A Father's Kaddish

Jewish Center of the Hamptons presents the East End premiere of “A Father’s Kaddish” on Thursday, August 25, at 7 p.m., followed by a post-film discussion with Steven Branfman, subject of the film and Jen Kaplan, director.

The film, a potent journey through the universal experience of mourning, tells the story of Branfman, a father who used the craft of pottery to help him work through his grief after the death of his son, Jared, who died of brain cancer in 2005 at the age of 23. A week after Jared died, Branfman, a potter and teacher, went into his studio.

“I couldn’t bear to be there, but I couldn’t leave either,” says Branfman.

After a few moments, he got himself up, took some clay and made a chawan, a Japanese style tea bowl. Each day for one year, he made one chawan.

“They were they only pots I made,” says Branfman. “One chawan each day, no matter where I was.”

Branfman’s daily chawan made at his wheel became his own personal kaddish, the traditional Jewish prayer of mourning. With more than six million COVID-19 deaths globally since the spring of 2020, the film remains as relevant as ever, as the entire world has had to deal with its collective grief.

“It’s not just about if you lost a child,” says Kaplan. “The relevance is particularly strong with the last two years of COVID. There have been so many loses for people. Exploring how we cope with loss — whether it’s death, a former freedom, or loss of an in-person connection — and finding that thing that someone can work into their life to help them heal, whether it’s pottery, hiking, or writing, that is what I hope this story inspires.”

Tickets for the screening of “A Father’s Kaddish” are $25 ($20 for members) and can be purchased at jcoh.org/kaddish. Jewish Center of the Hamptons is at 44 Woods Lane in East Hampton.