Call For Participants

Call for participants - documentary film - San Francisco, CA
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You're a Jew by Choice, a convert, and proud of that fact. You are part of any movement, Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative, Traditional, Transdenominational, or Orthodox and live in the San Francisco Bay Area. You may be queer, straight or anything in between, but you have a solid Jewish identity that cannot be shaken. You are tired of people thinking that all Jews look a certain way, speak a certain language, or have a certain outlook. You want to show the world that the Jewish people are a multicultural and diverse crew.

A Jewish filmmaker wants to find six individuals who embody the Jewish people in all their diversity and wonder. Help him show the world what a Jew by Choice looks like. This film project will be an immense undertaking, but as a Jew by Choice, this filmmaker wants to showcase all the Bay Area Jewish communities diversity. You will be asked a series of ethnographic questions that will delve into your life before, during and after your conversion to Judaism. From this Q&A the final product will be boiled down to about 5 minutes of footage that will be used in the film GER.

From www.germovie.blogspot.com:
"Ger (Hebrew for "stranger" or "proselyte") is the examination of those who are converts to Judaism through any of the movements. Converts come from all backgrounds: familial, socioeconomic, ethnic, and racial. Ger takes the viewer on a ride through the lives of those who have gone through the process of conversion and those who have been to the mikveh and back."

If you're interested, contact us at marty@ftmsf.org.

The world's waiting to see.

Thanks!
Marty

Martin Rawlings-Fein

Hatafat dam brit

A friend came to me this past weekend at our annual retreat and asked that I be a witness to his Hatafat dam brit [extracting a drop of blood]. What Could I say but yes... It was held in his semi-private cabin with his male partner sitting in as mohel. Myself and another man whom I, and our community, hold in very high regard were witnesses and our rabbi and former education coordinator served as, well rabbi and sponsor.

This event was unlike any simcha or blessed event that I have ever witnessed. For one, the queer nature of this ancient event was so poignant. Not only was one of their witnesses a bisexual Female-to-Male transsexual but the other was as queer and questioning as any man ever was. The rabbi, a feminist lesbian and visionary, and the sponsor a queer woman, all but one person present were parents. We stood together in a circle looking at one another as words of blessing were spoken by both women about this man about to make a small sacrifice to enter the covenant.

We laughed nervously at the small phrases spoken in jest by the rabbi and sponsor, we shot glances about the room searching for the understanding of what would transpire here in this room of men once the women folk were gone and we held our hands dangling in front of our own places of manhood. So much nervousness wrapped in the trappings of tradition and l’dor v’dor [to Generation and Generation]; yet, we all held the feeling of connectedness that traditions bring.

Dropping trou' the convert sat and waited, eyes closed, clenched and braced waiting for the piercing needle that would be a rebirth of sorts on his 7 year road to conversion. The women were waiting with baited breath for the words of blessing to be chanted, but time stood still in that moment of wonder, that moment of pain and that moment of transformation. My own mind wandered on to thoughts of genital surgery and the heady academic debates brought on by pictures of the outcomes of such things. Yet, almost, the same thing was happening here with this genital modification. With the blood from his penis he was transformed into someone who was only a step away from the mikveh. Still the same person but now transformed by the letting of his blood thus confirming his commitment to becoming Jewish.

Praised are You, Adonai our God, who rules the universe, whose mitzvot add holiness to our lives and who gave us the mitzvah to circumcise converts.

With those few little words it was over and the rabbi and sponsor entered again. Hugging ensued and another parallel drawn between the aspects of Transness and Jewishness emerges in my mind. Even as I sit here and write about this, I am still entranced by the feeling of interconnectedness that Sunday morning brought into my life and I think about how the process of conversion mimics the process of transition and vise versa.

First of many...

I am formulating my idea of doing an ethnographic film on conversion to Judaism. I met with my congregational Rabbi last month to go over semantics. She gave the green light to the project and we mostly just hashed out wording my questions. She helped me to really get what I needed from the meeting, despite being really nervous and flustered by the sheer monumental nature of my previous film and oral history project which is still ongoing. However, I think I have learned much from the "first feature jitters" and I will be better able to really take my film making skills to the next level.

List of things to do:

Draft Questions (Check)
Talk to Rabbi (Check)
Write Final Questions
Put out call for participants
Start interviews
Edit as I go along
Keep backup of all film project data
etc...

B' Sholom