Insightful and hilarious, When Jews were funny surveys the history of Jewish comedy, from the early days of Borsht belt to the present, ultimately exploring the entire unruly question of what it means to be Jewish.

Are we allowed to make jokes about the Holocaust? In this outrageously funny and thought-provoking film, filmmaker Ferne Pearlstein puts the question about comedy's ultimate taboo to legends including Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Sarah Silverman, Gilbert Gottfried, Harry Shearer, Jeff Ross, Judy Gold, Susie Essman, Larry Charles, and many other critical thinkers, as well as Holocaust survivors themselves. Through these interviews and clips from our favorite...

This is an account of the birth of Islam and a history of conquest stretching from Persia to Spain. For the conquered, what was their place in this empire? For the polytheists they had little choice but to convert, for the People Of The Book, Jews and Christians would be allowed to practice their religions, protected but restricted.

History now takes us to Europe: the French Revolution. Nation-states. The Jews, now European citizens, became the target of a more asserted anti-Semitism. But having incorporated the new national elites, they began to take a greater interest in the fate of the Jews in the Muslim world and to play the role of their protectors. Trapped between Zionism and Arabic nationalism, Palestine — called “Southern Syria” by the Ottomans — became the object...

Art of faith is a visually sumptuous series exploring the architecture and art of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Each program is presented and narrated by the broadcaster John McCarthy, who visits many of the greatest and most significant religious buildings of the world. Art of faith: Judaism Judaism visits one of the earliest synagogues on the mountain fort of Masada, the Gothic Old-New Synagogue in Prague and nineteenth-century houses of worship...

World renowned architect Daniel Libeskind (Jewish Museums in Berlin, Copenhagen, San Francisco), prolific scholar James E. Young (The Texture of Memory, Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust), museum designer Ralph Appelbaum (US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Canadian Museum for Human Rights), visual artist Esther Shalev-Gerz (Hamburg-Harburg Monument Against Fascism) and many other knowledgeable artists, designers, and educators share their thoughts on...

-- The New York Times Book Review Asher Lev is a Ladover Hasid who keeps kosher, prays three times a day and believes in the Ribbono Shel Olom, the Master of the Universe. He grows up in a cloistered Hasidic community in postwar Brooklyn, a world suffused by ritual and revolving around a charismatic Rebbe. He is torn between two identities, the one consecrated to God, the other devoted only to art and his imagination, and in time, his artistic gift...

Winner at the Sundance Film Festival, 5 broken cameras is a deeply personal, first-hand account of non-violent resistance in Bil'in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements. Shot almost entirely by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son, the footage was later given to Israeli co-director Guy Davidi to edit. Structured around the violent destruction of each...

Nominated for 8 Israeli Film Academy Awards, THE SECRETS presents the complexities of a religious lifestyle in a vibrant environment of youth, rebellion and desire.. Naomi, the brilliant and pious daughter of an ultra orthodox rabbi finds herself at a crossroads of life choices when her mother dies and she is expected to immediately marry her father's prodigy. Distressed yet determined, she begs that her father allow her one year to study at a women's...

Victor "Young" Perez , tells the astonishing, harrowing and incredible true story of a Tunisian Jewish boxer, who became the World Flyweight Champion in 1931 and 1932. His romance with the French-Italian actress Mireille Balin increased his fame. But because of his Jewish heritage, Perez was arrested in Paris on September 21, 1943 and transported to Auschwitz. Whilst there he was forced to participate in boxing matches for the amusement of the Nazis....