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For many people, Christmas means reconnecting with loved ones, exchanging gifts and bingeing the most poorly conceived movies Hallmark and Netflix are capable of producing. For others, the holiday experience can look markedly different.
For more than two decades, the nonprofit 3 Stars Jewish Cinema (3SJC) has been providing a communal event for Dallas’ Jewish population with Christmas and film in mind. This year, on Dec. 24, they will host a screening of Cecil B. DeMille’s celebrated epic The Ten Commandments (1956), featuring Charlton Heston at his bearded best and Russian-American Yul Brynner questionably cast as Egyptian pharaoh Rameses II.
Susan Kandell Wilkofsky and Bart Weiss, two of 3SJC’s organizers, say that for Jewish people, the Christmas holiday can be an odd time. Christmas and Hanukkah occur around the same time of year, but do not always directly overlap. The world grinds to a halt during Christmas, with shops and restaurants shutting their doors to celebrate, while everything continues pretty much as-is during Hanukkah. Americans have attempted to make the two analogous, with Hanukkah morphing into a gift-giving holiday, but in its traditional form, Wilkofsky and Weiss say, the emphasis is more on spirituality and a time for remembrance.
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3SJC began when businessman Morton Meyerson reached out to Weiss and inquired about establishing a Jewish film festival in Dallas. He had attended the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, a marquee event that brings the Jewish community together each year, and wanted to do the same for Dallas’ Jewish community.
“They get a lot of Jewish people who are unaffiliated with synagogues, people who don’t do much [formal Jewish traditions] at all during the year, and they come to San Francisco,” Weiss says. “That’s what they do about being Jewish.”
Weiss let Meyerson know the Jewish Community Center in Dallas already had an annual festival, but proposed a monthly screening series that would showcase Jewish cinema. Meyerson agreed, and 3 Stars Jewish Cinema was born.
They chose the name, Weiss says, because you can determine when the Sabbath starts or ends when you see three stars in the sky. Despite the titular tie to the Sabbath, they have never actually screened a film on a Friday or Saturday night. It’s too expensive.
The timing was fortuitous, Wilkofsky and Weiss recall. They kicked off the screening series in 2001, around the time the Angelika Film Center first opened its doors. They were one of the first film organizations to host a screening in what has become a staple venue for Dallas cinephiles.
They continued their monthly screenings for years; COVID and the departure of the group’s executive director put an end to that run, but Wilkofsky and Weiss say they are determined to rebuild. The Christmastime screenings are an important part of that, providing a communal experience for Jewish people while the rest of the world celebrates Christmas.
“One of the things that we wanted in putting this together was some place where people who are Jewish can get together and not have to be religious or talking about the Torah or anything else,” says Weiss. “There are a lot of people that want to be connected with Jewish culture, but not necessarily religious culture.”
Weiss calls them “bagel Jews” — culturally Jewish, but not regular synagogue-goers. 3SJC, he says, provides these individuals an opportunity to engage with Jewish culture in a way that doesn’t require sitting in on a rabbi’s sermon. Still, it strengthens their ties to their religion, something Wilkofsky feels is important, especially in a city where Judaism is not necessarily at the center of the culture.
“I grew up in New York City where you didn’t have to be Jewish to be Jewish, but in Dallas you do have to be Jewish to be Jewish,” she says. “Otherwise, you’re not going to be.”
Anyone interested in attending the 3 Stars Jewish Cinema screening of ‘The Ten Commandments’ can email 3starscinema@gmail.com. Tickets are free, but limited to two per person.
