SARATOGA SPRINGS – The Saratoga Jewish Community Arts (SjCA) will present its Thursday, March 23, program, a viewing and discussion of the film, “Lemon Tree” in-person at 6 p.m. in the Davis Auditorium at Skidmore and a later a post-film discussion at 8 p.m. “virtually” on Zoom.
The program is in cooperation with Skidmore Jewish Student Life.
A still from the movie “Lemon Tree”
“Lemon Tree,” an Israeli film written and directed by Eran Riklis and Suha Arraf, is a political film.
The chief focus of this story is the ramifications of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the lives of a handful of individuals on different sides of the conflict.
The key characters are two women, and both may be more sympathetic to the audience then the male characters, according to organizers.
Salma, portrayed as an outcast, is a lonely Palestinian widow who can’t rely on the support of her children and whose rights as an individual are abused by both the Israeli state and her fellow Palestinians. Mira, the Israeli defense minister’s wife, is also a sort of outcast: living mostly alone (not counting the security guards) in a place that looks and feels more like a fortress than a home, at odds with her husband, and left alone by her 32 year-old daughter.
Here is a film,” says Phyllis Wang, coordinator of SJCA, “that doesn’t provide easy or satisfying answers. There are situations on both sides that the audience, whichever political side they sit on, can defend or renounce.” She added, “The director tries to focus on the ways the lives of individuals are affected by decisions made by governments, whether local or global. Those decisions can, and most frequently do, have a dramatic effect on individual lives.”
Registration is required and may be obtained by e-mailing [email protected]. A $5 admission is requested from non-Skidmore faculty and students if attending in-person. Information may be obtained at www.saratogasinai.org or www.saratogajewishculturalfestival.com.
