Written by Shlomit Ovadia of JCC Denver

How far would you go to find God? Premiering at the Mizel Arts and Culture Center’s 29th Denver Jewish Film Festival January 23- February 2, Torah Tropical explores a community of Evangelical Christians converting to Orthodox Judaism in the drug war-torn city of Cali, Colombia. Young couple Isska and Menajem, along with their two daughters, attempt to make Aliyah, believing that God is calling them to Israel. Ripe with challenges, the family’s bold, year-long journey puts their livelihood, identity, and faith to the test in this evocative feature.

Torah Tropical Producer, director, writer, and composer, Ezra Axelrod sat with us to discuss the film. 

Tell me about yourself and how this film came to your attention: 

Ezra Axelrod, Director, Writer, Composer, Producer

Ezra Axelrod, Director, Writer, Composer, Producer.

Ezra: My parents were professors in a small town in Oregon. [As a Jew] I never really fit in. Going to Spain as a 12-year-old with my mom who was studying the Sephardic Ladino language set the stage for my mission to learn Spanish, which I continued in college. I met my husband David Restrepo (Torah Tropical Producer and Executive Producer) during my freshman year. He was very interested in the war on drugs that ravaged his native country of Colombia. We traveled to Colombia in 2005, and it was pretty tense. I remember as we flew into Bogota, descending into this kind of lush green I had never seen before. I fell in love with Cali. 

 What inspired your decision to move to Colombia and capture stories? 

Ezra: David and I moved to London for ten years after we finished college. During that time, I hadn’t cultivated much of a Jewish identity, and it wasn’t a big part of my life. Then in 2014 (after an intense bombing campaign in Gaza) I witnessed for the first time this level of visceral reaction that people had to the conflict and Israel. Seeing so many anti-Israel protests made me wonder about antisemitism. I read ‘Promised Land’ by Ari Shavit and it made me realize how sad it would be if my Jewish identity and culture were lost. I thought, so I am a Jew and this and Israel mean something. If you’re Jewish, you have a much heavier weight on your shoulders. We went to Israel for the first time, and it was complicated, feeling these roots of connection and identity reasserting itself [in me].

When I moved to Cali with David, Colombia’s film industry had been decimated because of the war on drugs and was just emerging. David’s work granted him unique access to narratively rich stories. We then decided to found our company, ThisTopia and produce our own film projects.  

 How did you get connected with the community of converts in Cali, known as Beit David? 

Ezra: Heidi Paster – a Jewish-American photographer who originally discovered the community of Beit David –is someone I knew locally.  She shared these photos with us, and we were awestruck to see people so dedicated to Judaism. It seemed like a thoroughly intersectional story where a lot of different people can see themselves reflected in these characters. It’s also provocative because these converts are Orthodox Jews, yet Orthodox Judaism doesn’t have a space for them. In Cali itself, this group is rejected by the tight-knit traditional Jewish community, although the group has grown to over 1,000 converts.

 As a secular Jew yourself, how did Isska and Menajem’s resonate with you? 

Ezra: I went in open-minded and being deferential to how much they knew. I asked them to teach me, and it blew my mind getting to learn Torah with them, and the Orthodox Jewish schedule and rhythm. As a secular Jew, it was very humbling. I had never fasted before, but I did Yom Kippur with them, plus Shabbat, morning prayers, and Rosh Hashanah. I became aware how their Orthodox lives were providing them with this insane amount of structure in an environment that was complete chaos.  

 What do you think that the Promised Land symbolizes for Isska and Menajem’s family? 

Ezra: Originally, they had completely constructed these identities, with Israel as their promised land and their mission in life a duty to return and fulfill the Zionist dream. Yet the film’s message shows that [Israel] is really a place inside of them. As we got to know Isska and Menajem, they are so talented and representative of Cali; they are able to adapt and live with complete authenticity. 

From my research, it seems that their conversion was an organic process that came from reading the Old Testament and discovering inconsistencies between Judaism and how the Israelites lived and what became of Christianity. Evangelical Christians tend to be very Zionist, and we found this reframe echoed by converts in other regions like Peru. 

Scenes from the Film Torah Tropical

How did Isska and Menajem’s journey inspire or influence you? 

Ezra: After we finished filming, I realized how much the year I spent with Isska and Menajem aligned with actual events in the Torah. They believe that if they sync their lives to these rituals and calendar, then miracles will happen according to the order they happen in the Torah. During editing, I had this ‘aha’ moment of Judaism. We don’t really sit and talk with God like they do in the film. Some of their spiritual instincts seem more Christian than Jewish.

Towards the end of the film, Isska and Menajem have this wakeup call about their roles as man and woman. It may be uncomfortable for some of us to see those traditional gender roles reinforced, but for me what’s really powerful is seeing how these principles of faith in God are what save them from a pretty big family tragedy. And I get to see how their lives continue to transform from it even after the cameras stop rolling. 

Actually, Isska and Menajem are the reason I started only writing the Hebrew dates in my journal. They showed me what it means to live in this calendar rhythm and life. I reoriented myself completely. My year now starts with Rosh Hashanah. 

What do you think the community members of Beit David represent? 

Ezra: They show us how complicated identity is, rather than these neat boxes our contemporary international culture has obsessively clung to, despite how these rigid definitions are causing an incredible amount of conflict in every space. But at the same time, I don’t think barriers are bad. They exist so that tradition remains something tangible. It’s similar to what indigenous peoples are doing; they want to be gatekeepers. We have the same things as Jews.

 What do you hope for people to take away from this film? 

Ezra: Isska and Menajem have taught me to be less quick to condemn others who don’t think like me and instead appreciate the whole spectrum of what makes up an individual. I want people to walk away from this journey with Isska and Menajem with a renewed sense of faith, love, family, your partner, and God. After watching this, people talk about having a real confrontation with their own relationship with God.

For our Jewish audience, we can take something away from how beautifully these people portray Judaism, especially its vocational aspects, with Menajem doing all these trades: scribe, baker, and farmer. My dream with this project is for it to be a conversation starter about: what is the future of Judaism? 

 Talk to me about the musical soundtrack of the film: 

Ezra: Usually, soundtracks are made after a film is done. With this project though, I wanted the music to be part of its DNA, so I was more involved [with it] during the film. We used Isska’s singing as a prominent feature of the soundtrack, which was an integral part of the storytelling from the beginning. It went well with aspects of filming locations as well. The music is a mix of atmospheric landscapes and different indigenous African percussion sounds. We collaborated with a lot of musicians and string players in London. We wanted this to be a fusion of Sephardic and Southwestern Colombian sounds. 

Check out the Torah Tropical trailer here. To explore the full list of films and accompanying programming at the Mizel Arts and Culture Center’s 29th Denver Jewish Film Festival, click here. This year’s festival boasts a diverse range of films, including our opening night feature of Running on Sand about an Eritrean refugee; DU’s 22nd Annual Fred & Audrey Marcus Holocaust Lecture; and Seth Rogen and Lauren Miller Rogen’s, Taking Care, a documentary on Alzheimer’s in partnership with Ascent Living Communities. 

Purchase your tickets to the Denver Jewish Film Festival today! Denver Jewish Film Festival, Jewish Film Festival – JCC Denver 

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