Trailer for “Between the Temples”: Carole Kane plays the lead role in Jewish comedy
In the film “Between the Temples,” a 70-year-old woman (Carol Kane) forms an unusual friendship with her former student (Jason Schwartzman).
They say a boy’s best friend is his mother. For director Nathan Silver, she is also his muse.
Over the past decade, teacher Cindy Silver has appeared in several of her son’s films, as well as his 2019 documentary series “Cutting My Mother.” Their latest collaboration, “Between the Temples” (now in theaters), is a wry and tender variation on “Harold and Maude” that follows a widowed cantor named Ben (Jason Schwartzman) and his much older student Carla (Carol Kane) as she studies for a late bat mitzvah.
The comedy is loosely inspired by Cindy’s experiences as a Jewish woman who, at age 68, signed up for a b’nai mitzvah class (a gender-neutral term for multiple people going through the ritual) at her local synagogue in Kingston, New York. She does not star in the film, but has a cameo appearance.
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“This role needed a real actress, not just his mother,” jokes Cindy, 74, on a late-morning Zoom call with Nathan, 41, who lives in Brooklyn. She’s “thrilled” and “happy” to help promote the film, but “I’m also just excited to see my son! We don’t see each other that often.”
How Cindy Silver’s Bat Mitzvah journey inspired the film “Between the Temples”
In Judaism, Bar and Bat Mitzvah are considered a rite of passage for teenagers, marking an adult’s step into the religious community. “Between the Temples” offers a rare screen depiction of this adult ritual, joining a unique pop culture pantheon that includes episodes of “The Simpsons,” “Touched by Heaven” and “The Dick Van Dyke Show.”
“This is Mount Rushmore!” Nathan says, laughing. “I feel honored.”
There are a number of reasons why someone might not have a mitzvah at a young age: the financial pressure of a big party, the relative rarity of bat mitzvahs until the 1970s, or the months of preparation that can be challenging for children with different learning abilities. Some children feel that a bar or bat mitzvah is inconsistent with their gender expression, while others do not convert to Judaism until adulthood. Older community members may not have been able to attend a ceremony during times of Jewish oppression, such as the Holocaust.
Cindy grew up in Queens, New York, in a secular Jewish home. “My mother made veal parmesan, and my friends who lived in kosher homes would come to our house for dinner,” she recalls. Instead of going to church, “we went to Pete Seeger concerts. But my father was constantly reciting Yiddish phrases, which drove my mother crazy, and she couldn’t stand that I had a sing-song Jewish accent that I inherited from my father.”
Although her parents were not religious, they instilled the values of Judaism in her from a young age: “My father always banged on the table and shouted: ‘If you are healthy, you have everything! Just do good in the world!’ That is a very Jewish ideal: Tikkun Olam“repair the world.”
Like his mother, Nathan was not raised religiously and did not have a bar mitzvah. Growing up, “humor was all my Jewish DNA,” says the filmmaker, who had an early love of “Seinfeld” and Mel Brooks comedies. But he has always been fascinated by how people connect spiritually and with each other.
“What interests me about Judaism is that it’s a religion of questions. Every question is followed by another question,” Nathan says. Rather than worrying about the afterlife, Judaism encourages people to focus on the here and now and “embrace what’s in front of you. And I think that’s crucial for the characters in this film: They need other people to find themselves.”
In the film, an unlikely love story blossoms between Carla and Ben as they prepare for their bat mitzvah. This aspect of the film is not true. (Cindy’s husband of 55 years, Harvey, is just off-screen during the conversation.) But she could identify with the community Carla finds in attending the temple.
Six years ago, after a friend’s partner died, “we all decided to support her and have a bar mitzvah together,” says Cindy. At first, she was “excited” about her immersion in the Jewish faith: “I went to the rabbi’s studio to meditate and study Torah, and it was great. It’s all about discussion and figuring out what everything means, and that’s what I love about Judaism. I felt very accepted because my rabbi welcomed everyone. I thought, ‘I want to learn more.'”
The film appeals to adults who have decided to have a Bar Mitzvah or Bat Mitzvah late in life.
Eventually, Cindy and her friends dropped out of the class, discouraged by the required reading and memorization. Carla experiences similar ups and downs in “Between the Temples,” which is one reason the film has resonated with audiences since its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Nathan says he’s met many older moviegoers on their own religious journeys, some of whom have recently completed their bar or bat mitzvah: “It’s nice that they say the film really reflects their experiences.”
One of those viewers was Rivanna Hyman, 74, a Long Island resident. Technically, she became bat mitzvah at about age 12 while visiting family in Israel, more on a whim and without the same preparation and prayer requirements. But for decades, “I felt like I didn’t deserve the bat mitzvah title that was bestowed on me,” Hyman says. So at age 48, after two years of studying, she became b’not mitzvah (the plural for women and girls) along with 10 other women.
“I could understand Carla’s desire to reach this milestone in her life,” says Hyman. “I hope that this will help everyone watching to better understand how important it is for someone to achieve a certain goal.”
Nathan’s mother, on the other hand, has no interest in resuming her studies for a bat mitzvah. “I’d rather continue reading and exploring on my own,” says Cindy. “I’m going to continue my journey as a Jew, but not in a temple, because I’ve moved on. And my husband was dragged to services after 50 years – he doesn’t want to go!”
