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“Jews By Choice” is advertised as a documentary about a group of non-Jews in a small Czech city who renovate a destroyed synagogue and decide to convert to Judaism.
But the film, which will have two free screenings at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, is really about the complexity of Jewish life in the former Soviet bloc countries, as Jews and non-Jews tussle for control of historic Jewish properties, and for the right to decide who speaks for the Jewish community of a given location. Those decisions have financial as well as social implications, something the protagonists learn over their 20-year journey.
The story begins in 1997 when the historic synagogue in Krvno, a town of some 23,000 in the Czech Republic, is ruined in a massive flood. There have been no Jews living in the city since the Holocaust, but a group of local residents decides to renovate the synagogue and turn it into a Jewish cultural center.
As the years pass, some in the group decide to convert to Judaism. Led by a man named Petr, who takes the Hebrew name Aharon, they employ a Reform rabbi from Poland to lead them, and they want to restore religious worship in the synagogue. A second group, however, does not want to convert, and remains committed to the original goal of making the building a cultural center — a museum of lost Jewish life, you could say. Led by a man named Jirka, this group leads tour groups through the space, selling yarmulkes and other Jewish ritual objects to the curious visitors.
Not surprisingly, the two groups come to loggerheads. City officials recognize the non-Jewish group as having the rights to the synagogue, further inflaming relations. In a disastrous blow, after more than six years of study and living Jewish lives, the newly minted converts find out that their rabbi, despite being ordained by the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, is not recognized by the European Union for Progressive Judaism, and therefore, neither are their conversions.
Anyone who thinks the Orthodox have a monopoly on internal political machinations has never met up with the EUPJ.
So who is a Jew? Who gets to decide? And why does it matter?
This is a fascinating and poignant story. But the film itself, which was awarded a Jewish Film Institute completion grant, is confusing and often frustrating to watch.
Years pass, even decades, and we are given no dates, no locations and precious little information about the people involved. Why do these people want to convert? We don’t ever really know, except for Aharon, who suspects he has Jewish ancestry (an unfounded suspicion, it turns out). The rest of the synagogue renovators are indiscernible, voiceless images on the screen, leaving a huge narrative void and a missed opportunity.
The film, which is a Polish production, is subtitled but could have benefited from intertitles, at the very least. They come only in the post-film “what happened to so-and-so” section, which viewers must stay to watch if they want any closure.
“Jews By Choice,” then, is not a polished film. But it touches on an important story. Anyone interested in post-Cold War Jewish life, who has the patience to sit back and absorb the somewhat chaotic and incomplete narrative arc, will take something away from the experience.