At The Movies with an ad in The Jewish News featuring our 2004 graduates! Pushing For Peace Congratulations, Sara Norris "Monsieur Ibrahim's') Omar Sharif stands up for Arab-Jewish conciliation. We are very proud of you and all your accomplishments! May your future be filled with health, happiness and success. MICHAEL FOX Special to the Jewish News Love always, Mom, Dad, Chuck, Jordan, lack Laura, Giulio, Justin, Drake & Luca L sample ad (4. 75" x 3" size) ISSUE DATE: May 21, 2004 AD DEADLINE: May 13, 2004 SIZES/PRICES: 4.75" 4.75" 4.75" 4.75" x2" x3" x4" x5" MI1111111111, MENEM, $45 '65 '85 $100 Additional sizes available upon request. Please write your congratulatory message legibly. Be sure to enclose photo if you'd like. If you would like your photo back, please include a self-addressed stamped envelope I is been 36 years since Omar Sharif, playing Fanny Brice's suit- or in Funny Girl, enraged the Arab press by kissing Barbra Streisand. Now, Sharif gives another delectable performance opposite a Jewish character, in the resonant coming-of-age story . Monsieur Ibrahim. Playing a Turkish shopkeeper who becomes a surrogate father to a preco- cious adolescent in early 1960s Paris, Sharif, 71, is unlikely to engender the same wrath — even though it's impossi- ble not to view the film through the prism of current Arab-Israeli relations. "I don't think [the film] is political," Sharif maintained during a recent pub- licity stop in San Francisco. "If there were peace now between Israel and the Palestinians, it wouldn't matter [that the boy is Jewish and the man is Muslim]. It would be irrelevant. But what makes it relevant is the fact that there is this terri- ble situation there, and all this hatred and bloodshed." Sharif was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and appeared in numerous Egyptian films before his international break- through (and Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor) in Lawrence of Arabia. His leading-man looks were also show- cased in the high-profile 1960s films Dr. Pierre Boulanger and Omar Shari f in 'Monsieur Ibrahim" `Monsieur Ibrahim' Wise "Ibrahim" crosses cultures, generations and religions. MICHAEL FOX Special to the Jewish News Check Enclosed for $ LJ Visa MasterCard Fl AmEx Acct. # Signature Exp. Date WE CANNOT PRINT YOUR AD WITHOUT THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION, WHICH WILL BE KEPT CONFIDENTIAL. Name • Telephone Address City State Zip E-mail Attn: Meg — The Detroit Jewish News 29200 Northwestern Hwy., Suite 110 Southfield, MI 48034 Phone: 248.351.5100 • Fax: 248.304.0049 020030 onsieur Ibrahim starts out, like countless -coming-of- age movies before it, as an affectionately nostal- gic, slightly risque chroni- cle of an adolescent boy's sexual awakening. A precocious Jewish lad living with his aloof father in a working-class Paris neighborhood in the early 1960s, Momo (Pierre Boulanger) seemingly has nothing on his mind except losing his virginity. But, in this beautifully acted and profoundly resonant French film, we are gradually carried with Momo into deeper waters as events unfold. With uncommon grace and a lack of dogma, Monsieur Ibrahim persuasive- ly makes the case that the distance between people of disparate back- grounds and ages is an illusion. The unexpected agent of change in Momo's life is a graying, soft-spoken Muslim named Ibrahim (Oma-: Shard), who runs the cramped shop where the boy buys— and shoplifts -- groceries. Momo has no problem jus- tifying his petty thefts. Fof starters, every franc he saves from the money his dad allots for food shopping gets him closer to pay- ing for one of the prostitutes who ply their trade on the block. Second, he doesn't see the shop- keeper as a person but as "the other" — a foreigner with strange rituals and customs who has no life beyond the long hours he spends in the store. Momo's a little like the young Duddy Kravitz, a handsome hustler who's always working the angles and thinks he's a lot smarter than he is. He doesn't fool us and he doesn't fool Ibrahim, who sees every pocketed package.