Our JCA Cultural Arts Festival is a series of free and engaging events featuring books, films, visual arts, music, and more that are enriched with Jewish heritage and culture.

Festival Schedule:

Monday, Oct 30th, 2023

7:00 – 8:30 pm: Ladies’ Night Out - Cyndie Spiegel: Microjoys

Ladies, put on your best and brightest and join us for mixology, massages and mini-manicures as we learn the practice of uncovering joy and finding hope at any moment. Our annual Ladies’ Night Out at the Cultural Arts Festival continues with Cyndie Spiegel and her bighearted, hopeful, honest, and inspirational essays about what can keep us afloat in difficult times.

Thursday, Nov 2nd, 2023

6:00 – 8:00 pm: Racing Against Hate Exhibition featuring Local Artists Opening Reception

In connection with Together Against Hate: Promoting Unity in the Community the Vandroff Art Gallery will feature creative expressions from artists throughout Northeast Florida that address topics impacting our area, including prejudices in faith, ethnicity, diverse abilities, and gender. As part of the JCA and First Coast YMCA partnership, our Together Against Hate opening reception will take place during the 2023 Cultural Arts Festival Nov 2 – 29.

7:00 – 9:00 pm: 10 Questions for Henry Ford – film

Q & A with director, Andy Kirschner 2021 | Documentary, Art | 1h 7m One hundred years after the publication of his notorious antisemitic screed, The International Jew, the ghost of Henry Ford returns to Detroit to face his troubling legacy. A carefully researched combination of historical fact and poetic imaging, 10 Questions for Henry Ford is a musical-visual-choreographic rumination of how literal and figurative ghosts of the past still haunt us.

Friday, Nov 3rd, 2023

12:00 – 1:30 pm: Book Club – Peter Blauner: Picture in the Sand

A historical suspense novel about faith, hope, terror, and the movies, Picture in the Sand, shares the story of a young movie fan named Ali Hassan who gets a dream job working for Cecil B. DeMille in Egypt on a film about the greatest of Jewish liberation stories, The Ten Commandments. The dream turns into a nightmare when Ali gets caught up in real-life events including the aftermath of the war in Israel and his country’s struggle with violent religious fanatics.

Sunday, Nov 5th, 2023

3:00 – 5:00 pm: The Narrow Bridge – film

2022 | Drama | 1h 20m A moderated discussion will follow the film. Narrow Bridge explores the journeys of four people who, after searing pain, develop strengths they never had before. Despite opposition, these Israelis, and Palestinians, who lost a child in the conflict, are building a movement and transforming their grief into a bridge of understanding and reconciliation.

Tuesday, Nov 7th, 2023

7:00 – 9:00 pm: Together Against Hate – Rabbi Diana Fersko: We Need to Talk About Antisemitism

Sarah Emmons In connection with Together Against Hate, Florida’s Regional Director for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) joins us to discuss the rise of antisemitism and what is being done to initiate change. Rabbi Diana Fersko We Need to Talk About Antisemitism Streaming at the JCA Rabbi Diana Fersko will share her exploration of why people are reluctant to discuss antisemitism and what empowers us to fight against it.

Wednesday, Nov 8th, 2023

7:00 – 9:00 pm: One More Story – film

2021 | Comedy, Romance | 1h 30m Yarden Gat is a young and brilliant journalist on a mission: to find true love for her best friend – so she can write about it. She convinces him to go out on a daily date, for a month, each evening with a different woman until he finds the right one. Sort of like reality TV but instead the dates are featured in the newspaper.

Thursday, Nov 9th, 2023

7:00 – 8:30 pm: Steven Hartov: The Last of the Seven

A spellbinding novel of World War II based on the little-known history of the X Troop – a team of European Jews who escaped only to join the British Army and return home to exact their revenge on Hitler’s military. The Last Seven is the second part of a thrilling WWII trilogy from Hartov that began with The Soul of a Thief in 2018.

Friday, Nov 10th, 2023

10:00 – 11:30 am: 10 Questions for Henry Ford – film

A second screening of the carefully researched combination of historical fact and poetic imaging featuring the ghost of Henry Ford will stream at River Garden with a discussion to follow the film.

Monday, Nov 13th, 2023

7:00 – 9:00 pm: The Story of Annette Zelman – film

2022 | Drama, History 1h 33m Romeo and Juliet in 1942. She was Jewish. He was Catholic. Annette and Jean wanted to marry but Jean’s parents were opposed. Reported to the Gestapo by her fiancé’s father and sent to Auschwitz, The Story of Annette Zelman is based on a true story in the book, Informing on Jews during the Occupation by Laurent Joly.

Tuesday, Nov 14th, 2023

12:00 – 1:30 pm: Book Club- Sara Confino: She’s Up to No Good

For two women generations apart, going home changes their lives in this funny, poignant, and life-affirming novel about family, secrets, and broken hearts. As the secrets and truths unfold, it is learned that possibilities for healing can come at the most unexpected times in a woman’s life.

Wednesday, Nov 15th, 2023

7:00 – 8:30 pm: Richard Hurowitz & Larry Loftis

Richard Hurowitz, In the Garden of the Righteous A brilliant description of the brutality of the Holocaust and the collaboration, acquiescence and passivity of millions, and the people who risked their lives to save others out of a sense of shared humanity. Richard Hurowitz joins us in person to share the illuminating and inspiring profiles that pay tribute to the incredible deeds of the little-known heroes who saved countless lives during the Holocaust.

Thursday, Nov 16th, 2023

7:00 – 8:30 pm: Adam Mansbach: The Golem of Brooklyn

The 2023 JCA Cultural Arts Festival grand finale, New York Times bestselling author of Go the F*** to Sleep, Adam Mansbach will be at the JCA to share his new dazzling, imaginative, and ferociously funny story about an art teacher, a bodega clerk and a five-thousand-year-old clay crisis monster with a sole purpose of defending the Jewish people against any immediate threat of violence.

Fest Date: October 30 - November 16, 2023

Location: Jewish Community Alliance - 8505 San Jose Boulevard Jacksonville, FL 32217

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