This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives.
The credits rolled on the screen in my family room. Bubbe, my paternal grandmother, turned to me and my entire family.
“Wow,” she said, “that really seems like you and Jonah.”
I laughed, but she wasn’t wrong. Sitting in my family room, watching Jesse Eisenberg’s “A Real Pain,” I saw my dynamic with my cousin, Jonah, playing out on the screen — our arguments, our inside jokes, our inevitable push and pull.
As a 17-year-old, Jewish high school student, I saw myself as David, Jesse Eisenberg’s character — anxious, calculating, always trying to plan ahead. My first cousin Jonah, on the other hand, is Benji Kaplan, as played by Kieran Culkin. He is unpredictable, effortlessly funny and constantly toeing the line between charming and maddening. Watching David sigh in response at Benji’s antics felt like watching myself react to Jonah in real life. The way Benji made impulsive choices while David tried to keep everything under control was a dynamic I knew all too well.
Beyond just the laughs, and genuine familiarity of the movie, “A Real Pain” provides commentary on grief, history and the ways in which intergenerational trauma lingers and impacts each one of us. The cousins travel to Poland to honor their grandmother and connect with their Holocaust history, yet their personal tensions constantly overshadow the weight of their family’s past. And that, too, felt familiar.
Watching the movie, it struck me. How do we, the next generation, carry the weight of stories we never lived? Especially as we continue to lose those who did in fact live these experiences.
This question remained in my mind long after the movie ended, and it wasn’t just “A Real Pain” that brought it to the forefront. In recent months, more Jewish and Israeli narratives took center screen. These movies, including “The Brutalist” and “September 5,” prove to be more than simple entertainment. While they are indeed beautifully crafted movies, they also explore the ideas Jewish identity, history, and resilience.
In a time when the world feels increasingly unstable—when antisemitism is on the rise and the war in Israel dominates headlines — these films aren’t just stories. They are mirrors, tools for reflection, ways for young Jews like me to understand where we come from and what that means today. As someone who has attended a Jewish day school in New York State for most of my life, I’ve been immersed in the history, texts and traditions that shape our identity. But these films offer something different — they make that history feel urgent, personal, and deeply connected to the present.
Take “The Brutalist.” It’s a visually stunning, deeply personal story of a Hungarian-Jewish architect and his wife struggling to rebuild their lives in postwar America. Watching it, I felt an acute awareness of my own family’s history — of how displacement and reinvention are key components of the Jewish experience. It made me think about what it means to carry our past forward, to build something new while never fully escaping the weight of what came before.
Then there’s “September 5,” a chilling retelling of the Munich Massacre in which Israeli Olympic athletes were held hostage and then killed by members of the Black September terrorist group.
What struck me most wasn’t just the horrifying event itself, but the way the film captured the journalists who covered it — people who, despite having no personal connection to the Israeli athletes, felt the gravity of the tragedy as if it were their own. Watching their slow realization of the magnitude of the attack, I couldn’t help but think about how we consume news today, how acts of violence and terrorism have become so constant that they sometimes feel impersonal. But this film didn’t allow for detachment. It forced me to feel, to grieve, to recognize that the pain of the past is not as distant as we sometimes believe.
When the credits rolled, I immediately thought, “It’s like history repeating itself.” For months, my family and I have sat together in this very room, watching news updates about the war in Israel, counting the days since Oct. 7, checking our phones for news of the hostages. The footage of desperate journalists scrambling for information in “September 5” reminded me of how I’ve spent the past few months—refreshing headlines, searching for clarity, trying to make sense of something that will, honestly, never make sense.
My generation grew up with breaking news alerts lighting up our phones, tragedy after tragedy playing out in real-time, grist for political arguments that turn victims and perpetrators into convenient abstractions. But “September 5” didn’t let me look away. It reminded me of the sad reality that we have been through this reality before. It reminded me that behind every headline, there are names, faces and families left shattered.
These movies aren’t just powerful — they are necessary. At a moment when Jewish identity is being questioned, debated and sometimes outright attacked, they serve as reminders of where we’ve been and where we’re going. They offer connection in a time of division, storytelling in a time of uncertainty.
For me, these films have been more than just cinematic experiences; they have been moments of learning, of feeling, of sitting with my emotions in ways I never had before. They reminded me that history is not something that stays in textbooks — it’s alive, shaping the way we see ourselves and the world around us.
And so, I invite you to watch them. In the end, these films are not just about Jews in the past. They are about us, here, now, finding our place in the ongoing story.
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