The department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies will be exploring cross-cultural relations with a four-part Latino/Jewish Film Festival and Lecture Series. The first installment of the series will be held tonight, at 7:00 p.m., in room 231 of Herter Hall.

The film Novia Que te Vea [May I See You a Bride] will be broadcast, following a short lecture by Ilan Stavans, an Associate Professor of Spanish at Amherst College. The film and lecture address the issue of Latino-Jewish relations in Mexico. At the conclusion of the film, attendees will be given the opportunity to discuss the issues presented, and Latino and Jewish food will be served.

The lecture series will not only explore relations between Latino and Jewish communities, but also the situation of Latino Jews. One of the key issues mentioned in all of the series installments will be the lives of Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews. Sephardim [Jews of Spanish or Portuguese descent] and Ashkenazim [Jews of Germanic descent] both commonly live in Spanish-speaking countries.

“The issues being raised are a living reality for so many people,” said Aviva Ben-Ur, a professor of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies, and the coordinator of the series. Ben-Ur’s research focuses on Sephardim, and their struggles for acceptance in Latino societies.

“Very often Jews are defined as being white, yet many Jews don’t define themselves as white,” she says. “Many Sephardim and Latino Ashkenazim are really torn between two worlds.”

She explained that Stavans, tonight’s speaker, was raised as a Jew in Mexico.

“As a Jew, he wasn’t accepted fully as a Mexican or as a Latino,” she explained. “Yet when he came to this country, being Latino became a defining characteristic.”

Ben-Ur says that she chose to utilize films, as well as speakers, in order to make the series more accessible.

“I wanted to make sure this festival was relevant to academics and non-academics alike,” she says. “I also feel that films are a wonderful tool. They often teach us things that books can not.”

Films planned for later installments of the series include Havana Nagila and Abraham and Eugenia: Stories From Jewish Cuba, two documentaries about Cuba’s Jewish community, to be shown on Thursday, Nov. 8, The Pawnbroker, a film about racism set in Spanish Harlem, to be shown on Thursday, Nov. 29, and The Eternal Jew of Majorca: A Study of the Chuetas, and Expulsion and Memory, two films about “secret” Jews, to be shown on Wednesday, December 5.

Speakers slated to give lectures include Harley Erdman, a UMass Professor of Theater, Candelario Saenz, a Wellesly College Professor of Anthropology, and Julius Lester, a UMass Professor of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies.

“These are issues that have not been studied much before,” said Gloria Bernabe-Ramos, director of the Center of Latino-American, Carribean, and Latino Studies, one of the series’ sponsors. “It’s a different perspective…and a very new angle. I don’t know if there’s ever been a series of this type before.”