Sep

30

TIME Magazine and The Battle for Jerusalem

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Imagine my surprise when a friend emailed me this TIME Magazine cover last month:

I experienced mixed emotions when I discovered that a major news magazine had finally picked up on the story that we’ve been following for a few years…and even named it the same thing that we named our movie! It was validating and of course intriguing: would they come to similar conclusions that we have?

It turns out that the article does focus on one of our central neighborhoods, Kiryat Yovel where Esti lives. However, the writer takes a rather negative tack overall, where each “side” in the battle comes off pretty badly and it looks as though sharing the city among different communities will ultimately be impossible. The article’s main secular representative, for example, is a man who purposely provokes his ultra-Orthodox neighbors by throwing loud parties and barbecuing pork on Shabbat. His actions are quite different than those of the people we feature, who are generally working on ways to share the city and make it work for everyone.

I tried to articulate my position (and that of this project) in the following letter to the editor:

I’ve been researching the results of tension between Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox and mainstream communities over the past three years for my documentary film “Battle for Jerusalem.” Based on my experience, the non-ultra-Orthodox population is misrepresented by the secular protagonist in your article, “The Ultra-Holy City.” While many secular people do feel they are fighting to keep their city democratic and religiously pluralistic, most are not radical provocateurs like the man profiled in your story. They are just people–young parents, teachers, artists, small business owners –who are trying to make sure there’s a place in Israel’s capital city for their own families and for Israelis of all stripes to live as they wish.

 Read the original article here. Would love to hear your thoughts.

 

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Jun

29

Rachel Azaria Comes Stateside and Impresses the Heck out of our Summer Intern

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I’m so thrilled to welcome our bright and talented summer intern, Yona T. Roberts Golding, who contributed the following post:

This summer I have the amazing opportunity of interning for Liz Nord as she works on her film, Battle for Jerusalem, and the accompanying transmedia project, Jerusalem Unfiltered. The experience has been wonderful so far and I am so excited to watch as City Councilwoman Rachel Azaria’s inspiring story continues to unfold.

Recently, the documentary’s heroine visited the United States and Liz and I filmed her presentation at the non-denominational Jewish learning event Limmud Baltimore. In the first of the two sessions  led by Rachel, she spoke about the shifting role of women in Jerusalem’s public sphere. She noted that, as a city council member, she is constantly evaluating the tension between her own pluralist and feminist ideals in attempting to balance the civil liberties of the ultra-Orthodox with those of the secular members of the broader Jerusalem community.

Rachel’s presentation provoked lively debate about the extent to which the insular Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, community should be allowed autonomy by the Jerusalem municipality. She fielded questions with the grace of a person accustomed to facing opposition, maintaining that the current political and social climate of Jerusalem is hostile towards both Orthodox and non-Orthodox women.

In the second of Rachel’s presentations, she discussed her attempts and those of her peers to create an increasingly pluralistic atmosphere in Jerusalem. She expressed her perception that the city is becoming more hospitable to people from all walks of life, as community members not only accept but embrace difference.

Hearing Rachel speak it became very clear to me why Liz chose her as the protagonist of Battle for Jerusalem. The city councilwoman is not only a commanding speaker, but her experiences and passion reflect the vibrancy of the city she calls home. Rachel discussed both the successes and struggles that are the subject of Liz’s film, expressing optimism for Jerusalem’s future as a city in which all people can feel safe and welcome. But Rachel does not take this shift for granted; every day she devotes herself to struggling for the rights of others, marching in the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade and campaigning to allow equal access for women to all sectors of society.

Rachel even feels blessed to be part of the change. “I thank G-d that I am living in these days in Israel,” she said, smiling. “I think it is the most exciting period of time in Israel, maybe except for when the State of Israel was established.”

It was wonderful to have the chance to hear such a passionate and inspiring woman speak. Check out our video above of Rachel’s presentation on the changing climate in Jerusalem!

-Yona T. Roberts Golding

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Apr

15

My Battle as a Jewish Woman

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The eJewish Philanthropy website recently asked me to write a piece on “what inspires me.” It’s a pretty broad topic, but narrowing it to what inspired me to embark upon and continue working on “Battle for Jerusalem” actually helped me clarify my vision for the project and recognize a truly personal connection to the work. I hope that reading it will give you a good sense of how this project started and where it’s going.

My favorite part of the article? They have it tagged under “Cool People.” :)

My Battle as a Jewish Woman:
How a film on Jerusalem in conflict leads to personal reflection

MTV Billboard on Election Night 2008

MTV Billboard on Election Night 2008

The night of November 4, 2008, was one of the best of my life. As Supervising Producer at MTV News, I had spent the year leading up to election night training and mentoring a corps of young reporters from across the country to cover this pivotal race through blogs and videos. Our reporting culminated the night Barack Obama was elected President of the U.S. Taking a break from MTV’s frantic newsroom for a few minutes, I stood on the street below our headquarters in Times Square and watched the results roll in with tens of thousands of other people.

Among the flashing billboards overhead was one that MTV had taken over in the thick of it all. There between a Rock Band ad and the Toys-R-Us sign was a humongous screen in which my reporters’ real-time election tweets from the field popped up over a map of the country. What the mass of spectators in Times Square was witnessing was nothing less than the voice of America’s youth in action. What a proud moment!
Election night was so exciting for me because a palpable spirit of change had swept across the United States led, in many ways, by the youth who were engaged in an unprecedented way and had voted in record numbers. I got to witness this movement firsthand and play a part by covering the process all year for the only network doing election coverage specifically for young people.

The power of the youth voice – so often ignored in American politics – was heard, and it was inspiring.

I was still riding that high when I visited Jerusalem the following summer and learned about that city’s municipal elections, which had also taken place in November. I noticed that the similarities only began with election dates. Like in the USA, young people had been engaged in Jerusalem’s municipal elections in an unprecedented way. A new wave of youth were committing themselves to staying in the capital city and improving conditions there while many of their peers were fleeing to Tel Aviv due to Jerusalem’s social and economic challenges.

The massive rallying of young people around the elections in Jerusalem helped usher in a new Mayor and gained two of the city’s 31 council seats for fresh new candidates who had formed youth-oriented political parties just that year. The issues at stake in the U.S. and in Jerusalem were very different, but in each case, young people were working to change the direction of their countries through civic engagement.

This particular story of Jerusalem was not one we were hearing much about in the U.S., despite its potential to change the wider course of Israeli politics. Meeting some of the dynamic young Jerusalemites involved in the elections and in the general revival of the city convinced me that it was definitely a story worth telling, and ultimately led to my embarking on the production of a new documentary film, Battle for Jerusalem.

Read the rest of the piece on the eJewish Philantrhopy site.

 

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Dec

24

Illuminating the Issues: Gender Segregation in Israel

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In this beautiful post, my favorite modern-day Jewish sage Amichai Lau-Lavie shares his interpretation of Chanukah, the Festival of Lights. Amichai reminds us that, “Each night offers an opportunity for focus on one form of darkness that we may want to name – and do something about,” and invites us to join him in giving new intention and meaning to our annual candle lighting ritual.

Amichai’s reflections resonate strongly with me as a documentary filmmaker. Much of my work is dedicated to shedding light on various social issues to help bring about change. Most recently, my attention has been focused on the issue of gender segregation in Israel that is being increasingly suggested and enforced by the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jewish population, particularly in Jerusalem. Many Haredis believe that any presence of women in public space breaks religious standards of “modesty.”

This issue plays out in Israeli society in many ways, ranging from subtle pressures to blatant violence. In terms of subtle pressure, images of women have slowly been removed from advertisements on public buses because ads featuring women are so often vandalized by Haredi extremists, making it not worth the advertisers’ investments to place women in ads. The company who manages the ads now wants a deposit of 50,000 shekels from anyone posting images of women, to cover potential damage.

Unfortunately, Haredi actions do not end with mere vandalizing. Recently, a 50-year-old woman was badly beaten by a group of Haredi men when she refused to move to the back of a public bus that is informally segregated because its route goes through a Haredi neighborhood.

Damaged advertisement in Jerusalem

Damaged ad in Jerusalem. By Sebastian Scheiner/AP.

One of Battle For Jerusalem’s protagonists, Rachel Azaria, has lately found herself in the center of these controversies. As both a modern Orthodox, observant Jew and an elected member of Jerusalem’s City Council, she has always been in a uniquely threatening position to her Haredi counterparts. You may remember my post from this past July when Haredi council members blocked her ascendancy to the Deputy Mayor position. In October, the Mayor stripped Rachel of her municipal committee leadership positions after she went over his head to the High Court of Israel to oppose gender-segregated sidewalks in a Haredi neighborhood. By the way, the court ruled in Rachel’s favor.

Rather than taking the hit quietly, Rachel has thrust herself into a highly visible position of leadership among women and men who publicly oppose gender segregation policies. And they’ve already had some success, including a recent campaign to get images of women back into advertisements in public spaces. This campaign was spearheaded by the “Jerusalemites” movement, a community-based social change organization that Rachel founded when she ran for office in 2008.

Even some ultra-Orthodox women are beginning to take a stand, claiming that there is no source in Jewish law that demands men and women to be strictly segregated in every day life. When I spoke with Rachel recently, she sounded optimistic. “Two years ago,” she told me, “the story would have been that gender segregation is getting worse. Today, the story is that women are fighting back.”

There are still plenty of battles ahead, but Rachel Azaria and several Israeli civil rights organizations will be lighting the way for those of us interested in supporting the cause of fair gender representation in Israeli public space.

If you are one of those folks, I recommend following the excellent news feed of Religion and State in Israel which rounds up articles on these matters daily from around the globe. Also be sure to check out the work of New Israel Fund, Hiddush, and Israel Religious Action Center, all which deal with democracy and religious pluralism in Israel and  have been active in opposing gender segregation.

For my part, I will continue to illuminate these issues throughout the production of Battle for Jerusalem, Jerusalem Unfiltered, and beyond, and I hope you’ll continue to support the projects and keep checking in on our progress. Meanwhile, Happy Chanukah! May there be light in your lives!

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Dec

22

Join me at Limmud NY!

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I’m so excited to be presenting in three sessions at the upcoming Limmud NY conference, or what I’ve been referring to as “Jewish TED.” I’ll be showing exclusive new clips from Jerusalem Unfiltered and talking about some of the fascinating, Jerusalemite changemakers I interviewed, as well as showing excerpts from my first film Jericho’s Echo: Punk Rock in the Holy Land, and participating in a panel discussion about women’s rights in Israel with some very smart co-panelists.

Please come on by if you’re in the NY area or are in the mood for a learning-oriented getaway. Here’s the official schpiel from conference organizers:

Limmud NY 2012
January 13-16, 2012 (Martin Luther King Day Weekend)
at the Hudson Valley Resort in Kerhonkson, N.Y.

Join over 700 people of all ages and backgrounds at a volunteer-run Jewish festival. Experience art, film, literature, music, philosophy, politics, text study, and much more from early morning to late night. Take advantage of over 300 sessions and performances, grab a Shabbat nap, or just schmooze. Programming for the whole family, including free babysitting and children’s camp. Meals strictly kosher. Carpooling and buses from Manhattan and Brooklyn. Financial aid available. Register now for the best prices at limmudny.org/register or call 212-908-2525.

If you’re going to be there, please come find me and say hi! I’ll be at my sessions (obvs) but I’m also looking forward to what should be awesome sessions from several friends who are presenting, like Rachel Kanter, David Wolklin, Daniel Sieradski, Amichai Lau-Lavie, Ari Wallach, and Stereo Sinai!

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