To Be Counted

I’m in post-production of To Be Counted, a documentary about a small synagogue in the in the city of Niteroi, in the State of Rio de Janeiro, in its 90th year, surviving despite the odds.

The synagogue is now supported by few members, and membership is often connected either to tradition or to the fact that the synagogue administers the city’s Jewish cemetery. The film includes conversations with the synagogue’s current community: the members that are there every week to form a minyan (a group of 10 men in their interpretation), the few women who still come on Saturday mornings, and the family that takes care of the building.

 Above all, it is a conversation about what in a community generates a feeling of connection, and what can create disconnection; about how tradition can embrace, and how it can also alienate. I see the project as a vehicle for conversations about small communities’ preservation in general, and small Jewish communities’ preservation in particular.