The Birmingham Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival has selected a few movies to have encore presentations this weekend.

The Jewish-Muslim "feel good" movie, "David," which was shown to a packed house at the Festival in August, is one of the films to be shown again. The film depicts a Muslim boy's friendship with an orthodox Jewish boy in Brooklyn.

"David" was written, directed and produced by Joel Fendelman, cousin of Birmingham Jewish community member Barry Dreayer. This year, it has already won awards at the Brooklyn Film Festival and the Montreal Film Festival.

The showing will take place this Sunday, Sept. 18, at 4 pm at the Edge 12 Theater in the Crestwood Festival Shopping Center, 7001 Crestwood Boulevard. Tickets are $8 in advance and $10 at the door.

By Joyce Spielberger, BJF

Being able to have the conversations. It's not always simple, but because of the strong bonds our Sisters/Chaverim and THREADS women's dialogue groups have created over the years, professional African American, Jewish and Hispanic women continue to tackle sensitive issues.

This was the case recently when the two groups came together to talk about the best-selling book, "The Help," also recently released as a movie. Former Birmingham News features reporter Marie Sutton (pictured here) facilitated the discussion with 15 women in attendance.

Marie, now a freelance writer, recently wrote a very moving piece for The Birmingham News' Sunday Viewpoints section, headlined, "I am who I am because my mother was a maid." In it, Marie wrote about her mother's experiences working as a maid in Birmingham and her feelings about the sacrifices her mother made for her and her siblings by so doing. (See below link.)

Our BJF Executive Director, Richard Friedman, a former Birmingham News reporter himself, was so moved by Marie's column that he friended her on Facebook, and she responded immediately. He wanted to reach out to her and connect her with The BJF, and he asked me to follow up with Marie, which I did.

MOTHER'S FEELINGS

In her talk to our group, Marie told us that the book -- which explores the lives of black maids and their white employers in Jackson, MS in the 1960s -- "awakened" her. She realized that she never knew what her mother had experienced working as a maid in Birmingham in the 1980s. Marie conducted a lengthy interview with her mom, and, at the age of 37, heard her mother's stories for the first time.

When she finished she was sobbing, overcome by the depth of her mother's feelings of humiliation, frustrated ambition and also gratefulness for the kindnesses that she did encounter.

The discussion among the Sisters and THREADS women that evening was honest and, at times, emotional. Several of the Jewish women who grew up in homes where they had maids talked about their "Help" -- and the emotional struggle they felt between feelings of love and respect for their maids and guilt over the personal sacrifices these black women made to tend to their needs.

MOB MENTALITY

The theory of group think, or mob mentality, was a dominant topic in the group's conversation. In the book, peer pressure led to the dismissal of a beloved maid for her daughter's "infraction" -- which was coming to the front door during a ladies luncheon, instead of the back door.

This mob mentality, and especially people blindly following those perceived to have power, no matter how immoral their motives, is a root cause of many of history's more atrocious acts. This was something that Jewish and African American participants in the discussion understood all too well, given the difficulties these two groups have faced in the past.

It was an enlightening evening for all who participated, especially Marie. "I found it to be a refreshing fellowship; the women allowed themselves to be vulnerable with their questions and comments. I was so glad to be a part of it," Marie wrote after the program in an email to The BJF.

"If others could purpose in their hearts to have the kind of openness and willingness to understand their fellow man the way we did on that night, the world would be a better place," added Marie who has now joined our BJF group herself.

One conversation at a time is how The BJF Sisters/Chaverim (Hebrew for friends) and THREADS women continue to make an impact on our community.

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THREADS is for women in their 20s and 30s and Sisters is for women in their 40s and up. If you would like to know more about these groups, contact Joyce Spielberger, The BJF's Director of Community Relations, at joyces@bjf.org. Sisters/Chaverim has been honored locally by the Birmingham Urban League and nationally by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

Update this week had a short piece on some nice comments about The Birmingham Jewish Federation from Jerry Benjamin, a reader in Milwaukee who is the president of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation. In response, came a nice email from Avram Kluger, Campaign Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor in Michigan.

"I smiled when I read the comment from the Milwaukee Federation president," wrote Avram. "It is exactly how I feel! When we speak about Jewish communities of excellence, I always mention Birmingham. You all are doing and communicating the inspiring work of Federations."

Thanks Avram, thanks Jerry. Such emails make us feel great!