‘We weren’t even considered Jewish’: Documentary searches for filmmaker’s cultural identity

In the months following Oct. 7, Vancouver native Kai Balin learned wanted to dig deeper into his Judaism, but learned that, despite his strong Jewish upbringing, his family actually isn’t considered Jewish by some in the Orthodox community. The discovery shocked him to his core—not only is Balin the grandson of Holocaust survivors, but he always felt destined to become a rabbi, right from his early childhood. The rejection of his family’s Jewish identity sent Balin on a years-long quest to find out what being Jewish meant to him. He took his cameras along the way as he traced his family’s heritage across four generations on three continents. The Canadian did most of the filming—and all of the financing on his own, interviewing family members and learning, once the film wrapped, that his story had an unexpected twist ending. The result is an hour-long documentary, Son of a Seeker, premiering in Toronto on Aug. 20 at the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre. It debuted in Vancouver earlier this summer. On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner sits down with Kai Balin to learn about the roots of this project and where his faith has taken him.

Related links

• Learn more about Son of a Seeker and get tickets to see the film in Toronto on Aug. 20.
• Read about the filmmaker’s sister, who co-produced his documentary, once winning _Chopped Canada’_s teen cooking contest in 2017, in The CJN archives.
• Watch the trailer of "Son of a Seeker".

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

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