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From the bustling alleyways of Mumbai, India to the rainforests of Peru, two films shown at this year's Rutgers New Jersey Jewish Film Festival reveal the breadth and diversity of the global Jewish community.

On Nov. 8, two films about Jewish communities, continents apart, made their New Jersey premiers at the Regal Cinema Commerce Center in North Brunswick.

The first film, "In Search of the Bene Israel," tells the story of filmmaker Sadia Shepard's journey to rediscover her grandmother's roots in the 2,000-year-old Jewish community of India.

The second film, "A Fire Within," also tells the story of a small, far flung Jewish community, though this one is much newer in origin and on the other side of the globe -- the Amazon rainforest of Peru.

Shepard, producer and director of "In Search of the Bene Israel," is a descendant of the ancient Jewish community of India, the Bene Israel.

When her grandmother married a Muslim man as a young woman, she left the Jewish community of India, moved to Pakistan, and eventually made her way to the United States.

During a year working with the Bene Israel community in Mumbai, Shepard decided to learn more about her family's history and document this vibrant, yet struggling Jewish community today.

The Bene Israel trace their origins back to the survivors of a shipwreck approximately two millennia ago. Though isolated from many of the developments of Judaism since that time, the Bene Israel retained the Jewish dietary laws including those of Passover, performed circumcision, and observed Shabbat.

When this community reached its peak in India in the late 1940s, the population numbered approximately 30,000. The community has shrunk to about 3,500 today as many have made aliyah to Israel.

The film focuses on the different trajectories of members of the community today, especially as they contemplate whether to make aliyah.

This decision is portrayed in the film as one that is seemingly asked by everyone in the community, as they contemplate their own identities as both Indians and Jews.

Following the film, Elly Ezra, the publisher of The Jewish State who was born and raised in Bombay (which became Mumbai in 1995), answered questions from the audience about India's Jewish community.

Ezra was part of what was called the "Baghdadi" Jewish community of India, or those Jews who came to India from Iraq or Iran. Though not a member of the Bene Israel community, Ezra said that many of the customs and traditions depicted in the film were familiar to him.

"The customs that you saw, the marriage customs and the songs, were all very, very clear to me," Ezra said. "It almost brought me to tears, let me put it that way. It was like going home again."

Among the audience were several members of the Bene Israel community who now reside in New Jersey.

Nuriel Samuel, who was born and raised in Mumbai and currently lives in Basking Ridge, said that while he enjoyed the film, it nevertheless had a "narrow perspective."

Samuel said that the film's focus primarily on Shepard's own family history was not representative of the community as a whole and consequently the documentary ignored many of the accomplishments of the Bene Israel.

The second film in the afternoon's double feature was "A Fire Within," the untold story of the Jewish community of Iquitos, Peru.

In the late 19th century, young Jewish men, mostly from Morocco, journeyed to the Amazonian rainforest of Peru to reap profit from the great rubber boom. Many, instead of returning to their homelands, remained there, married native women, and reared families.

The documentary depicts the descendants, four and sometimes five generations removed from their Jewish ancestors, and their journey back to Judaism. The film shows the development of this community from their independent embrace of select Jewish practices, to their formal conversion by foreign rabbis, and finally ending with many of this community's resettlement and adjustment to life in Israel.

Lorry Salcedo Mitrani, the film's director, was present at the screening to answer questions from the audience.

In an interview following the screening, Mitrani told The Jewish State about how the Jewish community of Iquitos reacted after he showed them the film.

"Since the film is rather didactic, they told me that they finally understand where they came from, where they are going, their identities," Mitrani said, "They told me that finally they understood."