Film Night: Menashe

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This documentary will be screened on Thursday, May 25, at 7 p.m., on Zoom. (Meeting ID: 895 2584 9483)

Set within the New York Hasidic community in Borough Park, Brooklyn, Menashe follows a kind but hapless grocery store clerk trying to maintain custody of his son Rieven after his wife Lea, passes away. Because they live in a tradition-bound culture that requires a mother be present in every home, Rieven is destined to be adopted by the boy’s strict, married uncle. But Menashe’s Rabbi decides to grant him one week to spend with Rieven prior to Lea’s memorial. Their time together creates an emotional moment of father-son bonding and offers Menashe a final chance to prove to his skeptical community that he can be a capable parent. Shot in secret entirely within the Hasidic community depicted in the film, and one of the only movies to be performed in Yiddish in nearly 70 years, Menashe is a warm, life-affirming look at the universal bonds between father and son that also sheds unusual light on a notoriously private community.

Director Josh Weinstein will be present for a Q&A after the screening. He has been a Coop member on and off since 2008 and is in awe of people who have member numbers in the double digits!

To be added to our mailing list for future screening announcements, please email a request to jlymiller@me.com.

Opinions expressed within this film are not necessarily representative of the views of the Park Slope Food Coop.