I recently saw a very good film that put matters of faith and tradition in a positive light and at the same time suggested common ground between Muslims and Jews. "Arranged" (2007) is the story of two young women, teachers at a public school in Brooklyn, one Muslim and one Jewish, both observant members of their respective communities. They form a bond over issues of modesty and other traditional values and come to support each other while going through the marriage brokering process. This is a "small" film, independently produced on a shoestring budget, but it was uplifting and entertaining and definitely worth watching. Note that not all of the characterizations of Jews are positive -- a very aggressive assistant principal is particularly obnoxious but her meddling is key to the story and there are some very comic stereotypically Jewish-male suitors -- but the overall portrait of Orthodox life is positive. I think it should be considered for temple and public library collections.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0848542/ -- Lee Jaffe, UC Santa Crz --- Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: hasaf...@osu.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
