A personal essay revealing the passionate debates over identity and generational…
Israelism
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
Two young American Jews - Simone Zimmerman and Eitan - are raised to defend the state of Israel at all costs. Eitan joins the Israeli military. Simone supports Israel on ‘the other battlefield:’ America’s college campuses. When they witness Israel's mistreatment of the Palestinian people with their own eyes, they are horrified and heartbroken.
They join the movement of young American Jews battling the old guard over Israel’s centrality in American Judaism, and demanding freedom for the Palestinian people. Their stories reveal a generational divide in the American Jewish community as more young Jews question the narratives their synagogues and Hebrew school teachers taught them as children.
The film also features voices like Jacqui, a Jewish educator who says “Judaism is Israel and Israel is Judaism”, and former Anti-Defamation League President Abe Foxman, who claims voices like Simone and Eitan’s represent a small minority. Thought leaders like Peter Beinart, Jeremy Ben-Ami, Noura Erakat, Cornel West, and Noam Chomsky also weigh in.
Directed by two first-time Jewish filmmakers who share a similar story to the film’s protagonists, Israelism is produced by Peabody-winner and 4-time Emmy-nominee Daniel J. Chalfen (Loudmouth, Boycott), executive produced by two-time Emmy-winner Brian A. Kates (Marvelous Ms. Maisel, Succession) and edited by Emmy-winner Tony Hale (The Story of Plastic), Israelism uniquely explores how Jewish attitudes towards Israel are changing dramatically, with massive consequences for the region and for Judaism itself.
"The most important documentary of the year" — Movieweb
"If you want to understand the wrenching generational rift over Israel among many left-leaning American Jews, the documentary Israelism... is a good place to start." — Michelle Goldberg, New York Times
Citation
Main credits
Axelman, Erin (film director)
Axelman, Erin (film producer)
Eilertsen, Sam (film director)
Chalfen, Daniel J. (film producer)
Saah, Nadia (film producer)
Other credits
Cinematography, Sam Eilertsen; editing, Tony Hale; music, Cody Westheimer.
Distributor subjects
No distributor subjects provided.Keywords
Israel,Palestine,Judaism,militarism,anti-semitism,antisemitism,anti-defamation league,politics,synagogue,Hebrew,American Judaism,Zionism,Jewish state; "Israelism"; Tikkun Olam Productions; Simone Zimmerman; Abe Foxman; Noura Erakat; Cornel West; Noam Chomsky; Sami Awad; Lara Friedman; Peter Beinart; occupation; West Bank; indoctrination; settlers; Gaza
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TIME IN |
SPEAKER ID |
DIALOGUE LIST |
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00:00:01:13 |
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TITLE A TIKKUN OLAM PRODUCTION |
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00:00:02:15 |
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[crowd cheering, clapping] |
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00:00:05:15 |
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[music begins] |
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00:00:08:21 |
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§ La la la la la la la la la la la § |
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00:00:12:03 |
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§ La la la la la la la la la la § |
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00:00:15:11 |
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§ La la la la la la la la § |
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00:00:18:14 |
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§ La la la la la la la la la § |
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00:00:21:14 |
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[cheer and clap] |
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00:00:22:03 |
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[music ends] |
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00:00:22:21 |
MAN 1 (OS): |
The non-Jewish community does not understand our fixation, our obsession with Israel. |
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00:00:28:17 |
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[music begins] |
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00:00:29:12 |
HOST 1 (OS/ON): |
Good evening and welcome to 2018! To the 2016! 2019! |
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00:00:37:17 |
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Taglit-Birthright Israel winter mega event! |
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00:00:41:10 |
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Summer mega event! |
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00:00:44:12 |
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Right here in Jerusalem! |
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00:00:48:21 |
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The eternal power of our people. |
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00:00:53:11 |
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[cheer together] |
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00:00:55:19 |
BALD MAN (OS/ON): |
Is there anyone here from the United States of America? |
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00:01:00:07 |
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[cheer together] |
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00:01:01:22 |
HOST 1 (OS): |
What's your name? Where you from, brother? |
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00:01:03:14 |
MICHAEL: |
I'm Michael and I'm from Detroit, Michigan! |
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00:01:09:06 |
WOMAN 1 (OS): |
Everybody knows somebody who was in the army. |
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00:01:12:05 |
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Israeli soldiers, they're hot, they're awesome, they're strong, they're everything we could all want to be. |
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00:01:20:03 |
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[music ends] |
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00:01:20:16 |
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[music begins] |
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00:01:21:04 |
HAN: |
Um, my name is Israel Han, I'm from Brooklyn, New York. |
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00:01:23:09 |
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I came here on Birthright in 2016. |
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00:01:26:01 |
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I joined the army four months after I finished Birthright, ditched my flight back to America, and I'm still in the army now! |
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00:01:33:05 |
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Yeah! Am Yisrael Chai! |
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00:01:36:07 |
HOST 1: |
Wonderful words. That's beautiful. |
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00:01:41:18 |
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TITLE A FILM BY ERIC AXELMAN AND SAM EILERTSEN |
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00:01:45:23 |
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TITLE CELEBRATE ISRAEL PARADE |
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00:01:48:17 |
KID 1: |
Israel! |
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00:01:49:21 |
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[cheer together] |
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00:01:50:18 |
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CREDIT EXECUTIVE PRODUCER BRIAN A. KATES |
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00:01:55:05 |
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CREDIT EXECUTIVE PRODUCER GILI GETZ |
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00:01:58:00 |
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[music ends] |
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00:01:59:15 |
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CREDIT EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS MATTHEW LINDENBAUM BENNETT LINDENBAUM |
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00:02:03:16 |
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[music begins] |
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00:02:05:16 |
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CREDIT EXECUTIVE PRODUCER SIDNEY TOPOL |
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00:02:09:01 |
MAN 2 (OS): |
The first time I've been to the United States, I met so many nice people |
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00:02:12:06 |
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CREDIT DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY SAM EILERSTEN |
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00:02:13:16 |
MAN 2 (OS): |
Jewish Americans would tell me things like, "We like you, but we don't like Palestinians"... |
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00:02:19:06 |
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CREDIT EDITED BY TONY HALE |
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00:02:20:08 |
MAN 2 (OS): |
...even though that I'm the only Palestinian they know. |
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00:02:24:05 |
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Of course, around that time, I would take it personally... |
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00:02:26:13 |
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CREDIT ORIGINAL SCORE BY CODY WESTHEIMER |
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00:02:28:09 |
MAN 2 (OS): |
...but then you come to realize that people do not know. |
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00:02:32:20 |
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They know nothin' about Palestine and Palestinians or have no idea about what Palestinians are goin' through. |
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00:02:41:13 |
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CREDIT CO-PRODUCERS NATE BIRNBAUM MARIELLE OLENTINE |
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00:02:42:09 |
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[sobs] |
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00:02:47:16 |
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CREDIT CONSULTING PRODUCER LIBBY LENKINSKI |
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00:02:54:08 |
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CREDIT ANIMATION BY SUPERNOVA DESIGN |
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00:02:56:05 |
WOMAN 1 (OS/ON): |
Coming into Palestine for the first time, I remember asking people, "What do you think? Should I do it?" |
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00:03:02:06 |
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CREDIT PRODUCED BY ERIC AXELMAN |
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00:03:03:03 |
WOMAN 1 (ON/OS): |
And the response that I always got was you know, "You're gonna be killed." |
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00:03:06:10 |
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[music ends] |
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00:03:07:21 |
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[music begins] |
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00:03:09:23 |
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CREDIT PRODUCED BY DANIEL J. CHALFEN NADIA SAAH |
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00:03:15:06 |
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TITLE WE DEMAND THE TRUTH STOP LYING TO US |
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00:03:17:08 |
WOMAN 1 (OS): |
As a curious young person like, "What is this thing that is so horrifying that you can't bear to let me see it?" |
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00:03:25:22 |
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CREDIT DIRECTED BY ERIC AXELMAN AND SAM EILERTSEN |
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00:03:31:09 |
WOMAN 1 (OS): |
Like, "Is it that bad?" |
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00:03:36:00 |
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MAIN TITLE ISRAELISM |
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00:03:41:00 |
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[indistinct chatter, laughter in distance] |
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00:03:43:11 |
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[music ends] |
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00:03:44:19 |
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[music begins] |
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00:03:50:01 |
WOMAN 1: |
Found in the depths of my family's house. |
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00:03:54:00 |
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TITLE SIMONE ZIMMERMAN |
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00:03:59:03 |
SIMONE: |
I found some of my Hebrew-- Hebrew textbooks from elementary school. |
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00:04:03:17 |
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[speaks Hebrew] My Israel. |
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00:04:08:05 |
SIMONE (OS/ON): |
Congratulations to Simone Zimmerman for winning the Israel Jubilee Contest. |
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00:04:13:07 |
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February, 1998. I was seven. |
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00:04:18:18 |
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I had like a pretty traditional Jewish upbringing. |
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00:04:20:17 |
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I grew up in LA. |
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00:04:23:08 |
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I went to a Jewish day school, kindergarten through the end of high school. |
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00:04:29:18 |
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I went to Jewish youth group, Jewish camp. |
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00:04:31:18 |
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[indistinct chatter] |
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00:04:33:09 |
SIMONE (OS): |
I have family in Israel. |
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00:04:34:15 |
|
I lived in Israel in high school on an exchange program. |
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00:04:39:19 |
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[indistinct chatter] |
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00:04:43:01 |
SIMONE (OS): |
Israel was just treated like a core part of being a Jew. |
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00:04:48:07 |
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So, you did prayers and you did Israel. |
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00:05:02:14 |
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TITLE JACQUI SCHULEFAND FORMER JEWISH DAY SCHOOL TEACHER |
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00:05:04:02 |
JACQUI (OS/ON): |
Israel's something that I feel so passionately about. |
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00:05:06:17 |
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Like it's you know, it's-- it's my greatest passion. |
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00:05:11:00 |
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Um, everything Israel. |
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00:05:13:17 |
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I became a Jewish educator after my daughter started Hebrew school. |
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00:05:20:11 |
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I started teaching second grade. |
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00:05:23:00 |
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During the years, I did fourth grade also. |
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00:05:27:03 |
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And just to be able to start them on this wonderful journey. |
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00:05:32:13 |
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I mean if-- if you b-- it gets in your blood. |
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00:05:36:15 |
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And we teach Israel at the day school very well. |
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00:05:40:12 |
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We introduce them to the food, and to the music, and to the culture, in addition to the history and the geography. |
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00:05:49:11 |
SIMONE: |
Figure out which one is the Israeli flag. |
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00:05:52:04 |
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Draw a circle around every time you see the symbol of the state of Israel. |
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00:05:56:11 |
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Draw your own symbol of the state of Israel. |
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00:06:00:06 |
|
We also celebrated holidays obviously. |
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00:06:03:11 |
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So, Hanukkah, Israeli independence, all of it together. |
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00:06:08:11 |
JACQUI: |
Can you separate Israel and-- and Judaism? |
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00:06:10:17 |
|
I don't know. I can't. |
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00:06:12:03 |
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You know, some people I think can. |
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00:06:13:13 |
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to me, it's the same. Yeah, you can't separate it. |
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00:06:16:08 |
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Israel is Judaism and Judaism is Israel. |
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00:06:19:07 |
|
Um, and that is who I am, and that is my identity, and I think every single thing that I experienced along my life has melded into that. |
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00:06:27:19 |
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Like there was never you know, a divide for me. |
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00:06:35:15 |
EITAN (OS): |
I grew up in a conservative Jewish household in Atlanta, Georgia. |
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00:06:41:09 |
|
TITLE EITAN |
|
00:06:41:17 |
EITAN: |
Israel was a central part of everything we did in school. |
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00:06:51:17 |
|
My elementary and middle school, as well as my high school, both had organized trips to Israel which was touted as one of the most important things you could do. |
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00:07:02:00 |
TEACHER (OS): |
Do you wanna go to Israel, too? |
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00:07:03:16 |
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(TOGETHER) Yeah! |
|
00:07:05:19 |
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[chanting] We wanna go! We wanna go! |
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00:07:07:08 |
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We wanna go! We wanna go! |
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00:07:08:15 |
|
We wanna go! We wanna go! |
|
00:07:11:16 |
|
We wanna go! We wanna go! |
|
00:07:15:00 |
EITAN (OS): |
When I visited Israel for the first time, when I was eight years old, I put a note in the Kotel, in the Western Wall, saying that one day I hope to live in Israel and prosper. |
|
00:07:28:19 |
RABBI BENNETT (OS/ON): |
Every one of our kids should be going over, not for ten days but for a minimum of a semester or a year. |
|
00:07:37:17 |
|
TITLE RABBI BENNETT MILLER NATIONAL CHAIR ASSOCIATION OF REFORM ZIONISTS OF AMERICA |
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00:07:38:08 |
RABBI BENNETT: |
Every time I send somebody over to Israel, they come back all of a sudden, they feel totally different about who and what they are as Jews. |
|
00:07:46:20 |
SIMONE (ON/OS): |
When I was a teenager and I went to Israel, it was amazing to me to travel in this place where Hebrew was a language that I finally got to speak on the street with people, and where Jewish Heroes, the streets were named after them. |
|
00:08:03:14 |
RABBI BENNETT (OS/ON): |
We're planting seeds that eventually a-- are gonna blossom. |
|
00:08:12:12 |
|
Does the average congregant understand that I'm teaching them to become Zionists? |
|
00:08:17:14 |
|
Probably not, but it is part of my madness, so to speak. |
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00:08:24:04 |
SIMONE (OS/ON): |
I learned about Israel as this great miracle of Jewish history. |
|
00:08:28:21 |
|
For thousands of years, we were persecuted and Israel is the place that you can go to be safe. |
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00:08:36:22 |
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My grandfather's family made it to Israel. |
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00:08:39:13 |
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His immediate family were some of the only ones who escaped the Holocaust. |
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00:08:46:05 |
|
Many American Jews, if not most people I know, have family or friends that live in Israel. |
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00:08:51:04 |
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[music ends] |
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00:08:52:15 |
|
[music begins] |
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00:08:53:22 |
ABE (OS/ON): |
Israel is the insurance policy. |
|
00:08:56:16 |
|
It's still-- today a Jew doesn't have to worry where is he gonna go, God forbid. Even here. |
|
00:09:02:16 |
|
TITLE ABE FOXMAN DIRECTOR EMERITUS ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE |
|
00:09:03:23 |
ABE: |
No holocaust survivor will say to you, "It could never happen again." |
|
00:09:09:11 |
|
Uh, I was born in Poland, 1940, uh, not a good place for a Jewish kid to be born. |
|
00:09:18:03 |
|
[indistinct chanting] |
|
00:09:22:04 |
ABE (OS/ON): |
My parents were separated. |
|
00:09:24:02 |
|
My father went through a series of camps. |
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00:09:26:23 |
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[music ends] |
|
00:09:30:01 |
ABE (OS): |
Who knows why I survived and a million and a half Jewish children perished? |
|
00:09:34:16 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:09:38:06 |
ABE: |
And so, Israel became very, very significant in my life even though 6,000 miles away. |
|
00:09:44:15 |
|
I probably visited Israel over 100 times in my lifetime. |
|
00:09:48:13 |
|
Um, you know, as we sit now, my granddaughter is there for two weeks and they're in high school. |
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00:09:55:20 |
EITAN (OS): |
I did have many friends in Israel growing up and every time I would visit Israel, I felt closer and closer. |
|
00:10:06:07 |
|
[indistinct chatter, laughter in background] |
|
00:10:16:07 |
EITAN (OS/ON): |
The Jewish summer camps would always bring a big contingency of Israelis to try to drive Israeli culture within the camp and connect the American Jews to Israeli culture. |
|
00:10:30:03 |
SIMONE (OS): |
So, when I was in high school, I went on this Jewish youth trip to Israel and one of the programs we did was called "Gadna", where we spent a day pretending to be soldiers in the Israeli army. |
|
00:10:40:23 |
|
We wore army uniforms and stuff like that was just sort of a normal part of what our childhood looked like. |
|
00:10:50:11 |
|
[laughs] |
|
00:10:54:02 |
|
[music ends] |
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00:10:56:22 |
EITAN (OS): |
At summer camp, in the middle of the night, they would wake us up and take us out. |
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00:11:01:12 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:11:02:18 |
EITAN (OS/ON): |
Sometimes that was to pull pranks, and other times I remember doing military games, using the command "pazatza", "sneaking around". |
|
00:11:13:05 |
|
So, anytime the commander, who was one of our counselors, said "pazatza", we would all get on the ground, and they made a game out of it, simulating being in the military, and sneaking around, and having to be a part of that. |
|
00:11:31:01 |
|
[music ends] |
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00:11:31:14 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:11:32:13 |
SIMONE (OS): |
On youth programs that I participated in in Israel, you could spend a whole week on an Israeli army base, wearing army uniforms and going through a sort of simulation of basic training, and that's where some people you know, learned to shoot guns for the first time. |
|
00:11:50:17 |
EITAN (OS): |
It's not just regular military games, it's specifically using Israeli military commands, often with Israeli counselors giving them. |
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00:12:01:01 |
|
When you're a young kid that really drills it into you that this is something important and I wanted to be a part of that. |
|
00:12:10:18 |
SIMONE (OS): |
We often talked about the ways that you could be a good supporter of the Jewish people. |
|
00:12:14:21 |
|
One was to join the army. |
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00:12:18:05 |
|
And the other was to go become an Israel advocate. |
|
00:12:21:20 |
|
[indistinct chatter] |
|
00:12:24:06 |
EITAN (OS/ON): |
There were even clubs within school to work on advocating for Israel. |
|
00:12:29:20 |
|
[music ends] |
|
00:12:30:09 |
|
[music begins] |
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00:12:31:00 |
EITAN (OS/ON): |
My high school sent a delegation to the AIPAC Conference. |
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00:12:35:00 |
NEWS ANCHOR 1 (OS): |
AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, they're the people who tell the Congress which legislation affecting Israel they like and which they don't. |
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00:12:44:17 |
OBAMA: |
The bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable today, unbreakable tomorrow, unbreakable forever. |
|
00:12:51:23 |
|
[applause] |
|
00:12:53:11 |
SIMONE (ON/OS): |
AIPAC is just the thing that you do. |
|
00:12:58:15 |
|
Like going to the AIPAC Conference is just sort of seen as like a community event. |
|
00:13:05:00 |
HOST 2 (OS): |
Here with us today are leaders from across the pro-Israel community, including Abe Foxman. |
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00:13:12:05 |
|
[applause] |
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00:13:15:03 |
JOE BIDEN: |
I learned a time ago, there is no way you can say "no" to Abe. |
|
00:13:20:09 |
|
[audience chuckling] |
|
00:13:21:13 |
ABE (ON/OS): |
You know, I don't know to what extent one-- Anybody makes a difference. I try to make a difference. |
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00:13:29:04 |
|
Jewish education is still a major priority for the future and certainly relationship to Israel. |
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00:13:39:07 |
|
If you wanna ask me "You got $100 million, how would you change the future of American Jews?" |
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00:13:46:06 |
|
I would make trips to Israel available to any Jewish kid who wanted to go. |
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00:13:50:14 |
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Make that experience. |
|
00:13:51:20 |
|
They're doing it now, it's called "Birthright". |
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00:13:53:12 |
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[music ends] |
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00:13:54:07 |
|
[music begins] |
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00:14:06:22 |
|
[cheer together] |
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00:14:09:22 |
|
[music ends] |
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00:14:10:18 |
WOMAN 2: |
It is up to you to be our soldiers abroad, armed with love, and knowledge, and conviction, ready to sway public opinion in Israel favor. |
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00:14:24:02 |
|
[music begins] |
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00:14:26:13 |
SIMONE (OS): |
Learning about the quote, unquote, "conflict" is something that is part of programming as something that where you have to learn how to defend Israel from the lies that other people are saying and you have to be able to tell people the truth. |
|
00:14:40:12 |
|
TITLE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA |
|
00:14:42:06 |
|
[indistinct chatter] |
|
00:14:45:06 |
|
TITLE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY |
|
00:14:47:04 |
|
[music ends] |
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00:14:47:12 |
SIMONE (OS): |
By the time I got to college, I had teachers who said to me, "People hate Israel, people are attacking Israel, people don't know the truth about Israel, and we're the only people who actually know the truth about Israel." |
|
00:14:56:21 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:14:59:11 |
SIMONE (OS): |
If you're a Jewish college student, Hillel is your central address for Jewish life on campus. |
|
00:15:05:12 |
|
As a freshman, I remember, walking into Hillel was one of the first places I went when I got to campus. |
|
00:15:10:05 |
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It's a place where you can go for meals, to meet other young Jewish people. |
|
00:15:16:01 |
|
Pro-Israel advocacy is a central part of how they work to engage Jewish young people. |
|
00:15:26:17 |
JACQUI (OS/ON): |
I'm the director of engagement and programs here at Hillel and this campus happens to be very proactive for Israel. |
|
00:15:34:16 |
|
A lot of people are very passionate, a lot of people love Israel, and there's a lot of advocacy here on campus, and lots of different ways, lots of different groups. |
|
00:15:42:14 |
|
How did you become involved in advocacy for Israel? |
|
00:15:45:16 |
|
TITLE KAYLA UCONN STUDENT |
|
00:15:46:03 |
KAYLA: |
I kinda came to Hillel just ‘cause I was new in campus, I didn't really know where to go, and I really did find a lot of friends here. |
|
00:15:53:12 |
|
[music ends] |
|
00:15:53:23 |
|
TITLE JOSH UCONN STUDENT |
|
00:15:54:05 |
JOSH (ON/OS): |
I came here on and off, but then when I went on the Birthright trip and kinda got to know the staff, Tom and Jacqui, a lot better, got to know Hillel a-- a lot better, and just got to know Israel a lot better, |
|
00:16:04:01 |
|
I came back and I knew that I wanted to put a lot more of myself into Hillel, the Jewish community on campus, and just Israel advocacy in general. |
|
00:16:12:15 |
|
On Birthright, we had Israeli soldiers with us throughout the entire trip. |
|
00:16:17:02 |
|
You learn so much and you learn the reason that they serve. |
|
00:16:21:03 |
KAYLA: |
It's just a feeling that I don't think any of us could ever imagine, except for... |
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00:16:24:20 |
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TITLE TOM BARKAN ISRAEL FELLOW UCONN HILLEL |
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00:16:26:12 |
|
[music begins] |
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00:16:27:10 |
TOM (OS/ON): |
My job is doing Israeli program on campus and that relates to uh, Jewish events, cultural or political. |
|
00:16:34:10 |
|
Uh, sorry, Israeli events uh, uh, cultural or political. |
|
00:16:38:08 |
|
I would say name a university in America, we probably have a person there. |
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00:16:44:22 |
|
I like to talk about the army a lot, because that's an experience that I lived through and I have a lot of personal stories. |
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00:16:52:13 |
|
There are a couple of students who say, "Yeah, I'm-- I'm thinking about joining uh, the IDF one day." |
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00:16:57:05 |
|
So, my first thing is saying them, "Are you sure? |
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00:17:01:01 |
|
Because uh, it's not an easy dec-- It's not an easy decision. |
|
00:17:06:14 |
|
That bein' said, it will probably end up being the most meaningful experience that you ever go through. |
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00:17:12:18 |
|
You're gonna tell your kids stories about it." |
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00:17:15:04 |
|
Uh, yeah. |
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00:17:19:12 |
JACQUI (OS): |
One of our former young emissaries just graduated into the air force and that's the greatest gift you can give, you know? |
|
00:17:27:16 |
|
And we actually have had quite a few of our former students join the IDF. |
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00:17:32:06 |
|
Amazing. I mean just amazing. |
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00:17:34:05 |
|
It's-- and these are kids. These are 18, 19-year-old. |
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00:17:37:23 |
STUDENT 1: |
It's like something I've dreamed about doing since I was seven years old. |
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00:17:41:03 |
STUDENT 2: |
You have like a s-- you find your sense of purpose. |
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00:17:43:04 |
STUDENT 3: |
All my friends are so proud of me and they understand that this is something that like I have to do. |
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00:17:49:22 |
SIMONE (OS): |
Almost ten percent of my graduating class, at my Jewish high school, joined the Israeli army and I had many friends from my summer camp and youth group who joined the army as well. |
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00:18:06:04 |
EITAN (OS/ON): |
Part of becoming part of Israeli society is to join the military. |
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00:18:12:00 |
|
When my-- I was in high school, I told my parents I don't even need to apply to college, because I'm gonna just join the Israeli military, and make Aliyah, and live in Israel. |
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00:18:25:06 |
|
I honestly have felt for many years that I fit in better in Israeli society than I do in American society, even before I moved there. |
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00:18:34:07 |
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And I wanted to defend what I saw as my country. |
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00:18:39:08 |
|
So, when I enlisted, I was a MAGis, which is a heavy-machine gunnist, during my basic and advanced training, and then they put me on a light machine gun. |
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00:18:57:07 |
|
We were training for war, training for strategy to conquer hilltops and conquer open spaces. |
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00:19:07:00 |
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One week was focused on urban warfare in close quarters and that was simulated in what looked like Arab housing. |
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00:19:19:16 |
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After the seven months of our training, we were deployed to the West Bank. |
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00:19:36:23 |
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Our missions included working in two different checkpoints, patrolling villages on foot in full gear and bulletproof vests. |
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00:19:47:10 |
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We would go into apartment buildings, go up to the roof, and make sure that we could be seen, so that we could make our presence felt. |
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00:20:01:01 |
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We wanted them to know that we were watching. |
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00:20:03:14 |
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That was the goal of the mission. |
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00:20:08:15 |
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We would set up what's called a "check post", which is a checkpoint that is situated uh, at a major intersection. |
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00:20:18:05 |
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[indistinct speech] |
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00:20:20:07 |
EITAN (OS/ON): |
At checkpoints, we would stop people, create a traffic jam, check their IDs, check their trunk, every day on their way to work or on their way to visit their family, to keep them on their toes essentially. |
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00:20:36:09 |
|
[indistinct speech] |
|
00:20:38:04 |
EITAN (OS): |
And they being Palestinians. |
|
00:20:41:15 |
|
[music ends] |
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00:20:43:23 |
|
[music begins] |
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00:20:45:20 |
EITAN (ON/OS): |
Even though Israel was a central part of everything we did in the school, we never really discussed the Palestinians. |
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00:21:02:01 |
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It was presented to us that Israel was basically an empty wasteland when the Jews arrived. |
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00:21:10:00 |
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There were some Arabs there, they said, "but there was no organized people. |
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00:21:14:03 |
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They had really treated the land poorly. |
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00:21:18:03 |
|
Yeah, there are-- there are Palestinians, and they just want to kill us all, and want us to leave the land." |
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00:21:24:21 |
|
TITLE BETHLEHEM, WEST BANK |
|
00:21:28:23 |
SIMONE (OS/ON): |
I-- I just don't think I had any conception of anything about what it means to be a Palestinian besides that it means that you're a person who kills Jews or wants to kill Jews. |
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00:21:41:22 |
EITAN (OS): |
It was always presented to us that the Arabs only know terrorism. |
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00:21:49:02 |
|
TITLE BAHA HILO PALESTINE TOUR GUIDE TO BE THERE |
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00:21:52:13 |
BAHA (OS): |
Ever since I came back from the states, I-- I realized that the best way to help people understand the reality imposes on us by the state of Israel is for them to be there. |
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00:22:06:16 |
|
The one thing that I want to give the rest of my life for is to help people understand the reality that is goin' on in Palestine. |
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00:22:15:13 |
SAMI (OS/ON): |
I grew up all of my life in this occupation. I grew up in Bethlehem, in Palestine. |
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00:22:24:01 |
|
To be honest, I do have my days where I wake up and look in the mirror, and ask, "What is going on and-- and what can I even do today to change anything in the situation?" |
|
00:22:34:03 |
|
[music ends] |
|
00:22:34:20 |
SAMI: |
I remember from the youngest age growing up with my parents always warning me, always telling me not to go out, not to go on the street, not to play on the street because of the soldiers and the settlers. |
|
00:22:45:20 |
BAHI (ON/OS): |
Of course, like your first experience with a soldier is terrorizing you know, especially because they would invade your house or your family's house late at night, like after they left to work, after midnight. |
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00:22:59:17 |
|
My first experience with-- with soldiers as a child was an experience that put fear uh, in me. |
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00:23:07:10 |
|
[indistinct chatter in background] |
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00:23:09:07 |
SAMI (OS/ON): |
An American Jewish soldier talking to my father, and yelling at him, and shouting at him, which of course as a child you feel-- |
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00:23:16:03 |
BAHA: |
Yeah. |
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00:23:16:20 |
SAMI: |
Very ashamed and insulted. |
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00:23:18:21 |
|
And then my father, because ironically we are American citizens as well, turned to him in an American accent, then asked him where he was from. |
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00:23:28:11 |
|
And then the soldier was almost like shocked by this-- by this question uh, because for his mind you know, he wants to say Israeli and Jewish people, but he's talking to an American now. |
|
00:23:38:00 |
|
And he told him like, "From Chicago." |
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00:23:40:08 |
|
And-- and just this reality that like even as a child I remember this-- this um, this American soldier who just moved here to be part of an army to play cowboys and Indians. |
|
00:23:50:02 |
|
[music ends] |
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00:23:51:16 |
BAHA (OS): |
Somebody who comes here from New York or from Chicago and claiming that this land is theirs. |
|
00:23:58:21 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:24:00:06 |
BAHA (ON/OS): |
What makes like an 18 years old American kid who was given ten days' trip for free in Palestine, what make them want to come in and sacrifice his life? |
|
00:24:12:13 |
|
Why would a foreigner think it's okay to have superior rights to the rights of the indigenous population? |
|
00:24:21:12 |
|
Because somebody's told them it's home. |
|
00:24:26:04 |
EITAN (OS/ON): |
This is our land. This is ours. That's what was conveyed to us. |
|
00:24:34:09 |
BAHA (OS): |
It's got to teach me that people look at Palestine and Palestinians from the point of view of the oppressor... |
|
00:24:40:18 |
|
[music ends] |
|
00:24:43:05 |
BAHA (OS): |
...not from the point of view of the oppressed. |
|
00:24:44:23 |
|
[indistinct yelling] |
|
00:24:47:03 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:24:48:00 |
SIMONE (ON/OS): |
I think what I knew about who was in Israel before the state was created is basically there were some Jews always there, most Jews were in exile, we'd always yearn to go back. |
|
00:25:04:18 |
|
The idea that there were native inhabitants that lived there was not even part of my frame of reference. |
|
00:25:36:05 |
|
[music ends] |
|
00:25:38:15 |
|
[indistinct chatter in background] |
|
00:25:42:18 |
BAHA: |
Alright there. |
|
00:25:46:23 |
|
[conversation in Arabic] |
|
00:25:53:09 |
BAHA (OS): |
This restaurant makes the most delicious hummus and falafel in town. |
|
00:26:02:08 |
|
The family is not from the town of Bethlehem. |
|
00:26:05:11 |
|
Just like my mother's family, they were expelled from the city of Jaffa back in 1948. |
|
00:26:09:18 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:26:12:03 |
BAHA (OS): |
I was born to a family of victims of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. |
|
00:26:20:05 |
|
The ethnic cleansing that was carried out by the founders of the state of Israel. |
|
00:26:25:15 |
|
My mother's family were expelled from the largest Palestinian city pre-1948, which was the city of Jaffa. |
|
00:26:36:08 |
|
My father was a newborn at that time. |
|
00:26:38:16 |
|
He was carried by his family. |
|
00:26:41:06 |
|
They ended up in Bethlehem, waiting for the atrocities to come to an end, so they would be able to go back home. |
|
00:26:49:18 |
|
Of course, none of those people were ever allowed back home. |
|
00:26:56:07 |
SAMI (OS/ON): |
My father's family was in Jerusalem up until 1948. |
|
00:27:01:22 |
|
When the war happened, he was shot by a sniper and was killed on the spot. |
|
00:27:07:08 |
|
Uh, his children actually dragged his body down and buried it in the courtyard of the house. |
|
00:27:12:09 |
|
A few days later, when the Jewish forces took over that neighborhood uh, they demanded that all the non-Jews of that neighborhood be evicted. |
|
00:27:26:20 |
|
It was the biggest mass exodus percentagewise of a people from their land in modern history. |
|
00:27:35:12 |
BAHA (OS): |
The ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the term "Nakba", the catastrophe, is the tragedy or catastrophe that hit almost every single Palestinian family, nearly 750,000 victims. |
|
00:27:52:20 |
|
It's traumatizing in almost every possible level. |
|
00:28:04:06 |
|
Nearly 78% of the land of Palestine became under the control of the state of Israel. |
|
00:28:10:22 |
|
TITLE 1948 750,000 PALESTINIANS WERE EXPELLED OR FLED THEIR HOMES |
|
00:28:11:22 |
|
[music ends] |
|
00:28:12:11 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:28:13:02 |
SIMONE (OS/ON): |
What else was I told about Israel? |
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00:28:15:10 |
|
We were told it was a land without a people for people without a land, and we came back. |
|
00:28:22:14 |
|
From the ashes of the Holocaust, the state of Israel was birthed. |
|
00:28:29:01 |
SAMI (OS): |
The rights of the people that lived here does not exist in that narrative, and other than us being an obstacle, the Nakba continues. |
|
00:28:37:21 |
|
It started in 1948 and continues until this day. |
|
00:28:50:10 |
BAHA (OS): |
In 1967, the state of Israel managed to complete its control over Palestine by takin' over the territory of the West Bank and the territory of Gaza. |
|
00:29:01:20 |
|
TITLE GAZA AND WEST BANK ISRAEL 1967 |
|
00:29:04:22 |
SIMONE (OS): |
Okay, here's the good stuff. |
|
00:29:06:17 |
|
More maps of Greater Israel. |
|
00:29:10:20 |
|
That's just sort of you know, the whole land. |
|
00:29:13:04 |
|
We're always taught that the whole land was ours. |
|
00:29:16:18 |
|
I mean you know, that's sort of what they teach you. |
|
00:29:22:05 |
SAMI (OS/ON): |
After the 1967 war, Israel put a very forceful, very violent military force to dominate, and control the lives of the Palestinians that continues until this day. |
|
00:29:36:02 |
IDF SOLDIER: |
COME HERE, COME. |
|
00:29:37:14 |
|
[indistinct conversation] |
|
00:29:38:09 |
PALESTINIAN: |
MY HOUSE IS OVER THERE. |
|
00:29:52:22 |
BAHA (OS): |
The intention of Israeli control over the land of Palestine is complete colonization of the territory. |
|
00:30:04:03 |
|
Building homes for those who are born to Jewish families and also demolishing the homes of those who were born for Palestinian families. |
|
00:30:18:16 |
SAMI (OS): |
Palestinians kicked out from their homes confiscated by settlers. |
|
00:30:23:13 |
WOMAN 3 (OS): |
You are stealing my house! |
|
00:30:26:05 |
MAN 3: |
And if I don't steal it, someone else is gonna steal it. |
|
00:30:28:01 |
WOMAN 3 (OS): |
No! No one's allowed to steal it! |
|
00:30:31:11 |
SAMI (OS): |
A massive movement to confiscate land, to build settlements, to expand settlements. |
|
00:30:39:12 |
EITAN (ON/OS): |
Before we were even fully trained, we were deployed to protect settlements. |
|
00:30:45:03 |
|
It was all for the security of the settlements. |
|
00:30:51:07 |
|
TITLE ISRAELI SETTLERS IN THE WEST BANK AND EAST JERUSALEM |
|
00:30:55:23 |
BAHA (OS): |
Israel filled occupied West Bank with Jewish Israelis living in different colonies and settlements throughout the region. |
|
00:31:03:11 |
|
And those individuals are subject to Israeli civil law. |
|
00:31:07:21 |
|
While you have Palestinians living within-- Within the exact same territory, that are subject to an Israeli military law. |
|
00:31:17:04 |
|
When an American citizen comes here, he has more rights than I would have my entire life. |
|
00:31:27:20 |
|
TITLE OF THE ROUGHLY 450,000 ISRAELI SETTLERS LIVING IN THE OCCUPIED WEST BANK, 60,000 ARE AMERICAN JEWS |
|
00:31:35:09 |
|
[music ends] |
|
00:31:36:19 |
|
TITLE YISHAI FLEISHER SPOKESMAN HERRON STTLEMENT |
|
00:31:43:12 |
YISHAI (ON/OS): |
We are in the quote, unquote "West Bank". |
|
00:31:46:04 |
|
We're in the quote, unquote "settlements". |
|
00:31:50:10 |
|
This is one of the roadblocks that kind of ensure that the cars get checked to see that no terrorists are coming in. |
|
00:32:01:09 |
|
I lived in America and then I came back to Israel by myself at the age of 17 to serve in the army. |
|
00:32:07:18 |
|
And there are elements what I would call "the jihadist elements" that don't accept our presence here, but they'll-- it's just tough for them. |
|
00:32:15:09 |
|
It's a great vision coming to fruition in our time and there's nothing gonna stop us. |
|
00:32:19:13 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:32:27:01 |
|
TITLE CHECKPOINT 300 BETHLEHEM |
|
00:32:27:17 |
|
[indistinct chatter] |
|
00:32:35:21 |
BAHA (OS): |
From the day you are born, you live in day in day out, day in day out without experiencing a day of freedom. |
|
00:32:46:09 |
|
Palestinians have to be forced to live in cages. |
|
00:32:53:11 |
|
TITLE AVNER GVARYAHU EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR BREAKING THE SILENCE |
|
00:32:55:16 |
AVNER (ON/OS): |
So, I um, I'm Israeli born and raised. |
|
00:33:00:05 |
|
As a young Israeli growing up, my grandparents lived in the center of Jerusalem. |
|
00:33:05:22 |
NEWS ANCHOR 2 (OS): |
The battle for Jerusalem, at least 26 people are reported dead. |
|
00:33:11:08 |
AVNER (OS): |
People I knew were injured and killed, and from a very young age, I knew I'm gonna be joining the military. |
|
00:33:20:23 |
|
I was never in a Palestinian house till I barge into one in the middle of the night. |
|
00:33:29:05 |
|
[conversation in Arabic] |
|
00:33:33:20 |
AVNER (OS/ON): |
One of the things that I did routinely was a mission where you are ordered to take over a Palestinian family's home and use that house as a military point. |
|
00:33:44:11 |
|
No warrant, you don't call in advance, it's a military occupation. |
|
00:33:49:09 |
|
And during my service, there were many moments where I saw myself acting violently, and there were moments of um, of-- of shame. |
|
00:34:05:18 |
|
[music ends] |
|
00:34:06:21 |
AVNER (OS): |
We can detain any Palestinian just because he looked at us in the wrong way. |
|
00:34:12:12 |
|
That's a system that's based on violence. |
|
00:34:15:18 |
MAN 4 (OS): |
Oh, oh, oh, what are you doing? |
|
00:34:19:05 |
|
[overlapping conversation] |
|
00:34:29:12 |
SOLDIER 1: |
There's a security matter, you know? |
|
00:34:31:00 |
|
Security. It's about security. |
|
00:34:32:11 |
MAN 4 (OS): |
Did he say "security"? |
|
00:34:33:09 |
SOLDIER 1: |
I don't know. We'll see. |
|
00:34:34:04 |
MAN 4 (OS): |
This is a threat for you? |
|
00:34:35:11 |
SOLDIER 1 (OS): |
I don't know yet. |
|
00:34:37:22 |
|
[overlapping conversation] |
|
00:34:47:20 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:34:48:15 |
EITAN (OS/ON): |
When I was stationed in the West Bank, one day one of my commanders, came, grabbed me and one other soldier, and said there is a detainee at the Huwara checkpoint and we need to go pick him up, and bring him to the detention center that's in the base. |
|
00:35:06:11 |
|
When we got there, the Palestinian detainee, who was maximum in his early 20s, was sitting on the curb with his hands tied behind his back with the zip ties, and blindfolded. |
|
00:35:22:07 |
|
We got to the detention center within the base and right outside, there were about eight soldiers waiting for us. |
|
00:35:30:22 |
|
They saw us come, they grabbed the detainee from our hands, and threw him to the ground while he's still blindfolded and hands tied behind his back, and they started kicking him for a good few minutes. |
|
00:35:47:20 |
|
I was responsible for this man's well-being. |
|
00:35:54:13 |
|
I was responsible to bring him from the checkpoint to the detention Center. |
|
00:35:59:23 |
|
That was my job. |
|
00:36:01:10 |
|
And right outside the fence of the detention center, they grabbed him from me and they start beating him. I-- |
|
00:36:09:05 |
|
[scoffs] |
|
00:36:09:23 |
EITAN (ON/OS): |
I felt responsible, but my commander wasn't saying anything, so how could I say anything? |
|
00:36:17:15 |
|
The entire time that this was happening, a military police officer was standing just inside the fence, watching and smoking a cigarette. |
|
00:36:27:00 |
|
As soon as these guys were done kicking this Palestinian man, the military police officer tossed his cigarette, he came, brought him inside the detention center. |
|
00:36:43:11 |
|
And I didn't even speak up. I didn't speak up. |
|
00:36:50:10 |
|
And that's just one of many stories uh, that I have from my time in the West Bank. |
|
00:37:00:04 |
|
It took many years for me to really come to terms with my part in it. |
|
00:37:09:23 |
|
Only after I got out of the army did I begin to realize that the stuff that I did in the day-to-day, just working in checkpoints, patrolling villages, that in and of itself was immoral. |
|
00:37:24:10 |
|
[music ends] |
|
00:37:27:06 |
|
TITLE PETER BEINART WRITER, EDITOR-AT-LARGE JEWISH CURRENTS |
|
00:37:27:10 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:37:27:22 |
PETER (ON/OS): |
Palestinians in the West Bank, even though their lives are controlled by the state of Israel, from morning, noon, and night, are not even heoretically citizens of the country in which they live. |
|
00:37:37:08 |
|
[indistinct yelling] |
|
00:37:39:17 |
PETER: |
You see in some ways what non-democracy looks like up close. |
|
00:37:45:18 |
|
TITLE LARA FRIEDMAN PRESIDENT FOUNDATION FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE |
|
00:37:46:08 |
LARA: |
When people look at the West Bank today and say, "This isn't apartheid system," it's not just throwing out a word. |
|
00:37:52:21 |
|
A Palestinian lives under a different legal system than an Israeli settler livin' next door. |
|
00:38:09:16 |
NOURA (ON/OS): |
Anyone who you know, sees these facts on the grounds or speaks to Palestinians would understand that this is a process of settler colonization of an apartheid regime. |
|
00:38:20:15 |
|
TITLE REBECCA PIERCE WRITER AND FILMMAKER |
|
00:38:21:06 |
REBECCA: |
I remember crossing that checkpoint into Bethlehem, and before this I had been very much opposed to ever using the word "apartheid", but seeing the sort of night and day difference just by crossing this wall, changed that for me in an instant. |
|
00:38:33:20 |
PALESTINIAN: |
THERE ARE SMALL CHILDREN HERE. |
|
00:38:35:14 |
IDF SOLDIER: |
SO TAKE HER OVER HERE, OK? |
|
00:38:41:23 |
|
TITLE UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT |
|
00:38:47:03 |
|
[music ends] |
|
00:38:48:06 |
TOM (ON/OS): |
Serving in-- serving in the Israeli army is obviously one way of supporting Israel, but there's also another modern battle that is happening on campuses each and every single day, and you are standing in the front of it, and um, I mean the Israeli government the Israeli people thank you for that, and that's why they put me here probably. |
|
00:39:10:04 |
|
[students chuckling] |
|
00:39:10:21 |
TOM: |
And I thank you for that. So... |
|
00:39:12:19 |
JACQUI (OS): |
We need PR like you. |
|
00:39:14:03 |
TOM: |
Uh, there's a lot of PR to be made. |
|
00:39:16:23 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:39:18:08 |
JACQUI (OS/ON): |
This university, thank God, is fairly apolitical, but I've heard all over the place how universities are these hotbeds of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel work. |
|
00:39:33:10 |
|
TITLE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY |
|
00:39:34:21 |
|
TITLE SIMONE ZIMMERMAN UC BERKELEY '13 CO-FOUNDER OF IFNOTNOW |
|
00:39:36:00 |
SIMONE (OS/ON): |
I remember very vividly I was sitting in my dorm room with a friend of mine. |
|
00:39:40:06 |
|
We got a phone call that an anti-Israel bill was being introduced in the student government. We bolt in. |
|
00:39:47:10 |
|
On the way, called our parents. |
|
00:39:49:04 |
|
Both got sent talkin' points. |
|
00:39:56:04 |
|
And then we went into this student government meeting. |
|
00:39:59:08 |
|
[indistinct chatter] |
|
00:40:05:22 |
HOST 3 (OS): |
Hi, everyone, so, we're gonna let our meeting-- |
|
00:40:08:03 |
|
[indistinct speech] ...push at the back. |
|
00:40:10:22 |
|
[music ends] |
|
00:40:12:08 |
MAN 5 (OS): |
Hey, everybody, please take your seats. |
|
00:40:15:12 |
NEWS ANCHOR 3 (OS): |
The Student Senate at the University of California, Berkeley... |
|
00:40:18:15 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:40:19:05 |
NEWS ANCHOR 3 (OS): |
...calling on campus officials to divest from companies that supply weapons that Israel uses in its occupation of the Palestinian territories. |
|
00:40:27:06 |
STUDENT 4: |
You are siding with the Palestinians on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. |
|
00:40:29:22 |
|
There's just no question about it. |
|
00:40:32:03 |
SIMONE (OS/ON): |
I just knew it was this bad thing that I had to fight. |
|
00:40:36:17 |
MAN 6: |
It is anti-Semitism, it is. |
|
00:40:39:23 |
STUDENT 5: |
You are trying to make me feel marginalized on my own campus. |
|
00:40:44:03 |
SIMONE (OS/ON): |
And I remember all of us going, "Well, uh, you shouldn't boycott Israel, because uh, it's applying a double standard and you shouldn't boycott Israel, because it's unfair to single out Israel." |
|
00:40:55:23 |
STUDENT 6: |
Please I beg of you. |
|
00:40:58:04 |
|
I beg you please to have compassion and to remember that we are alienating students, and I am devastated by this bill. |
|
00:41:06:09 |
|
I am a human being. |
|
00:41:10:01 |
SIMONE (OS/ON): |
I still remember you have these Palestinian students who get up and said you know, "Jewish students, you are crying about feeling silenced and marginalized. |
|
00:41:19:17 |
|
You know, my aunts and cousins didn't sleep for weeks while bombs were falling overhead in Gaza. What do you have to say to that?" |
|
00:41:26:14 |
STUDENT 7: |
If divestment is hostile then-- then where do we begin to describe the hostility of a military occupation? |
|
00:41:32:14 |
|
[music ends] |
|
00:41:34:11 |
SIMONE (OS): |
I was thrown into all these conversations where people were throwing around all these words that I'd never heard before. |
|
00:41:39:13 |
|
Occupation, settlements, apartheid, ethnic cleansing. |
|
00:41:43:04 |
|
I just never heard anyone use any of these terms before. |
|
00:41:46:15 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:41:47:12 |
SIMONE (OS/ON): |
I thought I knew so much about Israel, but I didn't really know what anybody was talking about when they were talking about all these things. |
|
00:42:00:01 |
|
I remember coming to Hillel and saying, "Why aren't we answering Palestinian students' questions?" |
|
00:42:06:00 |
|
I felt really embarrassed by it, because mostly I felt like we weren't doing a good job refuting their arguments. |
|
00:42:12:03 |
|
Do we not have an actual counter argument besides like rockets, double standard, anti-Semitism? |
|
00:42:21:03 |
|
I-- people-- people-- I-- I couldn't get an answer from anybody and that was really disturbing for me. |
|
00:42:28:08 |
|
I mean there are these people called "Palestinians" who think that Israel wields all this power over their lives and don't have rights, don't have water. |
|
00:42:38:18 |
|
What-- like literally what is this? How is this happening? How do I-- how do I respond to it? |
|
00:42:46:03 |
|
JOSH UCONN STUDENT |
|
00:42:46:12 |
JOSH: |
People that have a problem with Israel, there's a good chance they're misguided somewhere or another. |
|
00:42:51:10 |
|
TITLE HAIMI UCONN CHRISTIANS UNITED FOR ISRAEL |
|
00:42:52:01 |
HAIMI: |
Everyone have the freedom in Israel. |
|
00:42:55:02 |
|
Like you can have any religion and-- You could do whatever you want in Israel, but only in Israel in the Middle East. |
|
00:42:59:21 |
|
TITLE KAYLA UCONN STUDENT |
|
00:43:00:06 |
KAYLA: |
A lot of mi-- like it's a lot of-- It's a lot of misinformation. |
|
00:43:04:03 |
JACQUI (OS/ON): |
Some of it comes from misinformation, some of it comes from ignorance, some of it comes from lies. |
|
00:43:11:12 |
|
And it's very hard to deal with that in any kind of a-- of a positive way when they're coming from such a place of not understanding what the reality of the situation when they just have this in their-- in their head, all this misinformation and all these lies. |
|
00:43:24:20 |
|
I mean somehow pro-Palestinian has become pro-social justice. |
|
00:43:32:14 |
SIMONE (OS): |
I wanted to know answers from within my own community and nobody could answer those questions for me. |
|
00:43:39:13 |
|
How is it that I am like the best the Jewish community has to offer. |
|
00:43:43:00 |
|
I've been through all the trainings, all the programs, and I don't know what the occupation is. I-- I don't know what the settlements are. |
|
00:43:52:04 |
|
Eventually, it got to a point where I found myself wanting answers to the questions the Palestinian students were asking. |
|
00:44:01:04 |
|
And so, it led me on a process of trying to go figure those things out for myself. |
|
00:44:08:20 |
|
What is this thing that is so horrifying that you can't bear to let me see? |
|
00:44:16:23 |
|
[music ends] |
|
00:44:18:17 |
SIMONE (OS): |
The summer after my freshman year, I went to Palestine and I knowingly crossed line for the first time. |
|
00:44:30:03 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:44:34:05 |
WOMAN 4 (ON/OS): |
Here, to your right, so that you can see the settlements. |
|
00:44:38:10 |
|
Settlement... |
|
00:44:43:22 |
SIMONE (OS): |
I don't think I realized the extent to which what I would come to see on the ground would really shock me and horrify me. |
|
00:44:52:04 |
MERPHIE (ON/OS): |
So, if you look at your maps um, we're standing again right before um, is going to turn red just over here where the soldiers are standing. |
|
00:45:02:12 |
|
Um, so, just look behind you, guys. |
|
00:45:04:23 |
|
This is a-- a block of houses. |
|
00:45:06:18 |
|
The people living in all these apartments here were not allowed to walk on this main road. |
|
00:45:10:18 |
|
So, this was what? |
|
00:45:11:19 |
|
Like a-- a red road, a sterilized road, and imagine if your family living here, you can't open the front door of your house and walk out. |
|
00:45:19:08 |
SIMONE (OS): |
I'm listening to Palestinian students talking about what it was like being beaten at a checkpoint, and sitting down with a Palestinian family, and hearing their story about being displaced by Israeli settlers. |
|
00:45:37:06 |
|
[speaks Arabic] |
|
00:45:38:10 |
SAMI (ON/OS): |
And even when we fix the water wells, and-- and we try to cultivate the rain water to come into the water wells... |
|
00:45:45:12 |
|
[music ends] |
|
00:45:46:01 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:45:46:14 |
SAMI: |
...even those things are being attacked by the settlers. |
|
00:45:48:08 |
|
TITLE SAMI AWAD EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR HOLY LAND TRUST |
|
00:45:49:02 |
SAMI: |
Either they sto-- throw stones in them or they throw chemicals in them or they throw dead animals in the wells. |
|
00:45:58:15 |
BAHA (OS): |
So, he's saying, first, he welcomes you, and says you know, thank you very much for coming, especially because you're Jewish. |
|
00:46:06:07 |
|
The area here is populated by Palestinian farmers. |
|
00:46:12:12 |
|
Supreme Court in Israel ruled that they are allowed to live in the caves that are here. |
|
00:46:17:00 |
|
They're not allowed to build anything. |
|
00:46:20:08 |
|
Today, the civil administration and the army came, and demolished some of the tents here. |
|
00:46:30:12 |
SIMONE (OS): |
Something is deeply wrong here and it's-- it's breaking my heart. |
|
00:46:33:15 |
|
[music ends] |
|
00:46:35:12 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:46:39:10 |
SIMONE (OS): |
What we've been told is that the only way that Jews can be safe is if Palestinians are not safe, and I guess the more I learned about that, the more I came to see that as a lie. |
|
00:47:03:19 |
|
So, this is the checkpoint that divides uh, Jerusalem from Bethlehem. |
|
00:47:11:07 |
|
Palestinians definitely cannot drive on this road. |
|
00:47:13:16 |
|
[music ends] |
|
00:47:14:17 |
SIMONE (OS): |
So, you can see that we're basically driving with walls on both sides of us right now. |
|
00:47:30:13 |
|
Sami. |
|
00:47:34:07 |
|
[chuckles] |
|
00:47:35:05 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:47:39:04 |
SAMI: |
You wanna go to like the major square or-- Or where do you want to go? |
|
00:47:41:22 |
SIMONE: |
We're in your hood, man. |
|
00:47:52:15 |
SAMI (OS): |
This is -- this is my barber. |
|
00:47:54:03 |
|
[conversation in Arabic] |
|
00:47:58:02 |
|
[Sami chuckles] |
|
00:48:01:17 |
SIMONE (OS): |
As someone who came to see Jerusalem or Tel Aviv is places that I should imagine as home. |
|
00:48:06:02 |
|
I remember coming into the West Bank for the first time and actually seeing this place as someone else's home. |
|
00:48:13:09 |
|
This is a normal place where people are just trying to live their lives. |
|
00:48:17:00 |
|
[music ends] |
|
00:48:19:20 |
SAMI (ON/OS): |
For me, to get to Jerusalem, I have to think of first of all having the permit, getting to the checkpoint, waiting in lines for the checkpoint, getting to the soldiers at the checkpoint. |
|
00:48:30:01 |
|
The soldiers might do anything to me at that point, including sending me back. |
|
00:48:33:21 |
|
And then crossing the checkpoint and then having to take public transportation. |
|
00:48:36:23 |
|
I-- just the fact that I cannot drive. |
|
00:48:38:15 |
SIMONE (OS): |
Right. You can't d-- |
|
00:48:39:17 |
SAMI: |
As a Palestinian, I cannot drive in Jerusalem or anywhere in Israel. |
|
00:48:43:17 |
SIMONE (OS): |
Right. So, we drove here today and-- |
|
00:48:45:10 |
SAMI (OS): |
Yeah. |
|
00:48:45:23 |
SIMONE: |
Yes. |
|
00:48:46:12 |
SAMI (OS/ON): |
And if I'm not home by 10:00 p.m. and I get caught on the other side, then I could be detained, I could lose my permit for good, I could be put in prison. |
|
00:48:54:14 |
|
I could be beaten up by soldiers. Who knows what will happen to me? |
|
00:49:01:15 |
|
Almost any rooftop you stand on in Bethlehem, you look one way or the other, you will see a settlement built around you. |
|
00:49:12:22 |
SIMONE (OS): |
I started coming here in 2010. |
|
00:49:14:18 |
|
I heard you speak to a group about anti-Semitism and-- And inherited trauma, and started thinking a lot about what it means to challenge my community around the deep ingrained traumas that are totally stopping us from any sort of movement on this issue. |
|
00:49:30:21 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:49:32:11 |
SAMI (OS): |
My first learning experience was uh, when I was invited to go to Auschwitz on a Bearing Witness retreat. |
|
00:49:40:23 |
|
I actually say in Auschwitz I discovered one of the main reasons why this conflict exists today, which is this inherited trauma that exists in the Jewish community where the feeling is that as Jews we're always attacked, we've always been attacked, we'll always be attacked, and therefore the only way to maintain our self is to create this very-- |
|
00:50:04:07 |
SAMI (OS): |
Suppressive security mechanism that would prevent this from happening again. |
|
00:50:11:00 |
SIMONE: |
I mean that's what I learned. |
|
00:50:12:08 |
SAMI: |
Yeah, that-- that's what I heard. |
|
00:50:16:05 |
|
[music ends] |
|
00:50:17:04 |
SAMI (ON/OS): |
What-- what is important for many of the Israeli Jews and the Jews from around the world we talked to is is the simple recognition and acknowledgment of the story. |
|
00:50:26:22 |
SIMONE (OS): |
Right. |
|
00:50:27:14 |
SAMI (OS): |
And that story is where the healing work begins to happen. |
|
00:50:33:19 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:50:37:13 |
SAMI (OS): |
As an activist I think for many activists what keeps us going is our ability to be able to look towards the future. |
|
00:50:46:22 |
|
I-- I really believe that there is an emerging awakening within the American Jewish community. |
|
00:50:55:19 |
|
I've had even some American Jews who come here and they say, "We came to Israel and we left from Palestine." |
|
00:51:07:03 |
|
For American Jews, coming here and listening to us, and hearing us, and seeing our humanity, and understanding that we are not just out sitting in bunkers, planning the next attack against Israelis, that we do have a desire to live in peace, and to have our freedom, and to-- to walk in our streets, and to eat in our restaurants, and like we-- I mean it's crazy that I have to say this that we are real human beings that just want to survive and live, and-- Like all other people in this world. |
|
00:51:36:08 |
|
The moment they see this and experience this for themselves, it creates something, it shifts something in them. |
|
00:51:43:18 |
|
What they do with it when they go back, it becomes their responsibility. |
|
00:52:02:13 |
SIMONE (OS): |
I came home and spoke out. |
|
00:52:05:04 |
|
And I think initially it was very painful and shocking for a lot of people. |
|
00:52:08:20 |
SIMONE: |
How's it going? |
|
00:52:09:16 |
MAN 7 (OS): |
Good. How are you? |
|
00:52:10:17 |
SIMONE (OS): |
I had friends from high school and from college who didn't know how to speak to me at the beginning, because these conversations were forbidden for us growing up. |
|
00:52:19:20 |
|
[indistinct chatter] |
|
00:52:21:15 |
SIMONE (OS): |
I've grown up very much as a product of this mass mobilization across the community to ensure that young people stay engaged in pro-Israel politics. |
|
00:52:32:02 |
|
[indistinct chatter] |
|
00:52:35:12 |
SIMONE (OS): |
For most people I know who actually took the time to see with their own eyes what was happening, it very quickly challenges everything we've been taught. |
|
00:52:46:23 |
|
It's very painful, because it is so intimately bound up with the identity of the community. |
|
00:52:56:22 |
|
There have always been Jews who have spoken out for Palestinian rights, and more and more people are willing to take off their blinders, looking at this reality, saying, "This is intolerable." |
|
00:53:08:01 |
|
[sings in Hebrew] |
|
00:53:24:06 |
|
[indistinct chatter] |
|
00:53:26:03 |
SIMONE (OS): |
I continued to meet more and more young people like me who were having similar experiences. |
|
00:53:31:00 |
|
[laughs] |
|
00:53:31:17 |
SIMONE: |
Nice to meet you. |
|
00:53:32:16 |
ACTIVIST: |
Yeah. |
|
00:53:33:09 |
SIMONE: |
And it made me realize that I was part of a bigger story of something that was happening not just to me but to young people around the country. |
|
00:53:45:00 |
|
We decided to bring the crisis of American Jewish support for Israel to the doorsteps of Jewish institutions to force that conversation in public. |
|
00:53:54:12 |
|
[sing together in Hebrew] |
|
00:53:57:12 |
|
[music ends] |
|
00:53:59:10 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:54:21:14 |
SIMONE (OS/ON): |
Uh, first of all, all my friends at AIPAC stopped talkin' to me. |
|
00:54:26:00 |
|
I've lost many childhood friends over this. |
|
00:54:29:05 |
|
Also, many friends have like come along politically with me over the years. |
|
00:54:33:01 |
|
Many in my family have also-- many in my family also deeply disagree with me. |
|
00:54:37:09 |
|
[crowd singing in Hebrew] |
|
00:54:40:09 |
|
TITLE BIRTHRIGHT ISRAEL HEADQUARTERS |
|
00:54:42:12 |
SIMONE (OS): |
Every time I protested outside of a Jewish communal event of some kind, I have seen a friend, a family friend, a parent of a friend on the other side of the barricade. |
|
00:54:53:08 |
|
We're literally talking about parents and children. |
|
00:54:56:07 |
|
[crowd singing in Hebrew] |
|
00:54:59:07 |
|
TITLE SARAH ANNE MINKIN, PHD DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS AND PARTNERSHIPS FOUNDATION FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE |
|
00:54:59:12 |
SARAH (ON/OS): |
Young Jews, they go to the Jewish federations, they go to the reform movement, they go to their day schools, and they say, "You mobilized me to be a-- a soldier for Israel, but I had been completely misled." |
|
00:55:14:04 |
|
[crowd singing in Hebrew] |
|
00:55:16:08 |
SARAH (OS): |
We are also in a moment when there is the possibility of-- of some kind of alternative. |
|
00:55:22:06 |
|
TITLE JEREMY BEN-AMI PRESIDENT J STREET |
|
00:55:22:19 |
JEREMY (OS/ON): |
I see it hundreds of times over and over again, and those hundreds speak for thousands, and they went to the Jewish camps, and they went to the day schools, and they went to the synagogue, Hebrew schools. |
|
00:55:36:02 |
|
They're really, really angry at the way they were educated and the way that they were indoctrinated uh, about these issues and justifiably so. |
|
00:55:46:21 |
SIMONE (OS): |
The indoctrination is so severe, it's almost hard to have a conversation about it. |
|
00:55:54:02 |
|
[music ends] |
|
00:55:55:17 |
SIMONE (OS): |
It's heartbreaking. it is heartbreaking. |
|
00:55:58:19 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:56:01:03 |
SIMONE (OS): |
Our community right now has to grapple with our complicity. |
|
00:56:04:15 |
|
TITLE AIPAC NATIONAL CONFRENCE |
|
00:56:05:21 |
GIRL (OS): |
And we want to welcome you to the Jewish rejection. |
|
00:56:09:22 |
|
[cheer together] |
|
00:56:12:22 |
NEWS ANCHOR 4 (OS): |
Jewish opinion is split. |
|
00:56:15:07 |
NEWS ANCHOR 5 (OS): |
Some Jewish groups vocally oppose Israel's military policies. |
|
00:56:20:00 |
NEWS ANCHOR 6 (OS): |
More than 1,000 Jewish activists descended on Washington DC, Sunday, to protest AIPAC. |
|
00:56:26:14 |
DR. CORNEL (OS/ON): |
So, we tell some of our more conservative brothers and sisters on the inside that you do not represent the best of the Jewish prophetic tradition, and we hear them... [Overlapping speech] |
|
00:56:37:15 |
|
[cheer together] |
|
00:56:40:20 |
DR. CORNEL (OS/ON): |
It's a new day now when you got a number of young Jewish brothers and sisters who are undergoing moral and spiritual awakening, |
|
00:56:48:12 |
|
they're deeply concerned about the suffering of Palestinians, and they come from a people who have been hated, but they don't want to see the cycle of hate perpetrated even by Jews themselves. |
|
00:56:59:17 |
|
TITLE ISRAELI EMBASSY WASHINGTON DC |
|
00:57:02:16 |
NOAM (ON/OS): |
Israel, it's been part of my life since early childhood. |
|
00:57:09:08 |
|
Within the Jewish community, oh, there's been a striking change and Israel's well aware of it. |
|
00:57:16:11 |
|
Human will and commitment can change things. |
|
00:57:20:06 |
|
TITLE NEW YORK CITY |
|
00:57:21:15 |
TALIA (OS/ON): |
My name is Talia. This is the first time I'm using my full real name um, to stand in solidarity with Palestinians and-- |
|
00:57:30:07 |
|
[cheers, applaud together] |
|
00:57:31:09 |
TALIA: |
I never thought in my life that I would be standing with this many Jews for Palestine. |
|
00:57:35:07 |
RABBI (ON/OS): |
I'm a rabbi. As long as Palestinian lives are treated as disposable, our house as a people is not in order. |
|
00:57:44:03 |
|
[cheers, applaud together] |
|
00:57:47:03 |
ACTIVIST 3 (OS/ON): |
Tomorrow, we show up and we march following the leadership of Palestinians. |
|
00:57:51:07 |
|
[crowd cheering, applauding] |
|
00:57:53:23 |
CROWD MEMBERS: |
(TOGETHER) § Free, free Palestine § |
|
00:57:55:19 |
CROWD MEMBER 1 (OS): |
§ Free, free, free Palestine § |
|
00:57:57:21 |
CROWD MEMBERS: |
(TOGETHER) § Free, free, free Palestine § |
|
00:57:59:22 |
CROWD MEMBER 1 (OS): |
§ Free, free Palestine § |
|
00:58:02:01 |
CROWD MEMBERS: |
(TOGETHER) § Free, free Palestine § |
|
00:58:04:02 |
CROWD MEMBER 1 (OS): |
§ Free, free, free Palestine § |
|
00:58:06:03 |
CROWD MEMBERS: |
(TOGETHER) § Free, free, free Palestine § |
|
00:58:07:12 |
MAN 6 (OS): |
Congresswoman Rashida Talib. |
|
00:58:09:17 |
RASHIDA (OS/ON): |
I am the only Palestinian-American member of Congress now. |
|
00:58:13:04 |
|
How many Palestinians have to die for their lives to matter? |
|
00:58:18:08 |
|
Life under apartheid strips Palestinians of their human dignity. |
|
00:58:22:20 |
GUEST 1: |
How many more decades do they need to endure this subjugation before there is a shift in this unreasonable status quo? |
|
00:58:30:02 |
NEWS ANCHOR 7 (OS): |
And what would you recommend? |
|
00:58:32:14 |
GUEST 1: |
I would recommend freedom. |
|
00:58:34:05 |
CROWD MEMBERS: |
(TOGETHER) § Free, free, free Palestine § |
|
00:58:35:15 |
|
§ Free, free, free Palestine § |
|
00:58:37:04 |
DR. CORNEL (OS/ON): |
The real challenge is tryin' to keep that moral and spiritual dimension strong. |
|
00:58:44:13 |
CROWD MEMBERS: |
(TOGETHER) § Free, free, free Palestine § |
|
00:58:47:06 |
DR. CORNEL (OS/ON): |
Because anytime you cut against the grain, you're gonna catch hell. |
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00:58:52:08 |
ACTIVIST 3: |
Free, free Palestine! |
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00:58:54:00 |
|
[protestors yelling] |
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00:58:56:03 |
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[music ends] |
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00:58:58:02 |
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TITLE JERUSALEM DAY RIGHT WING ISRAELI MARCH OCCUPIED EAST JERUSALEM |
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00:58:58:11 |
|
[sing together in Hebrew] |
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00:59:01:11 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:59:05:14 |
ISRAELIS: |
"AN ARAB IS A SON OF A BITCH! A JEW IS A PRECIOUS SOUL!" |
|
00:59:12:13 |
|
DEATH TO LAEFTISTS! |
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00:59:15:21 |
|
TITLE COUNTER-PROTEST OF AMERICAN JEWS AND ISRAELI ACTIVISTS |
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00:59:16:19 |
|
[music ends] |
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00:59:16:22 |
NEWS ANCHOR 8 (OS): |
Anti-occupation Jews are blocking Damascus Gate. |
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00:59:20:17 |
|
[music begins] |
|
00:59:22:10 |
CROWD: |
(TOGETHER) [indistinct speech] ...Jews say! |
|
00:59:23:21 |
|
Anti-occupation! |
|
00:59:25:04 |
|
Israeli Jews say! |
|
00:59:27:06 |
|
[speaking Hebrew] |
|
00:59:31:02 |
|
[yelling] |
|
00:59:36:21 |
|
Let me go! |
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00:59:37:21 |
|
[indistinct yelling] |
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00:59:51:07 |
|
[music ends] |
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00:59:52:19 |
|
TITLE ABE FOXMAN DIRECTOR EMERITUS ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE |
|
00:59:53:16 |
ABE: |
I-- I don't think it's as serious as it's made up to be. Okay, they're-- they're entitled, it's fine, okay. |
|
01:00:00:14 |
|
I don't think they represent much. I think they're a little super naïve. |
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01:00:04:23 |
|
Uh, I think that this-- most American Jews even though they have different views on settlements or occupation, I think that's still a decision, at the end of the day, they're gonna leave for the Israelis to make. |
|
01:00:16:09 |
|
As long as Israel is under threat, and as strong as it is, and as dynamic as it is, it's still under threat from its neighbors and 100,000 missiles, we postpone that philosophical debate to another time. |
|
01:00:35:03 |
|
TITLE GAZA, AN OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY |
|
01:00:38:03 |
|
[music begins] |
|
01:00:44:22 |
SIMONE (OS): |
Palestinians are so dehumanized in the community that it's really hard for people to figure out how to even understand Palestinians' legitimate rights and claims to the land. |
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01:00:59:23 |
NEWS ANCHOR 9 (OS): |
Palestinians gathered for protest at the Israeli Gaza border. |
|
01:01:03:20 |
NEWS ANCHOR 10 (OS): |
They're demanding the right to return to lands from which they were forced out in 1948. |
|
01:01:08:04 |
|
[music ends] |
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01:01:09:15 |
NEWS ANCHOR 11 (OS): |
At least 55 Palestinians died, Monday, during mass protests. |
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01:01:14:23 |
|
Israeli troops fired on the demonstrators. |
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01:01:17:16 |
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[music begins] |
|
01:01:18:21 |
PALESTINIAN: |
THIS IS THE SEVENTH WEEK HERE, I COME EVERY WEEK |
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01:01:23:05 |
|
I HAVE LOST MANY FRIENDS |
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01:01:24:01 |
|
MANY OF THEM DIED AND MANY ARE WOUNDED |
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01:01:30:10 |
ABE (OS/ON): |
Look at the more recent Gaza demonstrations. |
|
01:01:34:07 |
|
Ask yourself the question, "If the Mexicans stood at the border and marched, 1 million Mexicans or 20,000 Mexicans, what would America do?" |
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01:01:42:20 |
|
You know, first, they would try tear gas, and then it was not-- and-- and eventually would have to shoot. |
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01:01:47:01 |
|
[music ends] |
|
01:01:48:23 |
|
[music begins] |
|
01:01:49:16 |
SIMONE (OS): |
There are a lot of Jewish young people who see a Jewish establishment that is racist, that is nationalistic. |
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01:01:57:09 |
|
TITLE "FREE PALESTINE" IS CODE FOR KILL THE JEWS |
|
01:01:58:20 |
ISRAELI 1: |
ISRAEL IS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NOT THE MIDWEST |
|
01:02:01:19 |
|
SO THE NEIGHBORS ARE NOT NECESSARILY THE JONES OR THE SMITHS |
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01:02:04:02 |
ISRAELI 2: |
I DON'T WANT WAR |
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01:02:05:14 |
|
BUT IT'S BEEN IMPOSED ON US |
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01:02:08:04 |
|
SO WE SHOULD DO RIGHT AND DEFEAT THE TERRORISTS. |
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01:02:11:00 |
|
TITLE READ THE BIBLE THE LAND OF ISRAEL BELONGS TO THE JEWS. WWW.TRUEPEACE.ORG |
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01:02:13:17 |
SIMONE (OS): |
We don't want to be a part of that, but we are actually building an alternative. |
|
01:02:24:20 |
|
I've been involved in this work for about a decade. |
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01:02:29:07 |
|
I was seen as a face of this young growing Jewish resistance to the American Jewish establishment. |
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01:02:37:20 |
|
It made perfect sense to me that Bernie would hire someone like me as a Jewish outreach coordinator. |
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01:02:45:10 |
|
Within about 48 hours of being on the campaign, the attacks started rolling in. |
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01:02:53:18 |
|
These old men from the Jewish establishment came out to say you know, that I was dangerous, that I was a threat. |
|
01:03:02:08 |
|
A journalist wrote an article about me. |
|
01:03:04:19 |
|
The headline was "Bernie Sanders' new Jewish outreach coordinator is an outspoken critic of Israeli occupation." |
|
01:03:11:03 |
|
TITLE BERNIE SANDERS' NEW JEWISH OUTREACH DIRECTOR IS OUTSPOKEN CRITIC OF ISRAELI OCCUPATION |
|
01:03:15:08 |
|
The next headline that I found out about when I walked into work was "Abe Foxman calls on Sanders to fire new Jewish community liaison for, quote, ‘anti-Israel' comments." |
|
01:03:26:20 |
NEWS ANCHOR 12 (OS): |
On Thursday, the Sanders campaign suspended its new national Jewish outreach coordinator, Simone Zimmerman, two days after she was hired. |
|
01:03:39:15 |
SIMONE (OS): |
So, as far as I'm aware this was Abe Foxman's first comment in public since his retirement from the ADL and uh, he came out of retirement to defend the world from the great threat of Simone Zimmerman. |
|
01:03:55:00 |
ABE: |
It hurts me for a Jewish kid to stand up there and say, "Justice for the Palestinians, and not saying, "Justice for the Israelis". Uh, it troubles me, hurts me, bothers me. It means we failed. We failed in educating and explaining, et cetera. |
|
01:04:09:07 |
CROWD: |
(TOGETHER) ...Palestine |
|
01:04:10:03 |
|
Free, free Palestine |
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01:04:12:17 |
ABE (OS/ON): |
When we talk about we're losing the kids, uh, we're not lo-- we lost them. |
|
01:04:19:23 |
NEWS ANCHOR 13 (OS): |
Birthright participants staged a protest walkout. |
|
01:04:23:11 |
STUDENT 8: |
Five of us will be leaving to learn about the occupation um, from the perspectives of Palestinians and IDF soldiers. |
|
01:04:29:11 |
BUS DRIVER: |
Thank you, thank you very much. You cannot be a tyrant on this bus. |
|
01:04:32:11 |
MAN 7 (OS): |
No, no, listen. |
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01:04:34:03 |
MAN: |
GO TO PALESTINE. |
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01:04:35:14 |
WOMAN: |
THAT'S WHAT WE WANT. |
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01:04:37:04 |
MAN: |
JUST GO, BECAUSE GUESS WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN? YOU'RE GOING TO GET KILLED, AND YOU'RE GOING TO GET RAPED. |
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01:04:42:15 |
|
[music ends] |
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01:04:43:08 |
RABBI BENNETT: |
We're seeing that many millennials are becoming disen-- disenchanted with Israel... |
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01:04:49:16 |
RABBI BENNETT: |
NATIONAL CHAIR ASSOCIATION OF REFORM ZIONISTS OF AMERICA |
|
01:04:50:15 |
RABBI BENNETT: |
...and um, I take a very different approach on this. |
|
01:04:53:02 |
|
I say to them, "We need to love Israel even more." |
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01:04:55:13 |
|
[music begins] |
|
01:04:56:05 |
PROTESTORS: |
(TOGETHER) Boycott Birthright that's our plan! |
|
01:04:58:09 |
|
TITLE MICHAEL STEINHARD CO-FOUNDER OF BIRTHRIGHT ISRAEL |
|
01:04:58:22 |
PROTESTORS: |
(TOGETHER) No free trips on stolen land! |
|
01:05:01:11 |
|
Boycott Birthright that's our plan! |
|
01:05:04:02 |
|
No free trips on stolen land! |
|
01:05:08:07 |
RABBI BENNETT: |
It-- it means that we, who are the older generation, have much more work to do. |
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01:05:15:03 |
SIMONE (OS/ON): |
This whole communal obsession with defending Israel has basically warped into seeing someone like me as a threat to the community. |
|
01:05:25:12 |
|
The word that I used to hear a lot was "self-hating Jew". |
|
01:05:29:15 |
|
Like the only way that a Jewish person could possibly care about the humanity of Palestinians is if you hate yourself. |
|
01:05:36:20 |
|
[music ends] |
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01:05:42:01 |
SIMONE (OS/ON): |
Let's see what I find in here. |
|
01:05:46:04 |
|
You are a self-loathing Jew. Go kill yourself. |
|
01:05:50:11 |
|
With Jews like you, who needs ignorant racist bigot Arabs? |
|
01:05:55:09 |
|
You work against our people, you're an anti-Semitic Jew, you've been working for the enemy. |
|
01:06:00:22 |
|
Simone Zimmerman, another member of the lunatic anti-Semitic far left. |
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01:06:05:11 |
|
[music begins] |
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01:06:08:01 |
|
TITLE LARA FRIEDMAN PRESIDENT FOUNDATION FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE |
|
01:06:08:23 |
LARA (OS/ON): |
There's always been this argument of "Oh, you can't criticize Israel. |
|
01:06:12:18 |
|
Criticizing Israel feeds anti-Semitism Criticizing Israel helps the enemies of Israel." |
|
01:06:19:04 |
SIMONE (OS/ON): |
As more and more American Jews are speaking out in support of Palestinian freedom, now they just say instead, "We're-- oh, we're anti-Semites. |
|
01:06:27:16 |
|
We hate all Jewish people." Or even worse that we're not Jewish at all. |
|
01:06:33:01 |
LARA (OS): |
We are attacked as being not really Jewish if we are not supportive of Israel, and that's where you start seeing just the blanket delegitimization of an entire sector of American Jewish society focusing on this so-called new anti-Semitism. |
|
01:06:50:01 |
ABE: |
And then came the new anti-Semitism which was the anti-Semitism relating to Israel, what-- what some have said that Israel became the Jew of the nations uh, in the same way that historically uh, you know, the-- whatever was permitted for everybody else was not permitted for the Jew. Now, Israel was singled out... |
|
01:07:11:18 |
SIMONE (OS): |
So many of the self-appointed leaders of our community have been trying to equate the idea of supporting Palestinian rights itself with anti-Semitism. |
|
01:07:20:21 |
WOMAN: |
This is about anti-Israel, anti-Semitic attitude. |
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01:07:24:11 |
GUEST 2: |
Classic new anti-Semitism. |
|
01:07:26:04 |
TED: |
The extreme left has a long history of anti-Semitism of-- of anti-Israel hatred. |
|
01:07:32:09 |
MORT: |
How stupid have they been through all these years voting for Obama and other anti-Semites like him. |
|
01:07:37:12 |
|
[applause] |
|
01:07:40:12 |
SIMONE (OS): |
Unwillingness to grapple with Palestinian suffering is putting a lot of American Jews in a really dangerous and sad position. |
|
01:07:48:10 |
|
[applause] |
|
01:07:48:23 |
|
[music ends] |
|
01:07:49:16 |
|
[music begins] |
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01:07:50:17 |
LARA (OS/ON): |
How far will Jewish Americans go in the effort to quash pressure on Israel? |
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01:07:57:22 |
|
You know, how far will people go? It's hard to see how far they won't go if this is where things are today. |
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01:08:04:01 |
|
[cheers, applaud together] |
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01:08:08:01 |
SIMONE (OS): |
At the end of the day, pro-Israel leaders want to be in the room with the people in power. |
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01:08:12:09 |
|
[cheers, applaud together] |
|
01:08:15:05 |
SIMONE (OS): |
They will do anything to preserve unconditional support for Israel. |
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01:08:18:16 |
|
[cheers, applaud together] |
|
01:08:21:19 |
DONALD (OS/ON): |
Thank you. When I become president, the days of treating Israel like a second-class citizen will end on day one. |
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01:08:32:07 |
|
[cheers, applaud together] |
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01:08:36:22 |
SIMONE (OS): |
History is not going to judge us kindly. |
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01:08:40:10 |
HENRY: |
I'd like to say that we were blessed by heaven with Donald Trump bein' elected president of the United States. |
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01:08:48:06 |
|
We should pray that they should remain in office and that he should continue to do the great things he does on behalf of the United States of America and on behalf of Israel. |
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01:09:00:11 |
SIMONE (OS): |
We're seeing like a horrifying culmination of what support of Israel at all costs has led to, disregarding any lesson of history, disregarding any sort of morality. |
|
01:09:15:13 |
|
[music ends] |
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01:09:16:19 |
LARA: |
The great irony of having this be where we are today within the Jewish community is that there actually is resurgent anti-Semitism... |
|
01:09:24:22 |
|
[music begins] |
|
01:09:25:17 |
LARA (OS): |
...the kind that I think my generation and the generations that have come after me never thought we'd see in our lifetimes. |
|
01:09:33:02 |
RICHARD: |
Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory! |
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01:09:36:09 |
|
[cheers, applaud together] |
|
01:09:38:17 |
ABE (OS/ON): |
In the US, a couple of things have been happening and then we'll-- we'll go to Trump or Trumpism. |
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01:09:43:08 |
|
It's not a question, "Is he a bigot or isn't?" I don't think he's a bigot. I think he is what he is. |
|
01:09:48:00 |
|
I don't think he's a racist, I don't think he's an anti-Semite. I think that you can call him all kinds of things. |
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01:09:56:03 |
SIMONE (OS): |
The community has spent so much time attacking anyone who criticizes Israel when they're actual threats to our community. |
|
01:10:06:09 |
|
That's led our communal institutions to basically be silent in the face of rising white nationalism. |
|
01:10:11:21 |
|
[music ends] |
|
01:10:12:07 |
|
[music begins] |
|
01:10:12:19 |
CROWD: |
Jews will not replace us! |
|
01:10:15:17 |
|
Jews will not replace us! |
|
01:10:18:16 |
|
Jews will not replace us! |
|
01:10:22:08 |
SARAH (OS/ON): |
The way that we talk about anti-Semitism isn't about protecting Jews, it's about protecting Israel. |
|
01:10:26:06 |
|
TITLE SARAH ANNE MINKIN, PHD DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS AND PARTNERSHIPS FOUNDATION FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE |
|
01:10:27:11 |
SARAH: |
How dangerous is that at this moment with the rise of anti-Semitism? |
|
01:10:36:02 |
SIMONE (OS): |
And often when American politicians are asked about anti-Semitism, they talk about their support for Israel. |
|
01:10:46:09 |
|
Support for Israel today is actually replacing what it means to be a Jew. |
|
01:10:53:10 |
|
These people have basically decided that support for Israel is more important than the safety of Jews. |
|
01:11:01:02 |
|
We're not gonna say anything about the spreading of these anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. |
|
01:11:07:12 |
GUEST 3: |
We have seen a tremendous amount of this use of vile anti-Semitic tropes. |
|
01:11:12:00 |
NEWS REPORTER (OS): |
The thread talks about a Jewish plot to enslave people in the United States. |
|
01:11:16:14 |
NEWS ANCHOR 14 (OS): |
Anti-Semitic flyers steeped in COVID-19 conspiracies saying every single aspect of the COVID agenda is Jewish. |
|
01:11:24:08 |
|
[music ends] |
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01:11:24:22 |
|
[music begins] |
|
01:11:25:06 |
MAN 10: |
That's the way the Jews work. |
|
01:11:27:23 |
|
They're dec-- they are deceivers. They plot, they lie. They do whatever they have to do. |
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01:11:41:10 |
NEWS ANCHOR 15 (OS): |
The gunman told a SWAT officer that he wanted all Jews to die and that they were committing genocide against his people. |
|
01:12:01:07 |
SIMONE (OS): |
It's a profoundly sad moment and I think it's a tipping moment. |
|
01:12:08:06 |
|
These anti-Semitic nightmares that we all-- Like it's all coming to life in front of our eyes. |
|
01:12:17:07 |
|
I can't help but think about all the American Jewish organizations that have spent the last decade pouring millions of dollars into smearing and marginalizing human rights advocates, |
|
01:12:30:11 |
|
Jewish, Palestinian and not, trying to brand Palestinian protest as anti-Semitic when there were neo-Nazis trying to kill us in our synagogues. |
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01:12:43:03 |
EXTREMIST: |
GAS THE-- |
|
01:12:44:09 |
|
RACE WAR NOW! |
|
01:12:47:19 |
SIMONE (OS): |
My parents' and grandparents' generation grew up in a world in which Jews were not safe. |
|
01:12:53:15 |
|
[protestors yelling] |
|
01:12:54:21 |
SIMONE (OS): |
They invested so much in the idea that Jews could only be safe through Israel, but our safety and our security is actually bound up in the safety and the security of all people. |
|
01:13:11:13 |
NEWS ANCHOR 16 (OS): |
The most powerful pro-Israel lobby in the country are now donating money to Republican politicians who either incited or continue to support the rioters who stormed The Capitol on January 6th. who stormed The Capitol on January 6th. |
|
01:13:26:06 |
|
[music ends] |
|
01:13:28:04 |
|
[music begins] |
|
01:13:29:06 |
SIMONE (OS): |
That's part of a politics of solidarity, and it feels totally morally coherent, and morally urgent, to support freedom and dignity for all people in all the places that we live. |
|
01:13:40:23 |
|
TITLE I AM A JEW WHO SUPPORTS FREEDOM + DIGNITY |
|
01:13:45:12 |
SIMONE (OS): |
Palestinians have already been telling us this for decades. |
|
01:13:49:17 |
MAN 10 (OS): |
So, guys, here's the-- the wall. |
|
01:13:53:11 |
SIMONE (OS): |
But the world is finally coming to catch up. |
|
01:13:56:10 |
|
[indistinct speech] |
|
01:13:59:10 |
|
[music ends] |
|
01:13:59:23 |
|
[music begins] |
|
01:14:01:09 |
SAMI (ON/OS): |
For me, I would say if anybody has any influence on Israeli policy, and I say this with a big if, it is the American Jewish community. |
|
01:14:11:09 |
|
The American Jewish community have the potential to have the greatest influence in shifting our reality outside of this land. |
|
01:14:20:13 |
|
For many people around the world when they see the voice of the Jewish community rise and protest against this occupation, it will allow other voices to say, "Yes, we could also have a voice in it as well." |
|
01:14:34:05 |
|
Now, we're doing joint work in trying to end this occupation, and bringing peace and justice into this land. |
|
01:14:40:23 |
BAHA (OS): |
The most inspiring experiences I had are with Jewish Americans that come in and take a stand. |
|
01:14:52:07 |
HOST 4 (OS/ON): |
We're gonna hear tonight a number of personal stories. |
|
01:14:56:06 |
|
At some point, you guys decided to, quote, unquote, "break" the silence and I'm interested was there a particular moment that led you to this. |
|
01:15:05:04 |
|
[music ends] |
|
01:15:06:12 |
WOMAN 5 (OS/ON): |
In 2008, I-- I joined the military. |
|
01:15:09:17 |
|
In America, we have this concept of innocent until proven guilty. |
|
01:15:13:05 |
|
There is no innocent Palestinian according to the army-- |
|
01:15:16:03 |
AUDIENCE MEMBER 1 (OS): |
That's so not true. |
|
01:15:17:07 |
WOMAN 5: |
In occupied territory. |
|
01:15:19:05 |
AUDIENCE MEMBER 2 (OS): |
Quiet down please. |
|
01:15:20:03 |
AUDIENCE MEMBER 1 (OS): |
Get out of here. I mean come on, you're lying. That's a lie. |
|
01:15:22:20 |
AUDIENCE MEMBER 1 (OS): |
She said there's no innocent-- |
|
01:15:24:02 |
AUDIENCE MEMBER 2 (OS): |
It's not a lie. |
|
01:15:25:10 |
|
[music begins] |
|
01:15:26:10 |
WOMAN 5 (ON/OS): |
What we're talking about is not giving Palestinians the right that we of Israelis have and that's apartheid. |
|
01:15:35:03 |
|
To go against the grain is not an easy thing to do. |
|
01:15:40:00 |
EITAN (OS/ON): |
So, I did not speak about my experiences in the occupation publicly until very recently. |
|
01:15:48:02 |
|
I was afraid that I would be demonized I've seen friends of mine be demonized for speaking out about the same things. |
|
01:15:59:05 |
|
The first time I ever spoke publicly about my experiences, I cried the whole time that I was speaking. |
|
01:16:09:00 |
|
It's gotten a little bit easier to talk about since then, because I have taken the time to process it, but that doesn't mean it's easy anytime I talk about these experiences. |
|
01:16:22:17 |
|
But we can't wait any longer. |
|
01:16:38:01 |
SIMONE (OS/ON): |
I've been longing for this Jewish conversation for 17 years. |
|
01:16:42:03 |
|
[group members laughing] |
|
01:16:44:21 |
RABBI: |
We're here today um, to talk about some things that are often-- |
|
01:16:48:20 |
|
TITLE RABBI MIRIAM GROSSMAN |
|
01:16:50:08 |
RABBI (ON/OS): |
--can feel impossible in the Jewish community. |
|
01:16:54:14 |
|
These conversations can happen. |
|
01:16:56:03 |
|
We are not risking our Jewish history, you are not closing a door to the rest of your Jewish life. |
|
01:17:01:20 |
|
All that we have to risk is our denial. |
|
01:17:05:16 |
GROUP MEMBER 1 (OS): |
I can start. |
|
01:17:07:07 |
|
My high school had an Israel studies class all about when you get to college and people start telling you about Israel being an apartheid state, this is how you respond. |
|
01:17:17:05 |
GROUP MEMBER 2 (ON/OS): |
From uh, like summer camp and my youth movement, one of the core tenets of it was the Jewish state needed to be built. |
|
01:17:22:07 |
RABBI: |
Hmm. |
|
01:17:23:07 |
GROUP MEMBER 2: |
And just no questioning of what price we were really willing to pay uh, or willing to make Palestinians pay. |
|
01:17:29:05 |
GROUP MEMBER 3: |
Isn't Israeli-- the Palestinian identity itself is not something I had to-- to learn that it exists. |
|
01:17:34:23 |
RABBI: |
Right. |
|
01:17:36:07 |
GROUP MEMBER 4: |
So, slowly as I came to learn that the occupation exists, I started learning that there is another narrative. |
|
01:17:45:15 |
RABBI (OS/ON): |
We're here to talk about the history that's often referred to as "the Nakba". |
|
01:17:49:23 |
|
750,000 people displaced from their homes. |
|
01:17:54:04 |
|
At least 400 villages undone in their entirety. |
|
01:17:58:20 |
|
The colonization is also ongoing. |
|
01:18:02:10 |
|
The ongoing Nakba, the continued-- |
|
01:18:05:15 |
|
Not just the historical but the continued ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. |
|
01:18:10:14 |
|
I have been blessed to witness the ways that Palestinian society continue to find ways to thrive, but we can't deny that there has been catastrophe, that it's been catastrophic, the scale of loss. |
|
01:18:23:09 |
|
We're really here to teach each other, but I think nothing's as important as action, because we are talking about ongoing displacement. |
|
01:18:32:09 |
|
People might tell you that if you stand up for Palestinian rights that you aren't really Jewish, that you're maybe a self-hating Jew. |
|
01:18:40:00 |
|
As a rabbi, what I see when I look at the work of solidarity is a long chain of Jewish history. |
|
01:18:47:15 |
|
This chain of people, of ancestors, and texts, and traditions that are about justice and fighting for it. |
|
01:18:54:16 |
|
Jewish tradition tells us to envision a world where all people are safe and free, to never stop fighting for that world. |
|
01:19:02:14 |
|
So, may you all feel blessed in a tradition of liberation, and may you be blessed to know you're not alone, and let's get to work. |
|
01:19:19:18 |
|
[music ends] |
|
01:19:21:22 |
|
[fingers snapping] |
|
01:19:23:22 |
|
§ Light is returning § |
|
01:19:27:06 |
|
§ Even though this is the darkest hour § |
|
01:19:30:20 |
|
§ No one can hold § |
|
01:19:34:13 |
|
§ Back the dawn § |
|
01:19:37:09 |
|
§ Light is returning § |
|
01:19:41:00 |
|
§ Even though this is the darkest hour § |
|
01:19:44:15 |
|
§ No one can hold § |
|
01:19:48:02 |
|
§ Back the dawn § |
|
01:19:50:23 |
|
§ Light is returning § |
|
01:19:54:13 |
|
§ Even though this is the darkest hour § |
|
01:19:57:21 |
|
§ No one can hold § |
|
01:20:01:14 |
|
§ Back the dawn § |
|
01:20:04:12 |
|
§ Light is returning § |
|
01:20:07:23 |
|
§ Even though this is the darkest hour § |
|
01:20:11:06 |
|
§ No one can hold § |
|
01:20:14:21 |
|
§ Back the dawn § |
|
01:20:17:19 |
|
§ Light is returning § |
|
01:20:20:11 |
|
§ Light is returning § |
|
01:20:21:17 |
|
§ Even though this is the darkest hour § |
|
01:20:24:11 |
|
§ No one can hold § |
|
01:20:28:04 |
|
§ Back the dawn § |
|
01:20:31:04 |
|
§ Light is returning § |
|
01:20:34:12 |
|
§ Even though this is the darkest hour § |
|
01:20:37:11 |
|
§ No one can hold § |
|
01:20:41:01 |
|
§ Back the dawn § |
|
01:20:44:02 |
|
§ Light is returning § |
|
01:20:47:04 |
|
§ Even though this is the darkest hour § |
|
01:20:50:13 |
|
§ No one can hold § |
|
01:20:54:05 |
|
§ Back the dawn § |
|
01:20:57:12 |
|
§ Back the dawn § |
|
01:21:00:22 |
|
§ Back the dawn § |
|
01:21:03:21 |
|
§ Back the dawn § |
|
01:21:09:10 |
|
[music begins] |
|
01:23:26:10 |
|
TITLE THIS FILM IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF SIDNEY TOPOL AND ABBOT "TOM" GLEASON |
|
01:23:31:12 |
|
[music ends] |
|
01:23:33:09 |
|
TITLE SIDNEY TOPOL INVENTOR, PHILANTHROPIST, ACTIVIST 1924-2022 |
|
01:23:34:08 |
SIDNEY: |
We Jews, we're not meant to be occupiers. |
|
01:23:36:02 |
|
We have been occupied already. |
|
01:23:37:21 |
|
I mean we've always been segregated and discriminated against. |
|
01:23:42:14 |
|
It's just so distressing to me to see the checkpoints, and the special roads, and the special water. |
|
01:23:51:02 |
|
Why? That's-- It's-- it's a shonda. |
Distributor: Tikkun Olam Productions
Length: 84 minutes
Date: 2023
Genre: Expository
Language: English
Grade: 10-12, College, Adults
Color/BW:
Closed Captioning: Available
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