Free Sunday summer film series

BARRINGTON – As part of the “Time for Me” adult education program at Temple Habonim, three films, which offer different perspectives of Jewish life, will be shown on select Sunday evenings in July and August.

• “The Other Son” will be shown on Sunday, July 21, at 7:30 p.m. Joseph, as he prepares to join the Israeli army for his national service, discovers that he is not his parents’ biological son. In fact, the hospital had accidentally switched him with Yassin, son of a Palestinian West Bank family.

As their families struggle with the startling revelation, the young men have unique insights into the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

The  film, released in 2012, was featured at the Cannes Film Festival and the Jerusalem and Tokyo film festivals.
• “Hava Nagila” will be shown on Sunday, July 28, at 7:30 p.m. This documentary addresses the meaning of the great Jewish standard and features interviews with Harry Belafonte, Leonard Nimoy, Connie Francis, Glen Campbell and others.

The film follows the song on its journey from the shtetls of Eastern Europe to the cul-de-sacs of America to YouTube. Released in 2012, it was featured at the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center.

• “The Last Butterfly” will be shown on Sunday, Aug. 4, at 7:30 p.m.  Stage mime Antoine Moreau (Tom Courtenay) is compelled by the Gestapo to put on a performance for the children of Terezin, a “model” concentration camp, to convince the Red Cross observers that the camp is truly what it seems.

Initially reluctant, Moreau slowly learns the true nature of the camp, including the meaning of the “transports” on which people leave. With a world-class orchestra (made up of people interned in the camp) and a cast of children, Moreau stages a show to end all shows. “The Last Butterfly” takes its title from one of the real life sketches made by a Jewish girl in Terezin showing a butterfly swooping away over the barbed wire fence to freedom.  The sketch is preserved in a special museum in Prague with the legend, “Died in Auschwitz 16-10-44.”

All the films will be shown at Temple Habonim, 165 New Meadow Road, Barrington. The free showings include popcorn.

TEMPLE HABONIM: 245-6536 or office@templehabonim.org.