NEW YORK -- In talking with Valerie Lapin Ganley, the director of a new film about the Jewish community in Ireland, one of the things that emerges is that Ganley learned as much about her subject while making the film as viewers do while seeing it.

"I was raised in a Jewish family in Los Angeles," says Ganley, whose film, "Shalom Ireland," explores Jewish life in the country by focusing on three Irish-Jewish families, all from Dublin. But she gained an interest in Irish history and culture after meeting her husband, Michael, an Irish-American with "a deep love for his ancestral homeland."

Wearing the official chain of office, Robert Briscoe, the first Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin, visits New York City as seen in "Shalom Ireland," a documentary about Ireland's remarkable, yet little known, Jewish community.