CIRCUMCISE ME

Director: David Blumenfeld & Matthew Kalman,
Release Date: 2007
Runtime: 48 minutes
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA
Language: English

Synopsis:
"Is it hot in here, or am I the only one dressed for Poland in the 17th century?" Yisrael Campbell looks more like a rabbi than a comedian, but don't be fooled by the big black hat, frock coat and hassidic side-curls. This man is seriously funny and his life story will leave you laughing long after you have finished watching the new documentary CIRCUMCISE ME.

Born Chris Campbell, the son of an ex-nun and a Catholic schoolteacher, he converted to Judaism not once, but three times - Reform, Conservative and Orthodox. "I told the rabbi, I'll do a third circumcision. But three circumcisions is not a religious covenant. It's a fetish."

The film catches him on stage in Jerusalem, delighting audiences with his celebrated stand-up show, and follows him around the holy city where we experience life from his unique perspective.

"My aunt was a nun. That makes Jesus my uncle. I'm not making that up, it's church doctrine. She's a bride of Christ, so he's my uncle. I only use that in Jerusalem to get parking."

His spiritual journey began as a drug-drenched teenager in Philadelphia and ended in Jerusalem among the suicide bombs of the Palestinian intifada. So what's to laugh about? It's the way he tells it.

"I read Leon Uris's book Exodus and I wanted to move to Israel. I imagined myself digging avocadoes out of the ground. How was I to know they grow on trees? I'm from Philly. Where I come from, they grow in aisle six, next to the potatoes."

We drive with Campbell past Israeli army checkpoints and the security barrier into the West Bank, through the shooting fields of the intifada uprising, and accompany him as he returns to the coffee shop at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem where two of his friends were killed in a bomb attack in July 2002.