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.

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

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

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.

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 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!

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!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.