The Golem

I saw this on the shelves of the video section in my public library. Since borrowing a movie from the library is free, and since it's fairly a short movie, giving this movie a shot wasn't much of a commitment, so I borrowed it. Well, I was disappointed, and even a bit bothered by the contents of this short. It is clearly intended to do two things: 1) Familiarize Jews with the rich culture and history of their people (those who aren't active members of the Jewish community), and 2) Educate non-Jews about some of the struggles that Jews experience growing up and living in the U.S. Well, as a Jew, albeit a non-practicing one, I can tell you that the film fails at both of these things. It is just silly, that's all there is to it. It portrays Jews as being far more persecuted than anything that I have ever experienced, which potentially alienates people who see this in the hopes of earning more about being a Jew. In addition, because of its absurdity, I can easily imagine people who have had little interaction with Jews and might not know otherwise coming away from the viewing with a completely incorrect idea of Jewish-American culture as comprised of paranoid, eccentric, exclusive, and archaic people. On one level this movie is almost dangerous because of the incorrect ideas it creates/perpetuates.