Helene Meyers
It’s one of those flawed films that gets under your skin in good and stimulating ways.
“Félix and Meira”: Flawed Flick Worth Watching
Author: Helene Meyers
Helene Meyers is Professor of English and McManis University Chair at Southwestern University. She is the author, most recently, of Identity Papers: Contemporary Narratives of American Jewishness and is working on a book about Jewish American cinema.
Keeping the Sabbath Post-Hyper Cacher
Helene Meyers
I’m writing this to honor the memory of Yohan Cohen, Yoav Hattab, Phillipe Barham, and Francoise-Michel Saada, the French Jewish men who were shopping at the Hyper Cacher in Paris and were murdered by terrorists.
Jewish Calendar Talk
Helene Meyers
I wonder if we fully appreciate how, at the holiest time of the Jewish year, Jews are still routinely, subtly and powerfully required to make choices between their Jewishness and their wholesale belonging in various professional, communal, and organizational worlds.
Yentl, Me, and 1983
by Helene Meyers
Yentl was and is a milestone film because it gave voice, loudly and unrelentingly, to the frustrations and longings keenly felt by a generation of smart, mouthy Jewish women. Born of the old world, Yentl spoke to new world Jewish feminists.
Memory and Teshuva: A Review of October Mourning
Helene Meyers
Leviticus 18, which deems men lying with men an abomination, has traditionally been part of the Yom Kippur service. Many congregations today opt for a substitute for this oft-quoted but underhistoricized text that has contributed to diverse forms of religious and secular homophobia. Whether we reject, historicize, or transform the meaning of these words that have hurt, we should relish opportunities to communally atone for complicity with traditional and contemporary forms of hate.