There is an extraordinary community of subsistence farmers, living on the edge of poverty in a small village called Putti in rural eastern Uganda. They practice Orthodox Judaism despite having no genetic or established link to Israel. And they want to make aliyah.

This riveting documentary, filmed over seven years, sees Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, formerly of Lincoln Square Synagogue on the Upper West Side of New York City and founding chief rabbi of Efrat, lead a team of rabbis enthusiastically conducting group conversions of the inhabitants of Putti.

But not everyone is as enamored of these efforts. One resident complains, “We are already Jewish. Why do you say convert? We say if you want to recognize us, okay. So, they came and organized what they call conversion. But for us, we call it recognition.”

Shalom Putti shines a light on this little-known part of the world and the determined attempts of a few committed rabbis to gather these people from the diaspora into Israel. Shot entirely in rural Uganda, the film introduces a charming array of interviewees, and witnesses Riskin ordaining  the country’s first Orthodox rabbi, whose rabbinical degree was granted in Israel.

Click to read Moment Film Editor Dina Gold’s review of Shalom Putti.

“We are finally here, in the Holy Land–making a fresh start,” Victor Frenkel says hopefully as he raises a toast with his wife Raya. It is their first night in Tel Aviv after arriving from Russia in September 1990. But such optimism soon turns to bitter disappointment in the touching drama directed by Evgeny Ruman (The Damned, The Man in the Wall, Igor & the Cranes’ Journey) about aging olim struggling to find jobs and fit into their new environment.

Read Moment Film Editor Dina Gold’s review of Golden Voices, which follows Victor and Raya, a middle-aged couple who, on witnessing the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, join thousands of others fleeing by making aliyah to Israel.

Glance at almost any 2022 Jewish film festival program and you’re almost guaranteed to see the latest comedy from Israel, Greener Pastures, listed. This newly released film, starring Shlomo Bar-Aba (Footnote) as cantankerous widower Dov Aharon, Joy Rieger (Past Life, Image of Victory) as Dana, the lawyer girlfriend of Dov’s grandson, and Doval’e Glickman (Shtisel) as hippy-pothead Yehuda, was nominated for 12 Ophir Awards (Israel’s equivalent of the Oscars) including for Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Lead Actor.  

Read Moment Film Editor Dina Gold’s review of Greener Pastures, in which retiree Dov, needing money to buy back his old house, starts selling his fellow retirement home residents’ surplus medical marijuana on the black market.