Hosted by the MSU Jewish Studies Program, the event started in 2000 when Ellen Rothfeld, an MSU linguistics professor who teaches Hebrew, thought Israeli films would be beneficial to students studying Hebrew.

“It was important to bring in Israeli culture for the students,” Rothfeld said. “It would not only be a good thing for the Hebrew students, but for the MSU community.”

Rothfeld first showed the films as individual screenings. After the event’s attendance reached more than 200 — with people traveling from Ann Arbor and Detroit to watch the films — Ken Waltzer, the director of Jewish studies at MSU, asked Rothfeld to plan an entire festival.

Grossman attended a Sunday showing of “Menachem and Fred,” a movie about two brothers who survived the Holocaust, but were separated for years. Grossman, who had relatives die in the Holocaust, said it’s important to show these types of movies.

“It’s a shame when you find people from Jewish families who don’t know anything about (the Holocaust),” said Grossman.

“People say ‘there’s too many Holocaust movies; it’s not a good movie topic.’ But this is real life and it’s still affecting people to this day.”

The Israeli film industry still is small, but its appeal is growing, Rothfeld said. She said about 20 nondocumentary films are created in Israel each year compared to the hundred America produces, but film quality has improved in recent years.

“This is quite a big thing in America,” she said. “Italy, Germany, New Zealand; most in their international film festivals include Israeli films because they’re of such high quality and winning such big awards.”

In the past 10 years, Rothfeld said Israeli feature films won about 200 awards in international film festivals, and Israeli documentaries and short films received more than 300 awards.

Each year, Rothfeld requests dozens of Israeli films and narrows down the list of which will run based on the film’s cinematography, clarity of its English subtitles and, because the film festival attracts what Rothfeld described as a “group of all ages,” films must be appropriate. The final list is then selected by a four-person committee.

Yael Aronoff, a professor of multicultural relations, helped select the movies and TV shows as a member of this year’s committee.
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“We try to be very current,” she said. “With Israeli films, it is sometimes more important they be timely as they address important topics of the day. They deal with serious issues very often.”