Watch the historic victory of famed Orthodox Jewish boxer Dmitriy “Star of David” Salita, broadcast exclusively on The Jewish Channel! You can find all the action on TJC, plus a feature on Salita’s place in Jewish boxing history.

AIRING SEPTEMBER 3rd, only on The Jewish Channel.

And make sure to check out the NY Times Article “Mazel Tough” on Dimitriy Salita.

The Salon is back from summer vacation! Gearing up for the new year, women from across the spectrum of Jewish life dish on High Holiday traditions, Chelsea Clinton’s interfaith wedding, and recent controversies over women as lay leaders of Orthodox congregations. Plus, find out which popular actor got his start as a bat mitzvah DJ!

Hosted by Forward Editor Jane Eisner, with Mediaite.com Editor-at-Large Rachel Sklar, and featuring:

Meredith Jacobs, host of TJC’s Modern Jewish Mom, and co-author of Just Between Us; Adena Berkowitz, lawyer, Judaic scholar and co-founder of Kol HaNeshama; and Galeet Dardashti, musician and anthropologist, whose new album, The Naming, comes out on September 14th, 2010.

Rabbis of different denominations discuss: What are the prospects for peace in Israel? How are rabbis dealing with the “singles crisis?” And what do rabbis think about the High Holidays rush?

Featuring Rabbi Joshua Hammerman (Cons. – Temple Beth El of Stamford, CT), Rabbi Andrew Warmflash (Cons. – Congregation Etz Chaim of E. Rockaway, NY), Rabbi Manes Kogan (Cons. – Hillcrest Jewish Center of Queens, NY), and Rabbi Jason Herman (Orth. – West Side Jewish Center of NY, NY). Moderated by Rabbi Dr. David Flatto.

Based on factual events as well as the Isser Harel novel, “The House on Garibaldi Street” depicts the post-World War II story of Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi who was in Hitler’s command and managed to escape Germany before being brought to justice. As he lives incognito in Argentina in a house on Garibaldi Street, the Mossad, Israel’s secret intelligence organization, hatches a plan to find him, kidnap him, and to bring him to trial for his crimes.

The disengagement of Israel from Gaza in 2005 is the background for this poignant story of one women’s determination in the face of hardship. Ronit Balaban runs the family hothouse which exports plants to Europe. She is capable, strong and determined. While her country is in the midst of disengaging from the region she calls home – her husband had already disengaged from life many years before. Yaakov was the victim of a terror attack which left him disfigured. His inability to cope with his deformity has made him withdrawn and remote.

This inspired documentary is the story of one strong woman who struggles to keep her family, her marriage and above all – her hothouse working and flourishing.

It is quite seldom that skating celebrity, Ellen Burka, open the doors to her past life. In this moving documentary, produced by the subject’s daughter Astra, the doors open wide.

Learn the amazing and triumphant story of Ellen Burka. Canadian figure skating coach and choreographer, Ellen recounts her life from pre-war Amsterdam, to Westerbork and Theresienstadt concentration camps, to Dutch national champion, to bohemian Toronto in the 1950’s and finally to becoming a world skating celebrity.

Having survived the German concentration camps of WWII and having flourished as a skating icon, Ellen Burka has quite a story to be heard in Skate to Survive.

Gripping, heartfelt, smart, and entertaining, this documentary follows a group of Israeli musicians, that go by the name of The Idan Raichel Project, who set out on a journey to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for a performance that they will never forget.

With two of the Project’s lead singers, Cabra Casay and Avi Vograss Vesa, having emigrated from Ethiopia to Israel when they were children, returning there cannot be considered just another performance. Cabra faces the realization that she cannot easily connect with where she came from, but can only connect with where she grew up. She points out that although she may not look like an outsider on Ethiopian grounds, she feels like one.

For Avi, on the other hand, the return to Ethiopia is a return to his family, heritage, and a place he does consider home. Questions of multiculturalism, identity, and immigration are all at the beating heart of this film. And although the distinct answers may never be found, the journey to find them is a wonderful one.

A clash of cultures and a smile of recognition are at the core of this uplifting documentary. A young Israeli couple set out to the Far East – not an unusual occurrence in contemporary Israeli reality. But this couple and their baby are no ordinary pair. They are emissaries of the Chabad Movement who are sent to Vietnam, on a one-way ticket, to encourage and create a Jewish community there.

The encounter with the frantic and exuberant life in Ho Chi Minh City is a source for much confusion and amusement. The search for a real Jewish community in Vietnam is also a point of contention – as they soon discover that the local Jews are only marginally interested in a Jewish connection and many of them are married to locals. In the face of much uncertainty Rabbi Menachem and Racheli Hartman are able to overcome their apprehension toward their foreign environment because of a deep belief in the magnitude of their mission. And so their meeting with a new and strange culture challenges them in ways that are both touching and baffling.

Menachem and Racheli arrive in Vietnam in the weeks leading up to Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish New Year. Frantic to have everything set up before the holiday begins; the couple embarks on an anxious journey to acquaint themselves with the local customs, while maintaining their own strict adherence to Jewish law. One of their chief challenges is finding the local Jews and persuading them to then attend religious services. The Jewish community in Vietnam is an eclectic mixture of ex-Israelis and Jews from other parts of the world who have little identification with their heritage. And so – as their worried families back home follow their acclimation from afar – Racheli and Menachem undertake the work of “bringing the Messiah” to Vietnam.

Cast List: Liv Ullmann, Maximilian Schell, Peter Fonda, Jan Niklas, Katarina Lena Müller, Kurt Hübner, Hanns Zischler, Gila Almagor

Starring Liv Ullmann of Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1966) and Cries and Whispers (1972) and Peter Fonda, The Rose Garden powerfully recounts a series of appalling factual events from World War II: the brutal extermination of 20 Jewish children by way of medical experimentation and subsequent hangings, carried out by Nazi officials.

Based on the Paul Hengge novel of the same name, this is a well-devised film from a courageous director, Fons Rademakers (1973’s “Because of the Cats”). It pulls no punches in pitting justice against injustice, and guides its audience members through a courtroom drama of the truest form.

In describing the visual supremacy of this film, Senses of Cinema says “The camera style is ‘active’ – as usual for the director – objects fall in and out of frame as if gliding through an individual consciousness. Relatively static scenes are enlivened by zooms, strange angles and a wide variety of shots, building a hurried structure that nicely complements the nature of the story. Controlled close-ups of Reichenbach {a survivor of the children’s concentration camp} reveal a tortured man, even before he utters a single word.”

In this episode of With The Editors, editors of Jewish publications discuss a rabbi’s sex scandal, the biggest headlines of the year, Jimmy Carter’s apology, the media industry’s effect on Jewish newspapers, and much more!

Moderated by Ami Eden of JTA; featuring Mayer Fertig of The Jewish Star, Lisa Hostein of The Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, NJ Jewish News, and Daniel Septimus of MyJewishLearning.com.

Watch Clips from Episode 04:

In this episode of With The Editors, editors of Jewish publications ask: Is the “charm offensive” from President Obama working; what can be done about Iran; how should we react to allegations of dual loyalty against American Jews, and more!

Moderated by Andrew Silow-Carroll of the NJ Jewish News; featuring Mayer Fertig of The Jewish Star, Lisa Hostein of The Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, Jewcy.com’s Jason Diamond, and Rebecca Boroson of The NJ Jewish Standard.

Watch clips from this episode:

On this episode of The Salon, Top Chef’s Gail Simmons joins the discussion, giving her take on Elena Kagan’s supreme court nomination, how to talk about Israel and more!

Also featuring comedian Cory Kahaney of Last Comic Standing, and Lilit Marcus, Editor-in-Chief of The Gloss.com.

Hosted by Forward editor Jane Eisner, with Mediaite.com’s Rachel Sklar.

Hilarious comedian Joel Chasnoff performs his stand-up comedy routine focusing on Jewish culture and quirks. You’ll be laughing out loud during this special!

Also, check out Joel’s memoir, “The 188th Crybaby Brigade”, about his experience as a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces.

In 1943, Gitl Lerner, a 45-year-old Jewish woman, hid with five of her children in the home of a Polish farmer. On the night of October 30, Polish farmers in the area stabbed Lerner and the five children to death.

Sixty years later Roni Lerner, an Israeli businessman and Gitl’s grandson, set out to Poland with the film crew to track down his family’s murderers. In the course of his investigation, Lerner, pretending to be a historian, met the sole surviving murderer and uncovered the horrific case, which the prosecution in Poland has now reopened as a result.

The murder suspect -Joseph Radchuk, a 92-year-old farmer, showed Lerner and the film crew where the bodies were reburied at the edge of the Catholic cemetery in Pashgalini, a small village on east Poland.

This episode of the Herzl Series discusses what has happened to the religious identity as defined over the last 50 years. Have the religious defining and dividing lines of old been updated? Reworked? Have they become inexorably intertwined? Are we witnessing the redefinition of these identities, or in fact the trench warfare which has unfolded between them?

In this episode, four personal stories serve as the core element of the program. The characters featured exemplify the phenomenon through their personalities and life-histories: They are all very different, yet they all fall between the lines of accepted definitions between secular and religious. By their thoughts and actions, the characters exemplify how the fuzzy area between secularism and religiosity has become their home – a place worth fighting over – even, at times, at the price of isolating themselves from the homes they have respectively come from.

Yoni Turner, a Jerusalem doctor, grew up in a religious household, and he “wears a transparent head-covering”, defining himself as a religious man, and his religion as “the religion of one man.”

Eilon and Hili Shamir are children of the kibbutz movement, who grew up with a fervently anti-religious education. Their religious outlook is not unified, and they have found their own original middle ground that enables them to create a variegated, mosaic-like way of life. They don’t suffer any confusion in raising their children this way. The children learn in a mixed school for religious and secular students.

Beyond the headlines, comes the true Kafka-esque story of two Israeli soldiers who were kidnapped by Hezbollah on the Israel-Lebanon border, and the national debate surrounding their experience.

“The film Chronicle of a Kidnap is a very important and pertinent film, which offers a rare and unique insight into the world of those affected by a ‘kidnapping’ like this. The issues it raises are critical within the important current debate about Israel and its future in the region.

I would recommend that people watch this film for so many reasons. It tells the story in a very clear and honest way. It goes straight to the heart of the issues and the film has access to the key characters who really do have the ‘inside track’ about what happened and what is going on.

One of the things that struck me the most about the film is that these characters are not only hard to access but to get them to open up in such a manner is very difficult. Nurit Kedar has managed to not only get them on film. But they also tell the story in an engaging and revealing manner. That is rare indeed.

This film is an important one not only in the current debate about Israel and its place in the Middle East but historically too.”

Inigo Gilmore, Chief Correspondent Editor (Middle East)
Channel 4 news

After a brush with cancer, LA director and electronics engineer, Hava Volterra, begins an expedition to trace the roots of her Italian Jewish family tree. Both comedic and emotionally gripping, the film reflects on how vastly the history of our parents can affect our sense of belonging, identity, and self-worth.

TheVillage Voice writes:

“One sympathizes with Volterra’s yearning to find out more about her “doting” but remote father, yet he remains a shadowy and not altogether likable figure who, despite being a devout Communist, felt humiliated by his failure to win a Nobel Prize. Trotting out her family’s illustrious pedigree as scientists, bankers, and politicians at every turn, Volterra appears to have inherited some of his intellectual snobbery. Fortunately, her affinity for Italian stereotypes is countered with delightful truculence by the film’s most engaging character, her down-to-earth octogenarian aunt Viviana, who enjoys her work in the kibbutz laundry, entertains kids with puppets on the side, and won’t stand for any bullshit about the romantic essence of the Mediterranean temperament.”

An engaging and intimate portrait of the acclaimed Israeli iconoclastic and internationally celebrated author Amos Oz. The film traces Oz’s personal background, allowing the viewer to enter the world of one of Israel’s most fiercely eloquent proponents of co-existence and the Middle East Peace Process.

The first show of its kind, Jews of Color explores the cultural and ethnic diversity of the Jewish community, sharing the unique perspectives of Jews from African-American, Asian, Hispanic and other non-”white” backgrounds. Defying our collective assumptions about what it means to be a Jew, and shedding light on perspectives that are too often ignored by the broader Jewish community, Jews of Color is not to be missed.

Featuring: host Joel Sanchez (Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services), Aliza Hausman (Blogger, “Memoirs of a Jewminicana”), Akira Ohiso (Author, “Surviving”), Yitz Jordan a.k.a. Y-Love (Rapper, Writer, Activist), and Yavilah McCoy (Jewish educator, Diversity Practitioner, and Founder of Ayecha Jewish Diversity Resources).

Check out the trailer:

Judge Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy) arrives in Nuremberg in 1948 to preside over the trial of four Nazi judges, each charged with having abused the court system to help cleanse Germany of the politically and socially undesirable, allegedly guilty of war crimes. The opening statement of the prosecuting attorney (Richard Widmark) is a vicious one, depicting the defendants as having been willing, evil, accomplices in Nazi atrocities, but Judge Haywood wonders if it is really that simple.

Confounded at how one defendant, a renowned German champion of justice named Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster), appears to have played the greatest role in molding Germany’s Ministry of Justice into a destructive instrument of Nazism, Judge Haywood resolves to gain some perspective on the period in which the German legal system strayed from a course of entirely objective justice.

Probing for the truth proves difficult, though, as nobody who lived in Germany during Nazism seems to admit to having much inside knowledge. He befriends Mrs. Bertholt (Marlene Dietrich), the widow of an executed Nazi army officer, but she offers few insights, more consumed by her personal experiences than the broader matters of Nazism. Mrs. Bertholt is focusing on being a catalyst for the cultural rebirth of Nuremberg, keen on remolding the image of a city that had become notorious as the site of the Nazi raliies. An attempt to discuss the period with his housekeepers, Mr. and Mrs. Halbestadt, who had lived near the Dachau concentration camp, proves equally fruitless for Judge Haywood, as they cannot help but focus on the loss of their child in the bombing and the fact that they nearly starved from poverty. Whether anyone knew anything mattered little, for Germans were looking forward, not backward, still grappling with, and recovering from, the hardships and losses that the war brought to them and their families.

Only in the courtroom will Judge Haywood have the opportunity to gain insights into the realities of the period. First hand evidence of a) all German judges having sworn to a Nazi oath of allegiance, b) human sterilization orders signed by the defendants and carried out, and c) the execution of a Jew merely for having relations with a non-Jew, painted an evil picture of the ways in which the law had been applied by the defendants during Nazism. Still, Judge Haywood cannot fully come to grips with why these judges had been willing to enforce the law in such a horrific manner. Not, at least, until the defendant Ernst Janning feels compelled to make a statement, against the advice of his counsel (Maximilian Schell).

In his statement made under oath, Janning speaks of how economically-stricken Germany had become a nation of fearful, desperate people, and how only such a people could submit to Nazism. Hitler’s promises, Janning explained, in which he openly vowed the elimination of those accountable for Germany’s hardships were, at first, soothing and reassuring to them. Janning then noted that, even once the complicit realized the unconscionability and inhumanity of Hitler’s approach, they stayed at their posts to help things from getting even worse, but, predictably, failed to derail the atrocities of the times. He explained that national allegiance had motivated most of them to the point that they sacrificed their own personal senses of morality. In a deeply personal, yet self-damning, statement, he conceded that most of them should have known better, and that those that had gone along had betrayed Germany.

At long last, the issue at the heart of the case becomes clear to Judge Haywood – the choice that the defendants had to make was between allegiance to their country and allegiance to their own senses of right and wrong. Understanding the times and context in which the actions of the defendants took place, Judge Haywood is ready to pass judgment on the defendants. He sentences each to life imprisonment, noting that their actions were illegal under both International law and German law, and further notes that they were men of sufficient intellect, prominence and credibility in Germany that their refusal to help transform the German court system into an institution that, systematically, denied justice to enemies of the Third Reich might have made a difference.

As noted in the closing moments of the film, none of those condemned to a sentence less than death at any of the Nuremberg trials was still serving their term just over a decade later. Once Germany became a Cold War ally of America, it gradually opened the door for their release.

{synopsis taken from imdb.com}

It used to be that Israeli Emigres – “yordim” – were perceived as traitors. Today, the formally insulting appellation has all but vanished from the local vocabulary. What does the disappearance of a word convey about how Israel and its self-perception are changing? Series hosts Oren Harman and Yanay Ofran travel across the Atlantic to meet a poet, a hair dresser, academics, musicians, movers, and a cardiac surgeon – all of whom have been living in New York City for different periods of time. Speaking to them about living abroad and about their relationship to Israel, they return having learned something sobering – but also hopeful – about the meaning of the word “home”.

The disappearance of a culture is exposed. Salonika was a multicultural city with a Jewish majority: The ancient Jerusalem of the Balkans. With a willful erasing of this city’s history, because it did not adhere to the nationalistic ideology of its time, this documentary releases the story.

Survivors of the extermination camps of 1943 weave together the memories of Salonika. The ‘City of Silence’ is no longer quiet with the creation of this film. Organized around a stroll of the actual city, you not only feel what happened there through the word of the survivors and previous dwellers (such as the director, who was actually born in Salonika), but the film conjures up potent imagery, allowing its viewer to see what happened there.

Poignant, touching, and powerful, this film is not to be missed. Learn the forgotten story of “Salonika”.

Alan Goldman is a thirty-something new father, who grew up questioning organized religion. He is Jewish…or maybe he isn’t. He is not sure anymore. And when his baby boy is born, this man, disconnected from his Jewish faith, is faced with the question of how to raise his son.

On a journey to reconnect with his own Judaism and to connect his son to it as well, Alan sets out on a mission to find some answers. What he finds is a modern re-invigorated Judaism that he did not know existed.

Winner of The Drama Award at the 2006 Jerusalem Film Festival, “Mortgage” is one of those sweet and original stories that you don’t soon forget.

This drama, full of comedy to boot, tells the story of Beny and Esty. The pair loves each other very much, but they have a serious problem on their hands. One day, they find themselves unemployed, and as if that’s not enough, the bank is about to confiscate their apartment in a housing project, if they don’t settle their mortgage debt within one month. The two have to think of creative solutions to pay their debt to the bank. While Beny begins work in a carpentry workshop and considers harming himself for the insurance money, Esty considers being a surrogate mother.

As the month’s end approaches, the relationship is marred, but their deep love holds in store a very precious surprise.

An Argentinean journalist returns to his place of birth to embark upon a personal crusade. During his travels he seeks to unveil the truth behind the bare facts that obscured the investigation of the bombings of Jewish targets in Argentina.

A powerful and authentic story of anguish, love, and the search for peace, this poignant film follows Dubak, an extraordinary individual whose life is thoroughly intertwined with the land he lives in: the Gush Etzion region of the West Bank. He defines himself as a Palestinian of Jewish faith – but as someone who is connected to the land and not the nationality.

This documentary introduces us to Dubak, after he has lost his son to war. While trying to understand the motives and goals of war, he grapples with acceptance of his son’s death. Living with conflict, he tends to other children in his village to try to teach them lessons of peace and tolerance.

‘The sun is shining, but it is not creating light’ he says by way of explanation about what mourning is. He describes what it feels like to be a bereaved father. We have all heard about parents who are in mourning, and have seen films about the dead, but a person like Dubak is not someone you have seen before. And such an oversized and tragic story such as this has not been told until now…He is a singular character who personifies the action of words and the best of human drama.”
– Shir Ziv/Israel Today

This film tells the remarkable, yet little-known, story of Francisca Halamajowa, a Polish-Catholic woman who rescued 16 of her Jewish neighbors during the Holocaust, while cleverly passing herself off as a Nazi sympathizer. Excerpts from a diary kept by one of the survivors, and testimonies from her descendants and former neighbors add rich dimension to the story, providing the backdrop as the drama unfolds.

Six decades after the founding of the Jewish State, how do you build your own relationship to Israel? The film follows a wide range of American Jews, on their journeys to Israel- and the result is warm and personal film that vividly conveys joys and ambivalences.

The quest to unravel the fate of a missing Druze soldier. The films sets out on a journey into time, memory, the Druze religion- along with harsh Israeli realities, in an attempt to uncover what lies behind this multi-layered story.

“What does the Israeli flag mean to you?” A heartfelt, comic documentary that explores the crisis of identity that many in Israel now face and offers insight into what the future holds for the nation.

The first show of its kind, Jews of Color explores the cultural and ethnic diversity of the Jewish community, sharing the unique perspectives of Jews from African-American, Asian, Hispanic and other non-”white” backgrounds. Defying our collective assumptions about what it means to be a Jew, and shedding light on perspectives that are too often ignored by the broader Jewish community, Jews of Color is not to be missed.

Featuring: host Joel Sanchez (Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services), Aliza Hausman (Blogger, “Memoirs of a Jewminicana”), Akira Ohiso (Author, “Survivor”), Yitz Jordan a.k.a. Y-Love (Rapper, Writer, Activist), and Yavilah McCoy (Jewish educator, Diversity Practitioner, and Founder of Ayecha Jewish Diversity Resources).

Walter Benjamin was a German intellectual whose sociologic and cultural critical thought combined historical materialism, German idealism, and Jewish mysticism. In September of 1940, after seven years of exile, the great philosopher crossed the Pyrenees in a desperate attempt to flee from the Nazis who wanted to see him dead.

As the film shows us, the official record states that Mr. Benjamin did make it across the French-Spanish border, but was unable to make his way into Spain because of a sudden change in legislation. He spent the night in a hotel in the town of Portbou, under surveillance of three guards who had direct orders to deport him the following morning. That night, Walter Benjamin died from swallowing and overdosing on morphine – appearing to be suicide, but stated to be natural death. Mauas, the creator of this documentary, investigates the true nature of Benjamin’s death, in disbelief that the records reveal the truth.

The film, both enthralling and intriguing, succeeds at being more than just a reconstruction of a death – it becomes the living portrait of the scene of the crime.

“Walter Benjamin is always present in the film, although his image hardly appears. He lives in others, in their memories or in their imagination…” – El Pais Semanal, Spain

“Perhaps the first ever film noir intellectual historical film, Mauas’ documentary is at once beguiling and enlightening” – Washington Jewish Film Festival

Ethiopian and Russian Israelis meet at a leadership program in Israel where their year of learning culminates in a joint journey to Ethiopia. On their journey they discover the universality of their experiences and their shared commitment to their home in Israel.

The survival of spirit, belief, and heritage. This is the story of the unique Jewish community of Iquitos. Original Jewish traditions became mixed with indigenous Amazonian life creating an authentic and practically unknown Jewish tradition.

Watch clips from this episode:

The woman at the center of the controversy over ordaining women as Orthodox rabbis, Rabba Sara Hurwitz, joins the conversation at The Salon, sharing her perspective on the Rabbinical Council of America’s “2010 Convention Resolution: Women’s Communal Roles in Orthodox Jewish Life.” (Scroll down for the full text of the resolution.)

Also on hand are author Judith Shulevitz, whose recent book “The Sabbath World” takes a historical and cultural look at the concept of the Sabbath, and President & CEO of the Foundation for Jewish Culture Elise Bernhardt, one of the few women at the helm of a major Jewish organization.

Moderated by Forward editor Jane Eisner, with Mediate.com Editor At Large Rachel Sklar, this episode’s discussion digs into the significance of the Sabbath in contemporary Jewish life, Bar & Bat Mitzvah wars, the RCA resolutio,n and, regarding the recent controversy over a Lane Bryant commercial for a plus-sized line of lingerie, our panel considers whether full-figured but not fully-clothed women belong on a prime time television commercial. (Scroll down to watch the commercial.)

Full text of the RCA’s “2010 Convention Resolution: Women’s Communal Roles in Orthodox Jewish Life”:
Here’s the full text of that resolution:

Apr 27, 2010 — 1) The flowering of Torah study and teaching by God-fearing Orthodox women in recent decades stands as a significant achievement. The Rabbinical Council of America is gratified that our (members) have played a prominent role in facilitating these accomplishments.
2) We members of the Rabbinical Council of America see as our sacred and joyful duty the practice and transmission of Judaism in all of its extraordinary, multifaceted depth and richness – halakhah (Jewish law), hashkafah (Jewish thought), tradition and historical memory.
3) In light of the opportunity created by advanced women’s learning, the Rabbinical Council of America encourages a diversity of halakhically and communally appropriate professional opportunities for learned, committed women, in the service of our collective mission to preserve and transmit our heritage. Due to our aforesaid commitment to sacred continuity, however, we cannot accept either the ordination of women or the recognition of women as members of the Orthodox rabbinate, regardless of the title.
4) Young Orthodox women are now being reared, educated, and inspired by mothers, teachers and mentors who are themselves beneficiaries of advanced women’s Torah education. As members of the new generation rise to positions of influence and stature, we pray that they will contribute to an ever-broadening and ever-deepening wellspring of talmud Torah (Torah study), yir’at Shamayim (fear of Heaven), and dikduk b’mitzvot (scrupulous observance of commandments).

Watch the Lane Bryant commercial:

Watch Clips from Episode 03:

Rabbis of different denominations discuss the tense relationship between Pres. Barack Obama & Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Fox News host Glen Beck’s assertion that social justice has no place in religion, the changing nature of prayer, and the Rabbinical Council of America’s resolution on Orthodox women in the rabbinate.

Featuring R’ David Posner (Ref.), Temple Emanu-El, New York, NY; R’ Hershel Billet (Orth.), Young Israel of Woodmere, NY; R’ Neal Joseph Loevinger (Cons.), Temple Beth El, Poughkeepsie, NY; and R’ Steven Graber (Cons.), Temple Hillel, Valley Stream, NY.

Moderated by R’ Dr. David Flatto.

The Oscar-winning classic still delights, with a historic performance by Topel and award-winning music that’s become part of the canon. In the shtetl Anatevka, Tevye and his family battle pogroms and assimilation, ever clinging to “Tradition, Tradition.”

The riveting story of an infamous political trial that took place in Czechoslovakia at the height of the Cold War is told. What led these men (11 of the 14 were Jewish) to their passionate belief in Communism and why did they confess to crimes they did not commit?

“Shows the human face of both communism and its victims, and shows how hard it is to tell the two apart.” – Dana Stevens, New York Times

“Powerful, important and refreshingly straightforward documentary.” – Jonathan Foreman, New York Post

“Sheds valuable light on a complex period of post-World War II Czechoslovakia.” – Eddie Cockrell, Variety

Israel, as envisioned through the lens of the internationally acclaimed photographer David Rubinger. For the past 60 years, his expert eye has captured famous leaders and documented many of the dramatic events that have shaped the Israel we know now.

“Go In Peace, Rain” tells the journey and metamorphosis of the ancient prayer “Who Brings the Dew” into what is now known as the anthem of the State of Israel.

From what is known, the melody and prayer that was made at the end of a rainy season, began in a Jewish community of Italy, and from there took a northerly turn to France, then West into Spain , Portugal and Gibraltar. Throughout the decades since its birth, the melody had been acquired and nurtured in several different communities across the globe. And at the end of the 19th Century, after traveling around the world, the tune returned to the Land of Israel.

Traveling around two axes, the film recreates the journey of the melody and reaches the remaining relevant Jewish communities around the world as well as those in Israel. Through the voyage of the melody, the richness and depths of this musical culture will be revealed, in the encounters with those who created and still create it. People who learned their daily ancient musical repertoire by ear, and continue this musical tradition upon which they were raised.

Hodaya takes a dip into dangerous waters, will she finally find herself in too deep? Reut is stunned by her Torah tutor’s behavior and Nati’s true colors come shining through…

Intriguing and thoughtful, with quiet wisdom and historical insight; this gem of a film documents the life experiences and musical journeys of Holocaust survivor and accomplished pianist Alice Herz Sommer, through her own words.

Sara Pizatnich and her daughter Stella travel back to their hometown of Sarajevo, even though Sara swore she never would again. Sara’s mother, Zineba, was the first Muslim woman to be honored as a “Righteous among the Nations” for hiding the Jewish Kabilio family during World War II, saving their lives. Fifty years later, the Kabilio family rescued Zineba’s family from the inferno of Sarajevo during The Bosnian War.

The film “proves the victory of the spirit of humanity,” Israeli director Ella Alterman said. “Never in life do we know when we will be saviors, and when we will be survivors.”

Unlike their predecessors, the immigrants (“olim”) from the relics of the former Soviet Union, are not forced to join and blend in the Israeli melting pot. The reason for that is their huge number, but also the process of privatization and de-collectiveness which the maturing Israel is going through.

How does the fact that they are no longer required to give up their “Russianess” affect their Israeli identity? How does it affect the “Israeliness” of us all? Does the Russian culture influence the old Israeli society?

This fascinating interaction is examined here through several main characters, which represent different aspects of the jigsaw puzzle of this enormous immigration wave – approx. 1, 200, 000 people who made “alia” to Israel throughout the nineties.

A woman determined to find her grandfather’s house in Lithuania uncovers the mystery of stories he never told, discovers of the glory that once was Lithuanian Jewry, and resurrects a family shattered by the traumas of the 20th Century along the way.

“Wonderful! The story has such narrative drive that we’re quickly engaged. A wise and heartwarming movie.” – Jan Lisa Huttner, World Jewish Digest

“A personal, evocative film rich in human minutia.” – Masha Leon, The Forward

“While watching the film, it brought me back to conversations I had with my grandparents about life in Europe before the war. It touched my heart and memories of my youth.” – Rhonda Barad, Simon Wiesenthal Center.NYC

On September 5, 1972, some 900 million sports fans tune in to watch the Olympics on TV. Instead, they see the most shocking scenes unfold. This dramatization turns the real-life catastrophic event into a mesmerizing story of suspense, anger and disbelief.

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Forward editor Jane Eisner and Mediaite.com’s Rachel Sklar are joined by acclaimed actress Tovah Feldshuh, Lilith Magazine’s Editor in Chief Susan Weidman Schneider and comedy writer Julie Klausner (I Don’t Care About Your Band) on this episode of The Salon!

Topics include Kathryn Bigelow’s historic Oscar win for Best Director, the changing nature of feminism, Passover traditions for women, Nancy Pelosi’s health care reform victory, and more!

On the subject of Bigelow’s Oscar win, Feldshuh, the star of Broadway shows like “Golda’s Balcony” and “Irena’s Vow” and films including “Kissing Jessica Stein” and “A Walk on the Moon,” who is a voting member of the Academy, says, “These milestones matter.”

But does it make sense to focus on the achievements of women just because they are women? The panel discusses.

And when it comes to what feminism means, there may be some generational differences. Klausner says women now can work and be moms, can be smart and be beautiful, without having to apologize for any of it, while Schneider recalls being a young, working — and overworked — mother trying to have it all, and getting chastised by her own mother for doing too much.

Speaking of doing too much, our panel dishes on their Passover traditions — and workload. Find out who has a Miriam’s Cup on their table and who cooks matzah balls for 40.

Plus, would the healthcare reform bill have been passed if Nancy Pelosi were a man?

It’s all up for discussion at The Salon.

Docudrama telling the story of perhaps the most dramatic and tragic episode in the history of the state of Israel. The Altalena carried 960 new immigrants, most of them holocaust survivors, to the shores of Israel. These survivors found themselves caught in the middle of a conflict that most could not even believe possible.

Since before the Civil War, the vibrant Jewish community of Memphis has made profound contributions to the life of this important Mid-American City. This film explores 150 years of history, telling the smaller, personal stories that give this community its humor, spirit and identity.

This engaging film tells the true story of two U.S. Army privates stationed in Germany at the close of WWII, who discover and expose the horrendous treatment of displaced Jews at St. Otillien, a camp run by the U.S. military.