Lessons Learned

By C.J. Hirschfield

This meme regarding the controversial teaching of critical race theory in schools showed up in my Facebook feed this week: “If black and brown children are old enough to experience racism, white children are old enough to learn about it.”

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IRMI—An Interesting Life, Indeed

By C.J. Hirschfield

When the feature documentary Word is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives was released in 1977, it rocked my world. I already loved documentaries, but this one–widely considered to be the first feature film about lesbian and gay identity–by gay people, quickly became a symbol of the emerging gay rights movement. I was living in glorious San Francisco at the time, where the film premiered at the Castro Theater. Directed by six people collectively known as the Mariposa Group, it took five years, and over two hundred interviews with gays, to complete the historic project.

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CINEGOGUE SUMMER DAYS

By Gary Meyer

For year people have asked where my house of worship was and my answer has always been, “In a movie theater.”Screen Shot 2020-07-17 at 6.55.44 PMAnd for 40 years the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival has been bringing people together—those who belong to a synagogue, the unaffiliated and everybody else interested in fascinating stories, social justice discussions, and often controversial narrative and documentary movies from around the globe.

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JOAN NATHAN’S RECIPES FROM KING SOLOMON’S TABLE

A Culinary Exploration of Jewish Cooking from Around the World

From the James Beard Award-winning, much-loved cookbook author and authority: an around-the-world collection of recipes from the global Jewish diaspora—an essential book of cooking and culture. We feature two favorites from this beautiful book: Double-Lemon Roast Chicken and Flourless Chocolate Cake. They make a meal fit for queens and kings.

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OY, HAVE I GOT A FILM FOR YOU A Preview of the 39th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, 2019

By Gary Meyer

One of the challenges for any film festival is finding the perfect opening night movie.

A curator wants a terrific movie first but also it must be a crowd pleaser— Not too experimental or heavily political. You don’t want to alienate the opening night audience who may not be as adventurous as those attending many other movies during the event. They need to leave the theater in a good mood and hopefully want to return for more shows. But you want it to be a movie that also means something to people and leaves them thinking as well as entertained.

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Opening Night photo by Pat Mazzera

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