When Hasidic Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, a Holocaust survivor, saw his followers beginning to lose their way in mid-1970s Brooklyn, he moved the congregation to Monroe, about 50 miles north. The strictly observant community thrived and grew to 22,000 members living in an enclosed 1.1-square-mile area. The subject of Jesse Sweet’s complex documentary — which features unprecedented access to the “City of Joel” and its inhabitants — is the sect’s desire to annex another 550 acres and the resistance it faces from other Monroe citizens, who see their lifestyles threatened. Striving for balance in an emotional inferno where anti-Semitism lurks just beneath the surface, Sweet interviews members of the Hasidic sect, the leaders of the anti-annexation citizens’ group, and town officials, all the while documenting the growing friction between the sides. What the film reveals is a hornet’s nest of conflicting opinions and attitudes that couldn’t be a timelier evocation of a divided community.

In competition for the Schlesinger Documentary Award.

Director Jesse Sweet