Fundraiser to help provide emergency services and counseling to Israeli victims of terror.
On November 18, JOIN Israel hosted the NYC premiere of ‘Guns & Moses’ at the Angelika Film Center in Manhattan. The fundraiser event will help provide emergency services and counseling to victims of terror across Israel.
‘Guns & Moses’ is a mystery thriller about a small-town rabbi who becomes an unlikely gunslinger after his community is violently attacked. Moses Zaltzman is an off-beat Hasidic rabbi in a small town in the California high desert. After the attack, police quickly accuse a young white nationalist who threatened them in the past, but Rabbi Mo thinks the troubled teen may be innocent. With no one else willing to investigate, Rabbi Mo becomes the detective, and as the bodies pile up, he becomes a modern-day resistance fighter and must learn how to use a gun. An unexpected bond develops between a rabbi and an antisemite. Mo fears he won’t pull the trigger, if he must, and at the same, that he will.
The cast includes Mark Feuerstein (“Royal Pains”), Christopher Lloyd (“Back to the Future”), Gabrielle Ruiz (“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”), Neal McDonough (“Suits,” “Band of Brothers”), Dermot Mulroney (“Chicago Fire,” “Shameless”) and Alona Tal (“Veronica Mars”).
Following the movie, Salvador Litvak, the movie’s director, and cast member Ruiz participated in a panel discussion moderated by CBS New York news anchor Lisa Rozner.
Rozner asked the director, “What do you want people to take away from the film, in terms of antisemitism?” Litvak began, “We shot this at the end of 2022, so the world in which we made this movie, is not the world in which it’s coming to theaters.”
Litvak continued: “When my wife, Nina, and I wrote it, we knew that attacks on Jews would always be relevant, but really could not have imagined what’s been going on since October 7, what’s been going on in college campuses in America and what’s been going on in Israel. Of course, it’s made it more resonant in many ways.
“There are Jew haters out there. There’s corruption out there that uses that kind of tension for its own purposes. There’s a lot of lies and deception. And there’s good people who stand up. There are Jews who stand up and allies who stand up.” Litvak noted the fictional rabbi’s training is based on his own experience in Magen Am, an organization created by Chabad Rabbi Yossi Eilfort. “Large synagogues can afford armed guards. Small synagogues maybe can’t. We’re a volunteer force. Community team members go through extensive training … become licensed and carry firearms in shul. Please God, we should never need them, but if God forbid we do, we’ll be prepared.”
Recalling the movie’s themes of unity, Rozner asked Ruiz what it was like to play such a strong ally of this Jewish family. Ruiz views her character Brenda as “the voice of urgency, that you need to know it now. Maybe not now, but yesterday, to protect yourself and not be afraid.”
Rozner noted many Talmudic references in the movie. “This movie is thoroughly grounded in our tradition, references to what I do when I’m not making movies,” Litvak explained: “My wife and I run a platform called the Accidental Talmudist. We share Jewish wisdom, humor, history, culture with about 1.3 million people around the world.” Noting how Ruiz zeroed in on the concept of not being afraid, he said, “That’s one of the most common phrases in the Bible. There’s a time to be afraid. There’s a time when you can’t be afraid and act despite your fear. It’s natural for us to incorporate in the movie what we spend so much time learning and teaching.”
Ruiz said: “I am so grateful to be here tonight with JOIN Israel. For people right now who don’t know what to do, there are organizations like JOIN Israel. Like the rabbi in the movie, we also can take action to support those in need.
Litvak’s project will be shown at winter film festivals in Miami, Atlanta and Boca Raton, preceding its American theater release in April. “This is a movie that America needs. People with very different backgrounds will sit in theaters together, and enjoy it together,” the director said.
JOIN Israel services at-risk youth, families and elderly across Israel. Utilizing unused resources, they enlist partners in a unique collaborative model. “We JOIN together government agencies, communities and nonprofits in a synergistic partnership to solve intolerable situations facing Israelis today.”
In 1992, Stephen Bisk established JOIN Israel, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, to offer social services and educational solutions for immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union. In the United States, JOIN Israel gives a platform to rescue Israelis in crisis, including parlor meetings, regional fundraisers and a growing Young Leadership Chapter.
To learn more about JOIN Israel, visit www.JOINisrael.org
