Jewish Cemetery

Jewish activists in the USSR embark on a film journey to recapture the meaning of Jewish life in a country that has repressed Jewish expression for decades. Their first task is to attend to unfinished business. Much like the prayer for the dead, the Kaddish, these activists celebrate life by understanding the meaning of death. For them, rebuilding a Jewish cemetery and digging up bones in a mass grave of Stalin's victims represent but initial steps for Jews who live with the contradictions of Jewish life after "glasnost" in the USSR. This film is both a poetic retelling of modern Soviet Jewish history and a vision of hope. One activist lovingly catalogs Jewish artifacts that include a stone from the Western Wall in Jerusalem. This is the authentic voice of a new generation of Soviet Jews who seek self-determination.