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Private Notes
The film follows Bernette Clarke, a very lively and modern Orthodox Jewish mother of three. Bernette talks openly about her faith, explains the traditional approach her family has to the Sabbath and other Jewish festivals, and offers her views on the wider Jewish community. Joel Lever and his wife Joanne also allow the cameras into their lives. Joel’s family are traditionally Jewish by birth, but he admits they are not very religious. Joel puts his all into his fashion boutique ‘Mon Amie’ which is frequented by the Jewish ladies of Prestwich – by making the Jewish women the talk of the town, he feels he is serving the local community. 83 year old Jack Aisenberg tells the ultimate rags to riches story. He was just eleven years old at the outbreak of the Second World War and his family were killed in Belzec Extermination camp in 1942 when he was just 14. Against the odds Jack survived and made his way to Manchester, England in 1945. Jack feels that religion is not as important as basic common humanity and does not practice all the requirements of the Jewish faith, but he’s a celebrated survivor venerated by the Jewish community in Manchester. Having made a successful career in the luggage trade, Jack is thrilled to have the money to throw his grandson a lavish Bar Mitzvah – a special moment caught on camera.
First of a two-part documentary following the lives of people from the Jewish community in Manchester. Bernette Clarke, a modern orthodox mother of three, travels to a part of Israel so ultra-orthodox that men have to walk on a separate side of the street to women; boutique owner Joel Lever throws opens his doors and explains why his shop is the place to be for every Jewish occasion from birth onwards; Jack Aizenberg boards a plane to Poland to visit the place where he was born and where he last saw his family alive during the Holocaust; and Rabbi Zevi Saunders talks about the work of a rabbi and reveals how he was unlucky in love until he met his fiancee Erica on the internet.
Second of a two-part documentary following the lives of people from the Jewish community in Manchester. Bernette Clarke's mother-in-law passes away and she talks about the Jewish mourning period and the effect on her husband Michael; Joel Lever takes a trip to Paris to stock up on the latest fashions for his boutique; Rabbi Zevi Saunders visits a wedding fair before he and Erica hold their dream wedding; and Jack Aizenberg takes the cameras to the site of the concentration camp where he was imprisoned and the ghetto where he feared he would die, before returning to Manchester for a moving Bar Mitzvah ceremony with his family.
