I was interviewed by Mimi Borowich on Rusty Mike Radio in Israel. Click the play button above to listen to the 2-part chat (in English), where we cover everything from ROI, to the President’s conference, to the Jerusalem Film Festival, to summer action in the city, to–of course–Battle for Jerusalem and Jerusalem Unfiltered!
In addition to repping at conferences, meeting with potential funders and partners, and catching up with our documentary protagonists, this trip was all about shooting footage for the expansion of the project beyond the film and into the web and mobile platforms. That meant that I got to meet several more amazing, young movers and shakers who active in changing the dynamics of Jerusalem.
I basically only had the services of my talented camera guy, Lior, and steadfast PA, Natan, for two full days during my final week in the area. We made the most of them, crisscrossing all over town and filming and interviewing quite a wide array of interesting folks. Here’s a glimpse at some of the people we met, who you will eventually encounter on the Jerusalem: Unfiltered website.
DANYA
Internationally known dancer Danya Elraz and I have actually known each other since she studied in San Francisco several years ago, but because of her global travels and dance residencies, I didn’t even associate her with the city when I started filming in Jerusalem last summer.
Stretching at one of Danya Elraz's contact dance classes
Even on this trip, she was about to leave for a teaching gig in Moscow, to spread the gospel of her unique “contact improvisational” style. And yet, who better to profile in this series than an artist who was raised in Jerusalem, now has the opportunity to teach anywhere in the world, and yet remains based in her hometown to help the local dance scene thrive?
I interviewed Danya and we filmed one of her classes where participants engaged in intimate movements—helping clarify the term contact improv—especially surprising since some of the students are religious. In Danya’s thoughtful interview, she spoke of dance’s power to heal, which seems especially apt in a city like Jerusalem where there are so many losses and divisions in need of healing.
MICHA & AMANI
Micha is a Jew who grew up in the Israeli Scouts and was eager to serve his mandatory military duty, until he ended up serving in Hebron in the West Bank where he felt that the small number of Jewish settlers were constantly provoking the Arab majority in the area. He eventually started an organization called Breaking the Silence that gives soldiers serving in the Occupied Territories the opportunity to share eyewitness accounts of the happenings in those areas to their fellow Israelis, most of whom never enter despite the West Bank’s proximity to “mainland Israel.”
Micha overlooking East Jerusalem
Micha was joined by Amani, his Palestinian colleague in a new organization called Grassroots Jerusalem, which helps map and connect community-based organizations in East Jerusalem that address social and economic challenges in those areas. Like Micha, Amani had a set of experiences that fueled her desire to work on the pressing issues of Jerusalem’s Arab communities, when she moved to the city to attend Hebrew University from a predominantly Arab city in Northern Israel and began to learn how much more difficult things were for the Palestinians in East Jerusalem.
After the interview, Micha took us on a tour of parts of East Jerusalem, pointing out some of the blatant disparities in basic city services between the Arab residents of those neighborhoods and the Jewish residents in other parts of the city. Although Micha and Amani’s perspectives were sometimes difficult to hear, it’s very important that as I document young changemakers in West Jerusalem, I begin to learn about and understand their counterparts in the rest of the city, too.
RUBA
Another young Palestinian woman we met was the striking Ruba Salameh, an artist who works at the Al’Mamal Foundation for Contemporary Art. Al’Mamal is the only space dedicated to Palestinian artists in the Old City, and Ruba has exhibited there. I interviewed her on a day when she was teaching youth art classes in the sparse space, and learned that much of her own work deals with identity.
Filming Ruba outside the Al'Mamal Foundation
Having moved to Jerusalem from a predominantly Arab, middle-class area, to attend the prestigious Bezalel Academy of Art with many Jewish Israeli and international students, she was struggling with societal labels and which labels, if any, to put upon herself. Her show at Al’Mamal was called “Out of Place,” referring to both Edward Said’s memoir and her position with a foot in two different worlds. In the Jewish Diaspora, we are practically obsessed with identity as it relates to youth, our future, different denominations, intermarriage, relationships to Israel and on and on, and I was intrigued to learn that the decision of how to define or not define oneself is also at play among Palestinian young adults.
IDO
I already spoke a bit about Ido (who bears a striking resemblance to Jake Gyllenhall) in my post about the party on Shushan St. I learned more about his thinking behind the art exhibition that has taken over doors, rooftops, and even dumpsters on the block when we filmed him showing off its works. The street runs directly along the backside of City Hall, and Ido calls it the municipality’s “neglected backyard.” The theme is blatantly illustrated in one of the pieces: a large circular mandala made of trash from the City Hall dumpster.
Ido with a work from the "urban jungle" show on Shushan St.
Ido’s commitment to the artistic revitalization of the city through his alternative club Hakatze, the exhibition on Shushan St., and involvement in many other cultural activities became even more impressive when I learned more about his upbringing in the city. He was raised on Hanevi’im St., site of the Haredi protest in the aforementioned post. The road literally creates the border between the secular center and Haredi enclave of the city, and winds downhill to end at Damascus Gate, entrance to the Arab Quarter in the Old City. His late teen years were fraught with not only the tensions of the diverse area, but with the many suicide bombings that hit very close to home—the closest being right next door.
I am inspired by the fact that Ido still believes in and actively supports the creation of art after all that he has witnessed.
MORE COOLNESS
I interviewed the lovely GAL MOR, founder of the Abraham Hostel where I stayed for the majority of my trip, and shockingly the only place for backpackers in the center of the city. We learned about Gal’s vision for the hostel, which just opened its doors this year and is already bustling and contributing to the presence of more young people downtown.
We also met was the charismatic actor RAM MIZRAHI, who was the only person in his graduating class at performing arts school who decided to stay and make a go of it as a professional actor in Jerusalem. As such, he does lots of small character actor jobs including one that we filmed—popping up as the famous Israeli singer and playwright Yossi Banai in a shuk tour about his life. But Ram doesn’t stop there—he also convinced the Jerusalem Foundation to fund a play of his own which has gone on to critical reviews, and he is determined to keep up the good work.
Interviewing Ram Mizrahi late night under a streetlight outside the shuk
Last but not least, I interviewed MORAN MIZRACHI, chef in one of my favorite restaurants in my favorite part of the city—Mahane Yehuda, or “the shuk.” The shuk is what Sha’anan Streett called one of the “five beating hearts of Jerusalem,” and Moran’s Café Mizrachi helps create the pulse. Moran and her father opened the café several years ago after she returned from culinary school in France, and they are widely acclaimed as visionaries for initiating the wave of change that has turned the historically shady market area into a bustling collection of trendy cafes and shops. It was interesting to hear about the local reactions that the Mizrachi’s got when they first suggested opening the place—which seemed to range from “not a good idea” to “you’re thoroughly insane!”
I am so excited to start editing down these interviews and introducing you more thoroughly to the fascinating people who I got to spend time with, each of whom is trying to make their mark on contemporary Jerusalem.
Posted by lizfilm | 0 commentsOne of the most important goals of this trip was to catch up with the characters who we started filming last summer, and there have been some really interesting developments in their stories.
RACHEL
One of the most fascinating stories playing out among our protagonists is that of Rachel Azaria, the Modern Orthodox City Council member who represents young families in the city, and who has been a vocal dissenter of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) policies such as forcing women to sit in the back of public buses that pass through their neighborhoods. Prior to my arrival in Jerusalem, the mayor had been in the process of promoting Rachel to be one of his deputy mayors, a move that would increase her power and visibility.
The Haredi City Council members, whose representation on the council is greater than their actual representation in society, blocked the move. Ultimately, they agreed to a coalition with the far-left Meretz party in order to keep Rachel out. In other words, the Haredi members were so threatened and upset by the idea of a religious, yet socially liberal, woman rising in the ranks, that they chose to join forces with the councilors who are most ideologically different from them in order to prevent it.
Rachel Azaria
I filmed the City Council meeting that occurred right after this decision was made, where members essentially yelled at each other for over an hour while nothing of substance happened, and Rachel sat entirely quiet. The most telling moment of the evening was when one of the modern religious, male councilors basically said, “It doesn’t matter who is in the coalition because the religious parties run this city and we all know it.”
We will now see how Rachel deals with the remainder of her tenure after this large blow. I have a feeling it will make her stronger than ever.
MATAN
Matan Israeli, the artist in Musrara who founded a collective to turn the diverse neighborhood into an evolving, outdoor art gallery, has taken his project to a whole new level. His Muslala Collective was always about more than “just art,” building a community garden and hosting events for the neighborhood but now they’ve literally taken over the streets.
Perhaps because of its unique location on the border of Haredi enclave Me’a Shearim and primarily Arab East Jerusalem, Musrara is also historic home to Israel’s Black Panthers movement, made up mainly of Jewish, North African immigrants. Many of the former Panthers still live in Musrara, so Matan and his group decided to honor this fact. All over Israel, streets are named after people and groups who played fundamental roles in building the country, but Matan realized that no one would ever honor the Panthers, despite their important equal rights activism for “Mizrahi” or dark-skinned Jews. Muslala collaborated with the local Panthers to change that fact.
Matan Israeli dedicates "Black Panthers Way" in Musrara
The artists created elaborate new street signs and embedded them into concrete walls, and held an unveiling ceremony to dub two walkways in the neighborhood “Black Panthers Way” and “They’re Not Nice” alley—all without official city sanctions. (The latter referring to a comment made by former Prime Minister Golda Meir, after meeting with the Black Panthers.)
I filmed the unveiling ceremony with one of my Israeli camera-men, Lior, and was moved by Matan’s underlying philosophy of the project—that you can’t just wait for change to happen or for someone else to recognize your value; sometimes you need to literally create the reality that you want to see in order to make it so.
When I met up with Matan over soup one evening prior to the event, I learned that in addition to all of his activities with Muslala, he actually makes a living by teaching art in a school for religious women—an “only in Jerusalem” dynamic that I look forward to exploring further.
ESTI
I didn’t get to see Esti, the young activist from Kiryat Yovel, but her story has taken a fascinating turn. Last summer, she was working on the opening of a kindergarten for her young daughter and the other secular children in the neighborhood. It shares a playground with an ultra-Orthodox school, whose patrons have recently insisted that they don’t want their children interacting with—or even seeing—the secular children. The municipality’s solution was to build a wall separating the two playgrounds, which Esti and the other secular parents are now protesting. We’ll definitely keep our eyes on this situation, a perfect metaphor for what’s happening all over the city.
The kiddie separation fence--soon to be a wall. (Image from Ha'aretz)
…AND MANY MORE
I also met up with Ofer Berkovitch and Shahar Fisher, the young activists from the Hitorerut (“Awakening”) movement, and artist Einat Arif-Galanti, all of whom will be featured on Jerusalem: Unfiltered. Einat has recently had a solo exhibition in Tel Aviv, and Ofer and Shahar are as active as ever in trying to galvanize the secular youth of Jerusalem to fight for their city. There are many successes but an equal number of small blows in this battle, like the fact that Shahar lost the job he started last summer as a freelance writer at Time Out Jerusalem, since the publication couldn’t even last a year in the city.
Ofer and Shahar both stressed, however, that the “Battle for Jerusalem” that I refer to in the film’s title is about much more than just a conflict between Haredi and secular Jews. While many young Israelis are giving up on Jerusalem and trying to become more European, they are fighting for the unique character of the city, as a truly diverse capital that combines both the history and future of its diverse people. I will continue to explore and unpack the many angles and nuances of this “battle” throughout the project.
Posted by lizfilm | 0 commentsJerusalem’s juxtapositions were crystallized for me over 24 hours this weekend. The distorted mirror images: Friday afternoon, a street full of fists pumping and people shouting with joy during a party of dancing 20-somethings. Saturday afternoon, a street full of fists pumping and people shouting with anger during a Haredi protest attempting to block cars from driving on Shabbat.
Friday’s party took place on Shushan street, which lines one side of City Hall Plaza, and was formerly home to Jerusalem’s only gay bar. (For a great doc about this bar and the multicultural Jerusalem LGBT scene, see City of Borders.) The space has since been bought by Ido, one of its former bartenders, who we will be profiling on Jerusalem: Unfiltered. Ido has renamed the bar Hakatze (The Edge), but kept its infamous Monday night drag shows, and has expanded the lineup to include a variety of independent live music acts and other performances.
Ido’s efforts at livening up the grey Shushan alleyway didn’t stop with the bar, and once you start looking, you can see the results everywhere on the block in the form of street art and recycled sculptural installations on walls, rooftops, and literally crawling up the sides of buildings.
Another fruit of Ido’s labor was Friday’s street party, which featured elaborately costumed “human sculptures,” parking meters turned into bar tables, performance art, craft vendors, raucous gypsy music, and hundreds of young partiers. Those who insist that Jerusalem is a “dead city” clearly haven’t been to one of these events.
Almost exactly 24 hours later, it was time to get to the root of the wailing I had been hearing from my room, a full city block away from its source, each Saturday evening since my arrival. The Haredim don’t like to be filmed any time (as you may recall from my adventures in one of their neighborhoods last summer), let alone on Shabbat, when both work and use of electronics are forbidden. However, The weekly Haredi protests at Strauss and Hanevi’im streets were getting louder and louder, and I simply couldn’t ignore them.
I therefore hired an Israeli camera man, Ruby, to help me navigate the situation, and he suggested that we find a suitable rooftop from which to film and stay out of trouble. In order to reach said rooftop, however, we had to walk right into the belly of the beast. (Did I mention that he wore a leather jacket and heavy boots to protect himself from spit or worse?) As we approached the crowd of protesters, their collective wail of Shaaaabes! Shaaaaaaabes! overpowered all other sounds. The noise resembled a herd of bleating sheep, but even more a mourning cry. Ruby explained that the protestors actually were mourning in a way, for the other Jews who were breaking Jewish law by driving on the Sabbath.
Haredim and Police face off
It was not a very big crowd, but their voices were loud powerful. The chants were broken up only by protestors banging on cars that attempted to pass through the intersection, and screams of “Nazi!” directed at cops who dared push them out of the way from the moving vehicles. With a slightly feigned confidence, we made our way through the crowd, ducked into a building adjacent to the protest, and climbed the stairs to find the door to the rooftop open. Score!
From above, Ruby began filming the stream of black fedora hats and brown fur ones. We were not there for 15 minutes when one of those black-hats–with a body attached to it–joined us on the roof. He threatened to bring the rest of the guys up there if we didn’t leave, and then began shouting Shabbes! Shabbes! at us. Naturally, we obliged, only to move on to the roof next door, which happened to be accessible only through the apartment of a secular, female tenant who happened to be watching the entire proceeding herself and beckoned us up after we waved from the street.
In the end, I didn’t ever really feel physically threatened, but the rhythmic wail of Shaaaabes! Shaaaaaaabes! has become stuck in my gut in the hours since, and Jerusalem’s juxtapositions are fresher than ever in my mind.
Posted by lizfilm | 0 commentsSome discussions about The Future at Facing Tomorrow: The Israeli Presidential Conference were foreboding and even terrifying (Cyber-terrorism! Anti-semitism! Destruction!) However, being someone who has to live in that future and hopefully will play some role in its direction, I chose to focus on the more positive and uplifting sentiments. The following will stick with me:
Usually the happy ending does not come at the beginning. I am still a believer in peace.
-President Shimon Peres in his opening address (I also loved when he told Shakira: Artists are the best messengers of peace.)
When did peace become a dirty word? I am not willing to give up.
-Israeli Opposition leader Tzipi Livni in a passionate address about her vision for the future of Israel, where she also acknowledged the importance of sowing internal divisions such as the Haredi-secular divide in order to move forward as a nation
Compromise is not merely idealism and it does not mean a lack of integrity. The opposite of compromise is fanaticism and death.
-Writer Amos Oz on the mind-shift that he believes needs to happen on both sides to achieve peace in the region
Zionism is the successful liberation of the Jewish people. I cannot imagine a true Zionist being unsupportive of the liberation movements in the “Arab Spring.”
-French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, who recently returned from visits to some of Israel’s neighboring countries who are in revolt. He also stated his belief that Jews and Israel have little to fear from these events.
The future will belong to the open-minded. I may be what I am but I respect you as different, and together we can build different and better world.
-Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair (Note: sounded even better in a British accent.)
Israeli President Shimon Peres addressing bloggers
In my generation, freedom was free expression. In yours, it’s self-expression. I’m not sure governments listen to each other, but I’m sure that young people do because you have the same language. So talk to each other. Don’t follow us–follow yourselves.
-88-year-old Peres to a to 15-year-old Israeli blogger who asked how he could help the country
I didn’t take a non-Jewish stage name because I didn’t want to hold resentment towards those who gave me opportunities because of it. I just wanted to be proud to be me.
-Comedian Sarah Silverman in a discussion about Jewish identity (Less popular but more hilarious was her notion that more American Jews would marry each other if American Jewish men resembled “Israeli Adonises instead of human sneezes!”)
We are still at the beginning of a user-generated-media revolution. It’s a social innovation more than a technological one. Now that more and more people have access to online communication, we must make sure to spread Wikipedia’s values of good faith, neutrality & quality throughout Internet.
-Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales, in both his opening remarks and plenary session on new media
So a Franciscan Monk, a Palestinian activist, and an ultra-Orthodox Jew walk into a panel discussion...(Along with Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, City Council Member Rachel Azaria, and venture capitalist Erel Margalit)
Of course, I attended with eager anticipation the session called “My Visions of Jerusalem,” which hosted a lineup that almost sounded like the beginning of a classic joke: a Franciscan monk, a Palestinian Authority founder, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man…
It was a rare and welcomed opportunity to see Jerusalem’s diverse population together on one stage, and I was proud and excited that one of the people featured in the film, the visionary City Council member Rachel Azaria, represented women, modern Orthodoxy and young leadership within this distinguished group. My favorite contribution of hers:
All the interesting stuff happens in Jerusalem, because we live on the edge. The civil discourse here is amazing. In every coffee shop, people are discussing the next revolution.
-Rachel Azaria, Jerusalem City Council Member (See her in the background trailer)
Finally, another good one from Shimon Peres:
The Jews’ greatest contribution to the world? Dissatisfaction.
Thanks for giving me an appropriate segue, Mr. Peres, to the WORST quote of the conference, from tech entrepreneur Yossi Vardi while moderating a “new media” plenary session of 8 white men:
Behind every successful person is three women: a wife who never has a enough new things to wear, a kvetching mother-in-law and a proud mother.
REALLY? There are so many offensive elements to this statement that it would take another post entirely to unpack it.
You may have noticed the low number of selected quotes from women, young people, and people of color, and that is because each group was appallingly under-represented in the conference programming. Particularly at an event that claims to be about “tomorrow,” the lack of these three driving forces of global progress was both an insult and a real missed opportunity.
The Blogger Corps awaits Peres's arrival
That being said, it was an honor to be invited to join the approximately 3,000 other participants from around the world. It was a particular pleasure to be present at the special bloggers session with President Peres, who happens to be one of my personal heroes. (Thanks Esther and Elie for enabling that!) I commend the conference for taking bloggers, Tweeters, and otherwise new media reporters seriously and recognizing our potential to contribute to the overall discourse.
Now, onward to the MAIN work and purpose of being here in Jerusalem—shooting more footage and gaining more support for Battle for Jerusalem and Jerusalem Unfiltered!
Posted by lizfilm | 1 comments