It’s 1:49 a.m. Wednesday morning and I’ve just returned home from the inaugural screening at the 22nd annual Israel Film Festival in NYC. What a night! I’m contemplating not writing this as it’s late and the wine was free, but then again…I’m supposedly at my best when a bit shickered.

And to tell the truth, who isn’t at their best after a few menorah turns around the table and some Chinese-buffet fare. That’s right, Jews, a movie, and a Chinese buffet: it doesn’t get more New York than this. So it was lucky that the night included not only the terrific film Noodle by the acclaimed Israeli director Ayelet Menahemi; but a reception catered to the film’s theme of Asian-Israeli relations, and the match was perfect.

If there’s one thing we can really do well in New York it’s throw a party: the house was packed, the carpet was red, and I was dressed to blend in with the starlets and media magnates, only thing is I don’t speak Hebrew; so, yes, I was the tall quiet one in the back, trying my best to look Israeli and failing whenever anyone approached. But being a New Yorker, a reporter, and a mensch I was intrepid. Tonight I was, if only by proximity, a movie maven, and if anyone caught on, no one said a word otherwise so I continued undaunted.

Having just watched one of the best contemporary films I’ve seen in a while I was curious: who are these Israelis, descending upon Manhattan as if from Brooklyn to make us laugh, to make us cry, and, maybe, to make us think? Who are these distant cousins from the East, so outdoing us at our own shtick and on our own turf?

It didn’t take me long to realize that the assimilation happened long ago: most of the room if not being from, living in, or in some way spending a substantial amount of money in New York, may as well be New Yorkers. The film community is a metropolitan crowd, and if film found its heights in L.A., it has always had its heart in New York. It has always had its heart in the Yiddish theater, of which so many guests and honorees were kvelling.

We are New Yorkers, but we are also cinemaphiles, and in this way we owe a great debt to the Jewish community. We owe a debt to an ever-propulsive art force, and last night we were introduced to a mishpocha not too far-removed: a group of filmmakers, writers, and actors who the scions of New York tomorrow will remember as people of dynamism, integrity, lovers of film, and lovers of the world.