Big issues

THE BOSTON JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL. Screens November 9 through 19 at the MFA, the Coolidge Corner, the Brattle, and the Harvard Film Archive.

The festival opens next Thursday at 8 at the MFA with the Boston premiere of the haunting, surreal Sh'chur. This controversial film captured most of the Israeli Oscars last year - and provoked a heated debate about the difficulties faced by the Sephardic Jews of North Africa and Middle East in assimilating with the Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews who form the majority in Israel. Laden with symbolism and intriguing ritual, Sh'chur (it's a Moroccan word for white magic) is based on the autobiographical story of Hana Azoulay Hasfari's journey home for her father's funeral. On the way, she confronts her past and the clash between the Sephardic mystical traditions that her mother (Gilga Almagor) and half-mad sister (Ronit Alkabetz) practiced to hold the ailing family together and the danger from her blind father's crippling religious control. Alkabetz and director Shmuel Hasfari will be present at a reception following the screening.

The schism between the Sephardic and Ashkenazi communities - not to mention socialism, Zionism, and the pressures of being young - is examined in director Guita Schyfter's Like a Bride (November 12, 8:30 p.m., Coolidge Corner). This is an engaging story about two Jewish girls coming of age amid the turbulence of Mexico City during the 1960s, and the anxiety their rebellious attitudes cause their families. Also set in the '60s, To See Paris and Die (November 11, 7:15 p.m., Coolidge Corner) is Alexander Proshkin's dark, powerful look at self-loathing and anti-Semitism in a communal apartment in Moscow. Tatyana Vasilyeva won a Russian Oscar for her tragic portrayal of a mother desperately trying to conceal her son's Jewish heritage while battling her own creeping paranoia and her belief that it is a curse to be a Jew. Both Schyfter and Proshkin will be present for the screenings of their films.

Probably the most enjoyable entry this year is the comfortably moody and atmospheric September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill (November 18, 7 p.m., Brattle). This tribute to the famous German composer's music celebrates the magic of life even under the most unhappy circumstances, with performances by Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, Betty Carter, and PJ Harvey, plus an unforgettable rendition of "Mack the Knife" by Nick Cave. The "Young Voices" program follows that evening (at 9 p.m.), featuring a series of shorts by filmmakers attempting to deal with the pain, loss, and denial they have inherited from their parents who survived World War II. Claudia Silver's "Kalamazoo," starring Wallace Shawn, offers a refreshing dose of humor that comes across like a Philip Roth-scripted episode of Friends.

Also not to be missed is "The Shvitz" (November 12, 6:30 p.m., Coolidge Corner), a humorous and intimate look at the few remaining Russian-Jewish steambaths in Coney Island. Director Jonathan Berman's documentary goes inside these disappearing oases held together by a wonderful brand of community; if anything could ever make you ever want join a group of naked, sweaty, old men, this is it.

Two other light and pleasant shorts are "When Shirley Met Florence" and "Mme Jacques sur la croisette" (November 19, 2 p.m., Brattle). "Shirley" tells the story of two elderly Jewish women, one gay and the other straight, who grew up together in a Polish ghetto; it describes how their wonderful relationship evolved throughout their lives. "Mme Jacques" shows that something as simple as a blossoming romance between two Holocaust survivors can enable them to forget their past for a while and think of the future.

One of the more chilling entries is Micha X. Peled's investigation of the fundamentalist Jewish settlers living in the West Bank town of Hebron, where Arabs outnumber them 200 to one. "Inside God's Bunker" (November 16, 6 p.m., MFA) takes us into their enclave during the months leading up to the 1994 massacre of 29 Arab worshippers at the Tomb of the Saints. We're also afforded a harrowing glimpse into militant schools, where children are encouraged to enact violence against Arabs and to condemn the Israeli government.

But the festival's most controversial and disturbing documentary is Profession: Neo-Nazi (November 19, 4:30 p.m., Brattle), by Winfried Bonengel. We're introduced to 28-year-old Ewald Althans on the political trail as he raises lots of money, gives pep-talks to German mercenaries in Croatia, and tries to convince visitors to Auschwitz that the gas chambers were really bath houses. At first this film was banned by the German government for being Nazi propaganda. After scrutiny German and Jewish leaders urged that it be shown in order to increase public awareness of the growing fascist movement.

For information about the Boston Jewish Film Festival, or to order tickets, call 965-5226.