H EADLINES
Fest Continued from Page 1
had to actually accommodate
everybody in the theater, we
probably would not have been
able to,” she said.

Th ough it’s not the version
of the festival that Chriqui her
team would like to be putting
on, this year’s slate of fi lms
refl ects an enduring commit-
ment to the core mission.

“We cannot do the festival, but
we are committed to bringing to
our audience and our supporters
the latest and the newest Israeli
releases,” said Hava Grunwald,
the festival coordinator.

Th e 2020 edition of the
festival was cut short, just one
weekend into its March run.

Chriqui and the IFF agonized
over the movies that their
audiences would never get to
see; fi nally, last fall, they were
able to send out links for online
viewing. It was good practice for this
spring. Th e organizers have
opted for a “theater” model,
whereby viewers watch movies
at the same time as others, rather
than at their convenience.

“We wanted them to feel
part of this whole festival,”
Chriqui said.

Th e festival began on Feb. 25
and continues for eight weeks.

Th e IFF sends emails each
Th ursday at noon with links
to contemporary Israeli fi lms.

Interested viewers should visit
iff phila.com and sign up for
emails under “Join” to receive
links to each movie.

Several movies will feature
options to sign up for Zoom
discussions with the creators
and subjects (six out of the
eight movies are documenta-
ries). However, that schedule
hasn’t been fi nalized.

Here is just a taste of the
festival’s programming.

‘A Lullaby for the Valley,’
directed by Ben Shani, April 1
At the beginning of the
documentary “A Lullaby for the
Valley,” the painter Eli Shamir
seems perfectly suited to his
primary subject, the Jezreel
Valley: He’s unceasingly warm,
slyly magnetic and generally
amused at the prospect of his
own existence. It’s as if he’s
saying, with an air of disbe-
lief, “I, Eli Shamir, son of a
farmer, have my paintings sold
at unthinkable rates to dealers
the world over? What can you
do but laugh at such fortune?”
It’s a good thing he starts
out that way, because Shamir,
in his late 50s when fi lming
began in 2011, was diagnosed
with Parkinson’s disease in
2014. Over the next several
years, as director Ben Shani
chronicles, Shamir confronts
his declining physical abili-
ties each day. For someone
who describes his work as an
attempt to “capture the world”
with the movement of his wrist,
it begs the question: What if
he can’t move his wrist the
right way?
Shani followed Shamir the
artist and Shamir the man,
bridging any distance between
the two. Shani has an eye for
Shamir’s tiny dignities, from
the respect he gives to his
models to his desire to paint
approachable, idyllic scenes.

When Shamir’s physical
decline worsens, Shani is with
him in hospital scenes that are
darkly funny.

Shani declares his admira-
tion for Shamir’s work in one
of the movie’s fi rst scenes, but
it would be apparent even if
he didn’t say it. Th e shots of
life on Shamir’s farm seem
to be cinematic companions
Eli Shamir, the subject of Ben Shani’s “A Lullaby for the Valley”
Courtesy of Go2Films
to Shamir’s art; the painter is
lucky to have someone convey
the way he sees the world with
such fi delity.

Th e offi cial premiere of this
fi lm is in April; this screening
represents a sneak preview.

‘Marry Me However,’ directed
by Mordechai Vardi, March 18
Rabbi Mordechai Vardi’s fi lm
about the lives of LGBT Israelis
who entered heterosexual
marriages for religious reasons
is a tale of both confusion and
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of the documentary’s subjects
is that there are legions of
people around them who seek
to muddle what is clear and
simplify what cannot be.

For those who stay with a
partner they’re not attracted to
or who decide on divorce, there
are few they can approach for
advice. Conversely, when it
comes to sexual attraction —
the one subject they’re certain
about — there are more than
enough conversion “therapists”
hawking dubious medical and
moral claims.

Some of the fi lm’s subjects
are supported by their families,
but many are not. Th e opening
scene of a gay man’s wedding to
his wife — in which the melan-
choly of the groom contrasts
with the merriment of the
revelers — plays like a man
being led to his execution.

What the subjects of “Marry
Me However” are oft en left
with, then, is each other, and
the growing ranks of psychol-
ogists and rabbis who try to
facilitate their acceptance in
Israeli society. Vardi’s movie
doesn’t have to work hard to
make the case that it will be a
long road. But the instances of
reconciliation we see make it
clear that it will be worth it. ●
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



H EADLINES
Hate some other areas with respect
to hate crimes that we thought
needed to be strengthened and
addressed. So this package
went beyond just the amend-
ments to the Pennsylvania
Ethnic Intimidation Act, and
went further.”
In 2019, Frankel was one of
the co-sponsors of a hate crime
package — House Bills 2010,
2011, 2012 and 2013 — that
sought to:
Continued from Page 1
crime legislation might be
worth a closer look is on
people’s minds.

“It’s been timely, for a lot of
reasons,” Frankel said.

Frankel, who is Jewish,
represents a district that
includes Squirrel Hill, the
Pittsburgh neighborhood
where a gunman murdered
11 congregants at the Tree
of Life synagogue building
in 2018. His hate crime bills
were originally introduced in
2019, but his eff orts to expand
and strengthen hate crime law
began much earlier.

In 2002, the state legisla-
ture passed an amendment
to the Ethnic Intimidation
Act, adding LGBT people as a
protected class. Challenges to
the amendment came quickly,
according to Th e Philadelphia
Inquirer, aft er fi ve people
protesting a gay rights festival
were charged with hate crimes
in 2004.

In 2007, the Commonwealth
Court struck down the expan-
sion, and the state Supreme
Court upheld the decision the
following year. Since then,
State Rep. Dan Frankel represents a district that includes Squirrel Hill, the
Pittsburgh neighborhood where a gunman murdered 11 congregants at the
Tree of Life building in 2018.

Courtesy of PA House of Representatives
• Impose stiffer penalties
for those convicted of hate
crimes, including those
targeted because of their
sexual orientation, gender
or gender identity;
• Mandate
educational courses for those on proba-
tion or parole for ethnic
intimidation; • Provide more training for
police offi cers to properly
identify hate crimes;
• Require
postsecondary institutions to off er anony-
mous online reporting
options for students and
employees. Frankel has been a part of a
Th e 2018 mass shooting
group of legislators trying to at Tree of Life “reinvigorated
Frankel was the primary
get LGBT people back under this eff ort,” Frankel said. “In sponsor for 2010, 2011 and 2013,
state protection.

addition to that, we looked at while state Rep. Ed Gainey, of
LEGAL DIRECTORY
Allegheny County, sponsored
2012. In the Pennsylvania
Senate, similar bills have also
stalled. Stiff er penalties for hate
crimes, Frankel said, would
make it clear that such crimes
are committed not only against
an individual, but against
whole groups.

“For instance, somebody
who just put some graffi ti on
a stop sign at an intersection,
versus somebody who spray-
paints a swastika on a mosque
or a synagogue, that needs to
be diff erentiated very, very
clearly in terms of the penal-
ties,” Frankel said.

Th ough the bills had support
from then-Pennsylvania
House Speaker Mike Turzai,
the COVID-19 pandemic
rearranged the priorities of the
legislature. Frankel’s bills were
not among them.

He gave it another roll in the
fall of 2020, but his push was
unsuccessful. “Hateful actions continue
to be perpetrated against our
neighbors simply because of
who they are,” Frankel told the
Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle in
See Hate, Page 26
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