sounds really interesting,
and I would love to participate.

36:12.870 --> 36:17.989
However, I, uh, while I'm a Jew and a lesbian,
I've never really seen myself as a Jewish

36:17.989 --> 36:23.310
lesbian, but, um, why don't we talk more about
it and you let me know what it is I really need

36:23.310 --> 36:24.310
to do.

36:31.659 --> 36:33.879
Hi Cynthia and Alisa, it's just Shana.

36:34.370 --> 36:39.290
I'm calling to say that I'm unfortunately not
going to be able to come to the shoot and I'm

36:39.290 --> 36:45.330
really upset about it because, um, the idea of
being there with 75 other Jewish lesbians is

36:45.330 --> 36:50.189
quite mind blowing and never ever happened in
my life or I guess any of our lives.

36:50.669 --> 36:56.310
Um, and also I wanted to check in with you to
find out whether you had any luck in finding

36:56.310 --> 36:59.360
any, um, Sephardic lesbians to take part.

36:59.870 --> 37:03.850
Um, so if you want to talk more about that,
call me,

37:03.979 --> 37:10.889
bye.
Hi, this message is for Cynthia.

37:10.929 --> 37:15.090
This is Naomi Silver.
Um, I got a call that you're doing a film,

37:15.239 --> 37:21.570
and, um, I, I don't identify primarily as a
lesbian, identify as a bisexual woman and

37:22.239 --> 37:26.659
I really want to make sure that there's going
to be bisexual issues represented before I

37:26.659 --> 37:31.429
commit to doing this, um, because that's that's
really important to me.

37:31.580 --> 37:36.810
So my number is 222-389-1, and I'd appreciate a
call back.

37:37.100 --> 37:43.669
Thank you.
This is Fran

37:43.669 --> 37:46.379
Drescher ready and willing to be of assistance.

37:46.699 --> 37:48.260
Call me, let me know what to do.

37:58.020 --> 38:01.629
And cookies.
We have enough wine?

38:01.760 --> 38:03.590
I've got a couple more bottles in the back.

38:04.479 --> 38:05.879
Oh, I think we need coffee.

38:07.989 --> 38:09.739
Oh, it looks beautiful.

38:10.510 --> 38:11.590
I think that's everything.

38:21.830 --> 38:23.899
And you got to be aware
of this.

38:32.820 --> 38:34.530
What the famous say.

38:37.500 --> 38:37.949
And

38:44.909 --> 38:51.879
He asked,
Melanie, what do you think a

38:51.879 --> 38:54.590
secular Jewish lesbian space would look like?

38:54.909 --> 38:59.520
Well, a secular Jewish lesbian space might look
something like this place where this film is

38:59.520 --> 39:04.879
being made, even though it's an ex-synagogue,
right, simply because it's filled with Jewish

39:04.879 --> 39:09.695
lesbians setting the rules, given that
it's hard to find the issues that are

39:09.695 --> 39:13.135
specifically Jewish lesbian issues, and in a
way, when the world is falling apart,

39:13.225 --> 39:17.425
why would you find those small specific issues?
You want to find the issues that join you

39:17.425 --> 39:22.604
together, but the price you pay sometimes is
invisibility or that it's hard for us to find

39:22.604 --> 39:24.205
or even recognize each other.

39:28.129 --> 39:31.209
Fran, do you really think of yourself as traitor?

39:31.770 --> 39:34.040
Well, being different would make me rethink.

39:35.070 --> 39:38.260
It doesn't make me gentile, but it does make me
rethink.

39:38.949 --> 39:42.780
I'm not following what is the usual thing,
having family.

39:43.840 --> 39:46.929
Being married, perpetuating the race.

39:48.010 --> 39:50.979
It's a big crime, yeah.

39:52.709 --> 39:56.699
Risa, are you more out as a Jew or as a lesbian?

39:57.260 --> 40:00.080
It's kind of funny because I feel like I'm very
out as a lesbian.

40:00.139 --> 40:02.219
I'm out at work.
I'm out publicly.

40:02.260 --> 40:09.169
I'm out in all kinds of ways, but I have a lot
more sense of when I kind of go

40:09.169 --> 40:13.729
in about being a lesbian, when I kind of hold
it inside,

40:13.810 --> 40:16.850
and I don't think I can do that with being
Jewish.

40:18.699 --> 40:23.860
Sometimes I feel like I really come of two
people and I'm really born of the Jewish people

40:23.860 --> 40:29.489
and of some queer people, and it's like two
streams, and sometimes I feel like,

40:30.129 --> 40:34.250
well, I'm a lesbian the way I'm a Jew. I want to
be as a lesbian,

40:34.320 --> 40:36.389
and the way I'm a lesbian I want to be as a.

40:47.389 --> 40:51.929
Oh yeah.

40:53.800 --> 41:00.560
with you.
Alexa, what's

41:00.560 --> 41:03.389
Jewish about you?
What's Jewish about me?

41:04.360 --> 41:06.350
I don't know.
I'm not circumcised.

41:07.969 --> 41:13.830
I was excommunicated by a tribunal of Hasidic
rabbis, so I

41:14.040 --> 41:18.030
no, I have a pintalay, you know, my soul is
Jewish.

41:21.929 --> 41:27.139
I have no idea what being Sephardic means in
terms of growing up as a Sephardic Jew.

41:27.570 --> 41:33.820
I know that my family is of Sephardic origins.
I did not really know much about Sephardic

41:33.820 --> 41:37.909
culture until a few years ago, probably 10
years ago.

41:38.830 --> 41:45.510
Um, 10 years ago I worked on a project, uh, a
radio project that was examining both

41:45.510 --> 41:52.189
Palestinian and Israeli culture, and that was
really the first time that I really saw what

41:52.189 --> 41:53.669
Sephara culture was about.

41:56.090 --> 42:02.929
The women in my family who have been rumored to
have had relationships with women have all been

42:02.929 --> 42:08.570
on my Jewish side, including my great
grandmother, and that's been kind of the legacy

42:08.570 --> 42:13.919
I think that I have inherited in some way
unwittingly from my mother.

42:16.379 --> 42:19.040
I didn't come out until about 10 years ago.

42:19.649 --> 42:22.620
I was aware I was a lesbian 50 years ago.

42:23.449 --> 42:27.959
It was a different, a different menu.
It was a different behavior.

42:29.060 --> 42:30.090
We were secretive.

42:30.300 --> 42:34.250
Uh, you could spot one lesbian from another.
I went to an all girls school.

42:34.580 --> 42:41.100
God bless Hunter College, and, uh, you just knew
by word of mouth and by behavior and people

42:41.100 --> 42:45.520
communicated.
And you were hidden, and I was hidden most of

42:45.520 --> 42:51.760
my life.
Karen, how do you feel about going out with

42:51.760 --> 42:54.040
Jewish women?
It's a hard question, Cynthia,

42:54.199 --> 42:56.510
because I don't go out with very many Jewish
women.

43:00.100 --> 43:02.159
I, I always think that's my ideal.

43:02.409 --> 43:06.489
I always say, you know, in terms of a long term
relationship, I really want to be with a Jewish

43:06.489 --> 43:13.129
woman, but when push comes to shove somehow I,
I always end up not going out with Jewish woman.

43:15.959 --> 43:21.699
College is the women's division of Yeshiva
University, and I attended Stern College.

43:22.590 --> 43:26.639
Eventually I was thrown out of the dormitory.
It was my 2nd excommunication.

43:27.340 --> 43:32.600
For sleeping with too many girls, so a lot of
we actually formed a sorority,

43:32.800 --> 43:37.520
Sigma Gamma Beta, which was stern gang bang,
and those were all the women who actually

43:37.520 --> 43:41.439
became lesbians.
But there were many others who are now happily

43:41.439 --> 43:45.429
married straight Jewish housewives and members
of Hadassah.

43:46.399 --> 43:47.669
We had a good time there.

43:50.300 --> 43:54.189
All the radical history that has been all the
Jewish history,

43:54.300 --> 44:00.860
all the lesbian history, there have been Jewish
lesbians, not always out as lesbians or out as

44:00.860 --> 44:05.379
Jews, but they've been a part of that history
and you have people like Lillian Wald or Rose

44:05.379 --> 44:10.689
Schneiderman who are part of the labor movement
or the reform movement early in the century,

44:11.229 --> 44:17.699
um, who were not particularly visible as Jews
and were reasonably closeted as lesbians.

44:18.219 --> 44:21.639
So there's a whole history that goes back and
then more recently,

44:21.770 --> 44:26.000
Even if you look at the history of the New Left
or of the women's movement,

44:26.129 --> 44:30.530
um, tons of Jewish participation, tons of
Jewish lesbian participation.

44:32.790 --> 44:35.370
And I

45:41.120 --> 45:42.120
No, no, no.

45:54.330 --> 45:55.909
I know exactly what I would like.

45:56.320 --> 46:00.020
I want pastrami, salmon, and cream cheese on a
bagel.

46:00.520 --> 46:02.600
What kind of bagel do you like? Sesame.

46:10.110 --> 46:13.989
You want cream cheese and plain scallion, no
plain.

46:18.350 --> 46:21.750
And yeah, where is he?

46:25.300 --> 46:28.219
Give me a quarter of that baked salmon, but I
want something soft.

46:28.260 --> 46:34.580
You know what? I'm eating that that, uh, yeah, I
wanna see if this is any good.

46:36.530 --> 46:42.800
I'll take a quarter. OK, what else?

46:45.110 --> 46:47.689
I'd like 3 N sardines, please.

46:52.810 --> 46:54.000
OK, what else?

46:54.290 --> 46:57.199
And have a pound of whitefish salad. OK.

47:15.830 --> 47:19.850
Dear see, now it's my turn to take you on a
trip.

47:21.870 --> 47:25.610
To the land of our grandparents, to the streets
of our roots,

47:25.750 --> 47:28.179
to the ancient and haunting bond between us.

47:31.399 --> 47:33.790
Your eyes remind me so much of my bubby.

47:34.739 --> 47:38.189
The sloping outer rim dipping down in Hamish
sympathy.

47:39.290 --> 47:41.399
I want to tell you how much you are home to me.

47:42.370 --> 47:43.899
Somehow a home I never had.

47:45.090 --> 47:47.629
A tenement apartment with a bath down the hall.

47:48.810 --> 47:50.469
Laundry hanging in the alley.

47:51.050 --> 47:53.889
Neighbors arguing over who turned the light off
on Shabbos.

47:57.580 --> 48:00.229
You're the pushcart seller's wife who always
caught my eye.

48:02.679 --> 48:05.770
The woman in the notion store who saved the
best buttons for me.

48:07.939 --> 48:10.780
The new girl on the shop floor who made my
heart leap.

48:13.060 --> 48:17.239
And my best friend, who I only got to see at
Tuesday night English class at the Workman's

48:17.239 --> 48:22.239
Circle.
You are the memory that I've only ever imagined.

48:22.969 --> 48:26.820
The shtetl transplant that I revisit now in the
cafes of the East Village.

48:27.929 --> 48:30.409
But for us it's more than just a hip
neighborhood to live in.

48:31.389 --> 48:35.179
The Lower East Side is the closest thing to a
heritage that we have in this country.

48:36.399 --> 48:39.080
There's nothing I love more than walking these
streets with you.

48:48.040 --> 48:52.510
Dear, don't be so nostalgic.
You're making me cry,

48:53.239 --> 48:55.280
and really there's not that much to cry about.

48:56.020 --> 48:58.090
You know your grandparents had it hard here.

48:58.840 --> 49:02.989
They had no love for the lopsided buildings,
the leaky ceilings,

49:03.100 --> 49:04.830
the non-existent boilers.

49:06.020 --> 49:08.610
They couldn't wait to escape to a better life.

49:10.459 --> 49:12.159
And mine didn't even settle here.

49:12.409 --> 49:15.919
The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society sent them
straight to Chicago,

49:16.090 --> 49:18.760
where there was a need for cheap, exploitable
labor.

49:20.570 --> 49:25.800
How would they react if they could see us, the
second generation products of their relative

49:25.800 --> 49:29.129
success, romanticizing our working class roots.

49:31.649 --> 49:35.550
And I don't even want to imagine what life must
have been like for Jewish lesbians.

49:37.889 --> 49:43.129
My nostalgia is less for the shtetl we produced
here on New York's Lower East Side than for its

49:43.129 --> 49:47.870
thriving political Jewish culture, for the
commies, the radicals,

49:47.969 --> 49:49.129
the renegades.

49:51.060 --> 49:56.949
I wish I was a red diaper baby marching on the
front lines with Jewish activists like Emma

49:56.949 --> 50:00.879
Goldman, Pauline Newman, and Rose Schneiderman.

50:01.689 --> 50:06.280
It's these women who let me know it's okay to be
outspoken, lesbian,

50:06.479 --> 50:08.050
Jewish, secular.

50:09.830 --> 50:12.179
You and I have a place in Jewish history.

50:13.300 --> 50:16.070
trai as we may be, we're not the only ones.

50:17.330 --> 50:18.959
There are a lot of us out there.

51:08.030 --> 51:10.300
This is the end of the film strip.

51:11.040 --> 51:12.360
We hope you enjoyed it.