JCC Chicago Jewish Film Festival

They Ain't Ready For Me

Expired October 14, 2020 4:45 AM
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Join JCC Chicago Jewish Film Festival for a LIVE discussion with Tamar Manasseh and filmmaker Brad Rothschild on Wednesday, October 14 at 7pm. Your ticket includes the discussion. Please use this link to register for the discussion: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_A2wCQDfJTJaJn0iJmWNGGQ

The scourge of gun violence has reached epidemic proportions across the United States. After every mass shooting, people point to gun violence in Chicago as an example of how gun regulation doesn’t work. After all, they say, Chicago’s gun laws are among the strictest in the country, yet it has one of the highest murder rates in the US. What this argument fails to address are the underlying causes of murder in Chicago’s inner city – poverty, joblessness, mass incarceration and institutionalized racism.


They Ain’t Ready for Me shows how Tamar Manasseh, a black, rabbinical student, is combating gun violence on the South Side of Chicago with magnetic, self-assured energy through her organization MASK, Mothers/Men Against Senseless Killings. Tamar and MASK are proving daily basis that something can be done to reduce gun violence when there is the will to do so. This message needs to get to a wider audience, quickly. Tamar has become a well- known figure in Chicago, and she is poised to become a national figure – in the past several months, The New York Times has published four opinion pieces that she wrote. They Ain’t Ready For Me will play a big role in establishing her as an important voice not only for the black community, but for an increasingly multi-ethnic America as well.


In the film, Tamar addresses the challenges facing both the black and Jewish worlds. The story exists within the context of the larger issues that are playing out in today’s America – increasing racial tensions, rising inequality levels and a growing sense of atomization and alienation. Within the Jewish world, Tamar is looked at as an outsider, someone whose identity is constantly questioned even as her approach to fighting gun violence is lauded. They Ain’t Ready for Me explores the complex identity and motivations of an extraordinary person who is Jewish and black, and how these intersecting identities offer her a road map for addressing one of America’s most urgent crises.

  • Year
    2020
  • Runtime
    87 minutes
  • Language
    English
  • Country
    United States
  • Director
    Brad Rothschild
  • Producer
    Brad Rothschild Connor Kalista
  • Cast
    Tamar Manasseh
  • Cinematographer
    Daniel Kullman
  • Editor
    Connor Kalista