Animated Feature ‘Samurai Jew’ [VIDEO]

Wish there were more Jewish content animations? Welcome Samurai Jew! The Jewish answer to Samurai Jack

Samurai Jew was created by Nadav Nachmany, an animator and filmmaker from Jerusalem who holds his degree from Bezalel art academy in Jerusalem. Nachmany graduated from Betzalel six years ago and became interested in Judaism around that time.

His learning effected his work, believing that Judaism has many tools that can, “bring people meaning, happiness and ways to become better people” says Nachmany. “My dream is to bring these messages into my film, to effect people around the world, and make them see the world and their life in a different way. I think animation is probably the best way to convey messages, it allows people to connect easier. I think that you don’t see much Jewish content in film and in animation, and when it’s done it usually looks cheap, so my dream is really to make high quality productions with important massages and deep content to the Jewish world.”

Samurai Jew started with a pilot video just over a year ago, and has since won contests and screened at festivals.

One of my goals in this Samurai Jew project was to create a parody of pop culture, anime films and also the Jewish culture and to mix it to a weird and funny result.

Now Nadav is soliciting donations to produce the next episode, Samurai Jew: The Fourth Cup.

From the press release: We have an outrageous screenplay. It features living-dead mummies, SJ’s Seven Kung-fu Fighting kids and lovely pregnant wife, Jewly. And of course, whole lot of hilarity. We parody everything and insult whoever’s left. We promise to leave no pyramid standing.

“I think it could be a very good tool for education.” Says Nachmany. “One of my goals in this Samurai Jew project was to create a parody of pop culture, anime films and also the Jewish culture and to mix it to a weird and funny result. I also wanted to bring to the world a Jewish character so that Jewish people around the world could see a presentation of their identity in a media in which you usually don’t see Jewish representation. I would like to evolve it into a bigger series, and maybe try to teach kids about their culture and identity and make people proud about their past and who they are.”

Jewish Art Now would like to see more Jewish content media, so if you enjoy, do you part and help a Yid out!

Fund the production of Samurai Jew here and follow the Samurai Jew Facebook Fanpage.

Want to see more from the animator? View his senior thesis animation from Betzalel.