Apr

15

My Battle as a Jewish Woman

Blog

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.

 

Posted by | 0 comments
Dec

24

Illuminating the Issues: Gender Segregation in Israel

Blog

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!

Posted by | 4 comments
Dec

22

Join me at Limmud NY!

Blog

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!

Posted by | 0 comments
Oct

12

What is a Sukkah?

Blog

Our Jewish friends around the world are celebrating all of the holidays that surround the Jewish New Year, so here’s wishing a Shana Tovah U’Metuka–a Sweet and Happy New Year–to you all!

At sundown tonight begins the fall harvest festival of Sukkot, which centers around a little structure known as the Sukkah. What is a Sukkah? Glad you asked. See some of the world’s most unusual examples in a video I made at the Sukkah City design competition last year for My Jewish Learning.

Posted by | 0 comments
Sep

02

The Israeli j14 Social Protests: Why We Should Care

Blog

On Saturday, August 6, over 300, 000 protestors took to the streets throughout Israel to express dissatisfaction with a slate of socioeconomic issues affecting the poor and middle classes. The protests had already been ongoing for several weeks before this mass rally, but have recently taken a break due to terror attacks in the south. Tomorrow, the protestors are coming back with a vengeance, hoping for 1,000,000 Israelis to hit the pavement in support of their cause.

I joined a small but passionate solidarity group of Israeli citizens in New York City’s Times Square during the last big protest. Several of my young characters in “Battle for Jerusalem” have been involved in the recent protests as part of their struggle to keep the city thriving in the face of many social and economic challenges. I sent a cameraman to film the events in Israel that night, but I also wanted to support them from afar.

Our group was not nearly as large as the one on the streets of Tel Aviv, but it was fueled by typical Israeli chutzpah. Who else would set up camping tents on a busy Saturday night in the middle of iconic Times Square? Still, I began to wonder why the group was so small, given all the Jewish, Israeli, and social justice organizations in New York City. And why have the American press and even the American Jewish community spent so little time discussing these major happenings in Israel?

Our Times Square Solidarity Protest

A cynical part of me remembered the old newspaper mantra, “If it bleeds, it leads,” and fortunately there has been no blood spilled at these protests. Maybe it’s also because America is going through our own economic crisis, and we can’t be bothered with that of another country. Some Americans have said that they won’t support a protest spearheaded by Jewish Israelis that doesn’t directly address quality of life for the Palestinians.  I think it mainly comes down to this: many of us just don’t know or understand what the protests are about. We haven’t seen a clear list of demands from the protestors and aren’t sure how or why to support them.

Here’s what I do know, and why I feel like these protests are worth paying attention to.

Roughly 1 in 20 Israelis were on the streets that Saturday—the equivalent of over 15 million Americans. The movement is largely youth led, and young people are worth listening to because their presence in the country is essential to Israel’s economy, security, and stability. If they move abroad because they can’t afford to live in Israel, then America’s strongest ally in the Middle East becomes much more vulnerable.

While the number of protestors is unprecedented, this tension has been building for years, and the protests are only the beginning. The characters in my film form some of the country’s young leadership, and they have already been working on related issues for some time—helping young people get jobs, educate their children, and meet basic needs when government policy has not always been in their favor.

One of the main social and political youth movements in Jerusalem is called “Hitorerut,” which translates to “Awakening,” in reference to their encouragement of fellow citizens to reject apathy and take action toward their own welfare. As one of the Israeli protestors in New York said, “We are just so relieved that Israeli society has finally woken up from its indifference and realized that we have more to deal with than just security issues.”

Though we may be unsure about the core goals of the protests, I suggest that those Americans who care about Israel join the protestors at least in recognizing the country has many challenges beyond security. Pay attention to the news, join one of the protest info groups on Facebook, follow the @j14ENG translated tweets on Twitter, and ask your Israeli friends what’s going on in the streets. As the dust settles from the protests and process of real change begins, it is sure to be an interesting period that will influence the country’s future.

P.S. If you’re in NY, there’s another, bigger solidarity protest demonstration in Washington Square Park tomorrow at 2:00 pm.

Posted by | 0 comments
©2012 Battle for Jerusalem. All rights reserved.