BAGEL AND FILM BRUNCH 

“From Birth To Bris and Beyond”

Sunday, March 19

Bagels at 10:00 AM,  Films begin at 10:45 AM

Northwest Premiere

USA, 1999, 30 min.

David Bezmozgis, Director

L.A. Mohel

There are probably as many jokes about Los Angeles as there are about  mohels (Jewish ritual circumcisers).  Dispensing with stereotypes and caricatures long-associated with the profession, this documentary explores the lives of three popular L.A. mohels.  We follow a young cell-phone wielding doctor nicknamed “The Mohel to the Stars,” an Orthodox rabbi with 11,000 circumcisions under his belt, and a nurse-midwife as they perform the ceremony for a host of Jewish communities – secular and religious, Sephardic and Ashkenazi. In their own voices and shot in verité style, we gain an understanding of what it means to perform a 3,700 year-old ceremony in America’s most modern city. Balancing incredible humor and emotion – which the bris ceremony naturally evokes – L.A. Mohel is a crowd pleaser.

Shown with A World to Come, Purim, GOD@heaven

For a list of related readings available at Tree of Life Books and Judaica and through the American Jewish Committee, please visit our SJFF 2000 Reading List.