Hasids in Films!
New York, I Love You, NYC’s take on Paris Je’ Taime, a series of vignettes based around the concept of love, all shot with New York as the backdrop debuts this Friday. The film boasts a jam packed cast including Christina Ricci, Drea de Matteo, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Robin Wright Penn and much more.
“New York, I Love You, is a collaboration of storytelling from some of today’s most imaginative filmmakers and together they create a kaleidoscope of the spontaneous, surprising, electrifying human connections that pump the city’s heartbeat. Sexy, funny, haunting and revealing encounters unfold beneath the Manhattan skyline. From Tribeca to Central Park to Brooklyn, the story weaves a tale of love as diverse as the very fabric of New York itself .”
Natalie Portman shows up as Rifka, a Satmar Hasid; shrewd talking and individualistic diamond buyer. It is an anomaly to see a hasidic women portrayed in a film with such an independent and strong character capable of standing up and doing for herself. Tablet Magazine sat down with three film historians—Village Voice critic J. Hoberman; Jeremy Dauber, a professor of Yiddish at Columbia; and Andrew Ingall, a media curator at the Jewish Museum—about the history of ultra-Orthodox Jews in film.
Check out the analysis HERE