"The Tree of Life"

Bernard Milken Jewish Community Campus

22622 Vanowen Street, West Hills, CA 91307

Sunday, December 7, 2008
1:30 PM

A JGSLA Hanukah Party

PROGRAM CHANGE:

A screening of the new documentary "The Tree of Life," the fascinating history of Italian-Jewish life from the 15th century through the Holocaust and a personal family saga that includes the da Volterra family of bankers in Florence of the Medici, a Venetian rabbi involved in the Kabbalah, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and Italy's first Jewish prime minister. Israeli-born producer/director, Hava Volterra, will discuss the film after the screening.

THE TREE OF LIFE - SYNOPSIS

A woman from Los Angeles tries to come to terms with her father's death by traveling to the land of his birth, to trace the roots of his family tree. With the help of her feisty 82 year old aunt, her father's sister, she travels relentlessly from city to city, digging through ancient manuscripts and interviewing a wide range of quirky scholars, to piece together the fascinating story of her Italian Jewish ancestors.As the woman continues her journey, her aunt begins to come to terms with her own past, and plans a journey to find and thank the family who hid her and the woman's father during WWII.

Using both Monty Python-style animation and computer enhanced marionettes, the film tells the story of Jewish money lenders, mystics, scientists and politicians, while reflecting on how our parents and their roots affect our sense of belonging, identity, and self worth The Jews of Italy were a tiny minority - less than a tenth of one percent, or one in a thousand - of the population of the country. But there have been Jews in Italy since the time of the Romans, over 2,000 years ago, and they had an extraordinary influence on the creation of modern Italy, on Italian science, commerce, politics, and culture. Through the world of her grandfather's ancestors, the Volterras, and her grandmother's ancestors, the Luzzattos, the filmmaker opens a window into the world of this small and unique minority. (76 minutes.)

HAVA VOLTERRA

The filmmaker was born in Jerusalem and raised in Israel, Canada and the United States. An electronics engineer by training, Hava has worked in the development of very high speed digital imagining equipment and in the development and marketing of computer communications equipment during the early years of the internet. She views engineering as a creative endeavor, and brings her fascination with history, art, and science to her first film, The Tree of Life.

Holiday refreshments will be served!

Invite your friends to join in the festivities and encourage them to join the JGSLA as a Hanukah gift they can give themselves!

Members attend free, $5 for guests.

Traveling library will be available at 1:00PM. \

We have one signed hardcover copy of "The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million" by Daniel Mendelsohn, and four signed copies of Erin Einhorn's book, "Pages in Between: A Holocaust Legacy of Two Families, One Home." Price is $20 each, cash or check. These will be available at the meeting.
If you want to reserve one of these ahead of time, please email me at:

Pamela Weisberger
JGSLA Program Chair
pweisberger@hotmail.com