The Adult Education Committee of Rinat Yisrael will presents a unique multimedia lecture by David Zvi Kalman on Saturday night, December 23, at 8:30 p.m. in the Rinat social hall. The topic will be “Jewish Ritual as Depicted in the Movies.”

Hollywood has been incorporating Jewish rituals into both television and movies for more than a century—sometimes as kitsch, sometimes as an ethnic flourish, sometimes for dramatic effect and sometimes even as comedy. In this multimedia presentation, attendees will look at a number of the most fascinating examples and discuss trends in representation, whether the rituals get botched, and—most importantly—the function of these foreign-language prayers in American entertainment.

David Zvi Kalman is a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in Jewish law, Islamic law and the history of technology. He is the owner and operator of Print-O-Craft LLC, an independent Jewish publishing house. He is also co-founder and executive director of Jewish Public Media, a non-profit podcasting platform. Currently a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, he has written for The Forward, Tablet and Haaretz.