The Making of Believe in Yourself Right: Lead musician and actor, Yoni Rock Left: Producer, Rabbi Yisroel Roll

The Making of Believe in Yourself Left: Yoni Rock. Right: Moshe Seigel

Teaching Judaism to young people today is in desperate need of a “with-it’ facelift. The goal of our new production company is to excite the passion and excitement of  students, youth and young  adults for Jewish life and connection. Teaching Jewish values through the medium and vehicle of music and young actors  connects with the soul of our generation.

We have put together a group of passionate young musicians and  actors who convey the passion of Judaism with modern soul music, and who portray Torah concepts and  events that “speak” to our emotional selves.  Attached  is the pilot video called Believe in Yourself which chronicles The Jewish People’s millennial search for worthiness and value. We began to lose faith in ourselves when the spies sent by Moses returned from scouting the land of Canaan with a negative report, saying that we could not conquer the land. That fateful day was Tisha B’av; and G-d Said: “You cried for no reason on the night the spies gave their negative report; I will make this day of Tisha B’av as a day of crying for generations.” Ever since then we have suffered on Tisha B’av–the expulsion of the Jews from England by King Edward l in 1290, the expulsion of the Jews by King Ferdinand from Spain in 1492, and World War l (which led directly to World War ll and the Holocaust) all began on Tisha B’av. Our ancestors  did not believe in themselves, and we have to reverse that process by creating and promoting Jewish self-esteem, and Jewish self worth, collectively and individually. The Believe in Yourself video was filmed before a live audience and was created on a shoestring budget and will be redone more professionally and in-studio, once we have the funding as a result of our  Jewcer campaign. Imagine how professional and vibrant we can become  with your funding support!

This campaign will fund the creation of FOUR exciting and inspiring videos (each 10  minutes long) which will be shown to Jewish students in Day Schools, public schools, youth groups, camps, study sessions as well as to adults in community centers and synagogues, wherever we can reach out to affiliated and unaffiliated Jewish people. Each video will come with a study and resource guide for use by the group leader.

The budget of $12,500 for each video is broken down as follows:

Salaries for Actors and Musicians   $5000

Script Writing                                      $2500

Studio Time                                          $2500

Video Production                                 $2500

Believe in Yourself was filmed before a live audience

The Making of Believe in Yourself Rehearsal

The second video scheduled for production is called Mind Game about a Jewish baseball star who visits a Jewish teenager in hospital and happens to meet the ill teenager’s beautiful sister, who is Orthodox. The baseball star asks her on a date, and she refuses. She tells him that if he is willing to learn more about Judaism then she would be willing to date him as she wants an active, meaningful and learned  Jewish life. The video follows the baseball star’s journey to acquiring Jewish knowledge at Aish Hatorah in the off-season, and how he learns to love Jewish wisdom and how they start dating and grow Jewishly together. The video will teach Jewish concepts and beliefs as the couple date.