Outside the Box
Outside the Box explores the universal theme of dual identity, and the story is rooted in Lacey Schwartz's Jewish family experience. The narrative follows her upbringing in a white, Jewish family and her discovery, at the age of 18, that her biological father is African-American. Lacey is a Harvard-educated lawyer who continued to believe throughout her childhood that her "Jewishness" accounted for her "otherness," until she attended college at Georgetown and decided to ask for the truth from her family.
The lens through which the film is viewed is very much influenced by the Jewish principles Lacey inherited. Outside the Box explores how and why individuals and groups identify each other based on personal perceptions, even at the expense of truth. As Lacey revisits her past and the legacy of her family's secret, she also looks to come to terms with the historical links and divisions between African-Americans and Jews.
Lacey describes herself as "a practicing Jew who is particularly religious...I feel an association with my faith but I'm figuring out how to deepen my connection to Judaism in a way that is relevant to my reality. By taking the viewer along with me on that journey, Outside the Box will share a coming-of-age experience figuring out individual spirituality and identity."
Hartley Update
Outside the Box will follow Lacey as she travels around the country in her Mitzvah Mobile, a reinterpretation of the Hassidic RV, this one devoted to understanding and affirming dual identifies.
Some of her stops along the way: Massachusetts, where Julius Lester, an African-American lecturer who wrote the autobiography titled Lovesong: On Becoming a Jew lives and Pennsylvania, where Professor Lewis Gordon, founder of the Center for Afro-Jewish Studies at Temple University, will help Lacey understand the diversity and depth of the black Jewish community in the U.S. Rabbi Kligler, head of her childhood congregation and Rabbi Funnye, a black Jewish Rabbi, will also appear in the film as will bi-racial and Jewish artists such as Ben Harper and Lenny Kravitz.
How To Donate
All donations for the production and distribution of Outside the Box are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law.
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