Who By Fire

Len and Jules Feinstein are your standard progressive, not-particularly-religious DC-area Jews. So when their eldest child Eliza brings her Black boyfriend Everett home for Yom Kippur break fast, there’s no issue. Sure, the dog attacks him (“I’ve only seen him bark like that at the mailman”) and the quantity of African artifacts around the house feel a little appropriative, but it’s nothing too alarming. The...
Len and Jules Feinstein are your standard progressive, not-particularly-religious DC-area Jews. So when their eldest child Eliza brings her Black boyfriend Everett home for Yom Kippur break fast, there’s no issue. Sure, the dog attacks him (“I’ve only seen him bark like that at the mailman”) and the quantity of African artifacts around the house feel a little appropriative, but it’s nothing too alarming. The biggest “problem” is that the family seems skeptical of the film that Eliza and Everett are collaborating on...but maybe they just don’t get it.

Tensions ramp up over the next few family gatherings. Abby, the youngest child, still can’t find a job; middle son Noah has an Asian-American girlfriend; Len’s sister might be embarrassingly racist. Amidst the minefield of these minor family dramas, however, a real tragedy begins to unfold that turns the lives of the Feinsteins on their heads. In the subsequent months, each family member finds themselves navigating a newly-fraught existence—none more so than Eliza, who begins to question every construct in her life and cling to the religion she once had all but abandoned.
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Who By Fire

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  • David Winitsky:
    13 Oct. 2022
    WHO BY FIRE takes a genre that we see at the JPP - the family Seder play - and opens it up to embrace a broader and deeper idea of Jews in America. That’s exciting to me, and feels extremely aligned with our goal of discovering 21st Century Jewish theater.

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