Tribeca’s The Wedding Entertainer: Amazing Jewish Representation

Twenty-two years ago director Gidi Dar did something groundbreaking. He was part of a team that brought Ushpizin, a positive, nuanced, authentic depiction of Hasidic Jews to Tribeca. Ushpizin gave way to films like Rama Burshtein’s Fill The Void, shows like Shtisel and somewhat mainstreamed the idea that Hasidic and Haredi Jews are human, worthy of love and that their stories and experiences matter too. (We’re still not there yet, but we can now point to a few solid examples.)

This Sunday, my family got to see Dar’s most recent Hasidic Jewish Tribeca film selection: The Wedding Entertainer (The Tale of Moishe Badhan). A familiar face in the film was comedian, Elon Gold, who spoke Yiddish on screen most recently on Curb Your Enthusiasm, but this time his Yiddish skills were used to play a Hasid. Producers of HBOMax’s One Day In October, Danny Finkelman and Chaya Amor were producers on this film as well.

SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD

The Wedding Entertainer bring us into a world of poor Hasidic Jews in Jerusalem, trying to marry of their lone single daughter who dabbles in eccentric kabbalistic practices. Moishe, played by Shuli Rand (who also starred in and wrote Ushpizin) is an alcoholic and watching him in his Twelve Step program with other hasidim, saying the same affirmations that all recovering alcoholics say is a reminder that under the beard and hat and frock are human beings with human struggles.

Just so we don’t think that all Hasidim are poor, the story introduces us to some very wealthy members of the community and the audience quickly understands and you can end up on either side of the coin and money and poverty both have their challenges.

Though most of the characters are flawed (the future son-in-law seems to be just a pure heart), they all want to be better. And we get to watch them wrestle with life’s challenges, guided by Jewish values, sometimes falling short and then finding little pockets of redemption. The community is clearly different from most of the audience members watching, and there are some insider baseball lines that only religious Jews will understand. My older son noted how this must be the case in all the minority content we view, but this time we got to be the ones who got the inside jokes. He appreciated the rare moment.

The film was so well written, acted, directed, authentic there is almost nothing I would change. There was one beard on a musician and one long hair style on a bride that were not exactly what I would have expected. But when the only things you’d suggest changing are a couple of haircuts, you’re talking about a film that is nearly perfect.

I laughed, I got teary-eyed and the story had me on the edge of my seat till the very end. Great job to all of those involved. I hope this film is quickly picked up by a major streamer and widely viewed. It will make a meaningful difference in humanizing Jews around the world.

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