How to Make Challah

2023, documentary, 12 min

Using a grainy video tape camera, my aunt Jane filmed her 97-year-old immigrant grandmother baking challah in her tiny kitchen on the Upper West Side. It was 1975. Almost 50 years later, I continued this ritual by filming my aunt Jane (now 80) baking challah herself for the first time. "How to Make Challah" moves between the 1975 tape of my great-grandmother and the 2022 tape of my aunt Jane, plus archival footage from Jewish life at the turn of the 20th century. The film documents generations of women performing this cultural-religious ritual a half century apart, highlighting the age-old significance of conversation between women in the kitchen. It shows how much a day of baking bread can reveal about class, culture, family, history, and women’s expanding freedom in America. Most of all, the film is about what we pass on to the next generation and what we leave behind.

Festivals (selected):

New York Jewish Film Festival, presented by The Jewish Museum and Film at Lincoln Center - World Premiere

Rooftop Films

Boston Jewish Film Festival - WINNER OF SHORT FILM COMPETITION

Philadelphia Jewish Film and Media Festival - WINNER OF AUDIENCE AWARD FOR BEST SHORT

Moscow Jewish Film Festival - WINNER OF JURY AWARD

Cleveland International Film Festival

Budapest Jewish-Israeli Film Festival - Budapesti Zsidó és Izraeli Filmfesztivál

Toronto Jewish Film Festival

UK Jewish Film Festival