Rabbi or Filmmaker? Sermon or Cinema? presented by Judith Helfand (Multi-access Tish)

Rabbi or Filmmaker? Sermon or Cinema? presented by Judith Helfand

That was the question Judith Helfand, SAJ member since 2023, asked herself as she lurched between two callings and two very different ways of communicating her Jewish values. She chose the path of independent non-fiction filmmaker [to her mom’s relief?].

Naturally, or ironically, one of the most important tools a rabbi has when they want to speak directly to the hearts of their congregants — THE POWER OF “I”, which is the same one documentary filmmakers use, especially Judith.

Four decades after Helfand made the decision to move to Greenwich Village, go to NYU and study documentary, she’s best known for her openhearted, artfully self-deprecating and radically transparent approach to first-person non-fiction storytelling, balancing humor and horror to translate and explore her biggest concerns — which she knows all too personally. One generation is knowingly poisoning the next or, ‘la dor va dor” in the time of teratogenic [can cross the placenta] toxic chemical carcinogenic exposure.

Did Judith make the right choice? Is her cinematic pulpit working?

In this Tish, Judith will review how well her thesis has come to pass by sharing excerpts from her 1997 Peabody Award Winning first, first-person film, A HEALTHY BABY GIRL [a DES Cancer Daughters’ Video Diary of “Wonder Drugs and Rude Awakenings”], her 2018/19 feature COOKED: SURVIVAL BY ZIP CODE [asking was it the heat, the poverty, the racism or the intersection of all three that killed 739 people over the course of one hot week in Chicago in 1995?]  and her 10–minute 2014 NYT Op-Doc LOVE & STUFF [by way of CHEZ HELFAND HOSPICE where Judith and her two older brothers are determined to help their mom who is dying from terminal colon cancer “live the best death” possible. (And then, after the pain and solace of shiva, they will go through all her stuff].

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Multi-access Tishes are held at 9:00 a.m. ET on Shabbat in the SAJ Social Hall in person and also can be attended using the Zoom room listed below.

SAJ members often arrive 10 minutes early at the Social Hall and on Zoom to enjoy schmoozing.

Tish Zoom Room:

• https://zoom.us/j/964139778
• Meeting ID: 964 139 778

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