Longing, The: The Forgotten Jews of South America
Directed by: Gabriela Böhm
Language: English, Spanish, English subtitles
2007 | Colombia | Brazil | Argentina | United States | Israel | Ecuador | Beta SP | Color And Black & White | Northern California Premiere | 75 min
Topics: Spirituality & Religion, Latin American Culture, History
Director in person: Berkeley, San Rafael
Argentinean-born documentary filmmaker Gabriela Bohm travels to Ecuador to unlock the stories of a small group of South Americans who long to affirm their Jewish faith against all odds. We meet six individuals-among them, a microbiologist, a doctor, and a mother and daughter from Colombia-who are determined to go through a hard-won conversion process. Isolated in Catholic countries and raised with persistent but vague hints about their ancestry, they believe they are among the millions of South Americans descended from crypto-Jews, the Spanish and Portuguese immigrants who secretly practiced Judaism despite centuries of draconian prohibition during the Inquisition. Now their descendants wish to reclaim a heritage and a faith long buried.
What faces many of them, however, is an arduous task. With virtually no Jewish communities to turn to-and where there are Jews, the communities are often suspicious of outsiders and resistant to converts-the individuals in Bohm's film struggle to find guidance or even encouragement. On the Internet they come across a Reform rabbi in Kansas City, Jacques Cuikerkorn, who offers tutorials via e-mail and eventually travels to Ecuador for their momentous rite of passage.
The Longing poignantly portrays the anguished search for identity that propels these seekers on their mission, and exposes some of the cultural and religious obstacles they face on their quest. Some come to doubt whether the journey is worth the rejection they may encounter-from both within and outside the Jewish community. But accompanying them on the journey is one of the eye-opening rewards of this fascinating film about a yearning for acceptance into the ever-expanding Jewish family.
Followed in Berkeley by a discussion:
Crypto-Jews Today: The Longing to Belong
Participants include Gabriela Böhm (director); Scott Rubin (co-author, In Every Tongue: Racial & Ethnic Diversity of the Jewish People); and Mercedes Gail Gutierrez. Free admission with film ticket.
Director will be in attendance in Berkeley and san Rafael.
Co-sponsored by Be'chol Lashon, a project of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research
Co-presented by Congregation Rodef Sholom and Latino Film Festival of the San Francisco Bay Area