WELCOME TO AJC'S ANNUAL *ISREEL*UNREEL*SUREEL*WHOLE SHPIEL* 15th ANNUAL SEATTLE JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL

Seattle Jewish Film Festival Website
Films
FilmTalks
Special Events
Ticket info
Meet the filmmakers
Tom Douglas pre-Opening Night Party w/Music & Film



Welcome to the SJFF 15th ISREEL/UNREEL/SUREEL/ WHOLE SHPIEL

Wow! For the 3rd year in a row Israel has a film, AJAMI, on the short list of Academy Award nominees for Best Foreign Film. And SJFF is proud to be presenting AJAMI as our opening night feature!

This year’s festival is loaded with top-notch, critically acclaimed independent films from around the globe, with a ‘sizable’ (after all, it’s A Matter of Size Closing Night) chunk hailing from the burgeoning center of Jewish creativity, Israel itself. Israeli cinema has truly come of age, and is increasingly recognized in serious film criticism, world festivals and the media.

At a time when Israel finds itself relentlessly under the lens of international scrutiny and criticism, it is both refreshing and inspiring to see courageous Israeli filmmakers creating and the Israeli Film Fund supporting self-reflective and at times transcendent films, capturing the complexities of everyday life. Perhaps no film in recent memory demonstrates so well the maelstrom of interconnectedness between Palestinian and Jewish life as Ajami, a film set in the inter-ethnic, eponymous neighborhood in Jaffa, jointly directed by an Israeli-born Christian Palestinian and a Jewish Israeli. The film exudes authenticity and immediacy, with Biblical and Shakespearean overtones in its universal themes of love, loyalty, hope and despair, as we watch Jewish and Arab (both Christian & Muslim) Israelis “swim in each other’s veins,” to capture the Israeli idiom.

Other featured Israeli films include Jaffa, Seven Minutes in Heaven, and Rabbi Firer. Yet SJFF (and Seattle AJC’s) role as a cultural ambassador to our region goes well beyond Israel, galvanizing public awareness to the multi-dimensional, multi-faceted aspects of the global Jewish experience. Films like Saviors in the Night from Germany look at how some ordinary Germans risked their lives to save their fellow Jews during the Holocaust, while films like Against the Tide (USA) show the raging intra-Jewish battles on the American front during the war years.

Meet acclaimed German filmmaker Michael Verhoeven (we will present Dr. Verhoeven with SJFF's first REEL DIFFERENCE AWARD) as he screens his new film Human Failure, indicting ordinary Germans in their participation in the expropriation of assets from their fellow Jewish citizens, and director Gaylen Ross as she talks about her film Killing Kasztner, the controversial Hungarian Jew Reszo Kasztner, who engineered the rescue of over 1,600 Hungarian Jews, but had to dance with the devil (Adolf Eichmann) to secure their release. Hero or traitor? Tragic victim or betrayer?

Film is a powerful medium that highlights AJC's larger goal: enhancing and safeguarding the quality of Jewish life around the world and protecting the dignity of all people. In these challenging times, we hope to bring individuals and communities of any faith, background or outlook closer together by promoting greater awareness and understanding.
We invite you to join us by contacting Wendy Rosen, Director of the AJC's Regional Seattle Office, at rosenw@ajc.org.
Come and get the whole SHPIEL at this year’s Is-REEL, Un-REEL, Su-REEL, Incredi-REEL 15th Annual Seattle Jewish Film Festival!

Click Here to Read More..

On Responsibilites (that go along with Rights) in Vibrant Democracies: Gil Troy on the NIF, UC-Irvine, and the NY Times

Much has been made of the Im Tirtsu ad in the JPost, using the double entendre of the Hebrew keren (horn/foundation) in caricaturing Naomi Chazan of NIF. Given historical anti-semitic caricatures, it was a poor choice; at the least, it was in very bad taste. But this should not absolve the NIF from answering the more substantive criticisms levied against the human rights organization. To date, little has been offered as a response to the well documented critiques that the NIF, while doing noble and important work in Israel on human rights issues, has also been supportive of NGO's that help undermine Israel's legitimacy, and were major contributors to the 'evidence' drummed up for the Goldstone Report. See Understanding the Goldstone Report
As Gil Troy posits below, the left would only enhance its credibility by being more discerning in its choice of bedfellows. Too often in the toxic minefield of Middle Eastern politics, openness and self-criticism by Israel is abused and distored by the other side. The results can be lethal.
david brumer
seattle

But citizens have rights as well as responsibilities. Voices from the left should leverage their credibility - and ultimately enhance it - by condemning the cycle of demonization rooted in Arab anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, then rationalized and perfumed by the UN and the left, resulting in hooliganism on campus, vendettas against reasonable reporters and a one-sided, hysterical discourse that makes the dream of peace appear ever more distant.

The New Israel Fund would boost its credibility by refusing to fund organizations that single out Israeli leaders for war crimes allegations. It would increase the credibility of the organizations it funds if it demonstrated some sense of proportion, some sensitivity to the disproportionate, hysterical demonization of Israel emanating from the Arab world and, I regret to say, rationalized by the left.

The toxic context of 'the Israel debate
Gil Troy


We have become so used to it we take it for granted, but one of the great scandals of modern politics is the way Palestinian negationism and terrorism have been facilitated by the UN and championed by the left, cloaking lethal desires to wipe out Israel in the language of human rights.
Moreover, as Professor Shalom Lappin of Kings College, London testified to Britain's All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry Against Anti-Semitism, which issued its report September 2006:
The Israel-Palestinian encounter has been largely denaturalised and removed from its political and regional context. It is no longer seen as a political and military struggle between two nations with a long and complex history.... Instead, it has been endowed with the peculiar status of an iconic clash between good and evil. Israel has increasingly come to be construed as the purest embodiment of imperialism, racism and oppression whose sole national purpose is to dispossess the Palestinians."
This inaccurate, Manichean misreading of the conflict encourages perverse behavior. Again and again, institutions violate their own core ideals. Again and again, the blinding bias against Israel obscures facts, precedents, common sense itself. In this toxic context, the distinguished scholar and Israel's Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, was shouted down repeatedly while speaking at University of California, Irvine. The Muslim Student Union "strongly condemn[ed] the university for co-sponsoring, and therefore inadvertently supporting, the ambassador of a state that is condemned by more UN Human Rights Council resolutions than all other countries in the world combined."
Note how the libels get recycled. The UN's bias against Israel legitimizes the Muslim Student Union protest - which escalated into shouting and hooliganism, resulting in eleven arrests.
Fortunately, at least one academic with a conscience defended Oren. "This is beyond embarrassing...," Professor Mark P. Petracca proclaimed. "This is no way for our undergraduate students to behave. We have an opportunity to hear from a policy maker relevant to one of the most important issues facing this planet and you are preventing not only yourself from hearing him but hundreds of other people in this room and hundreds of other people in an overflow room. Shame on you! This is not an example of free speech."
Meanwhile, across the continent, a 20-year-old's personal decision to join the Israeli army triggered a brouhaha in New York because his father is the New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief. Ethan Bronner, despite a distinguished decades-long record of reporting which includes some hard-hitting reports criticizing Israel, was accused of "pro-Israel bias" because his son enlisted in the IDF. Even the Times's public editor Clark Hoyt suggested reassigning Bronner - although Bill Keller, the executive editor, refused. Bronner's response, "I wish to be judged by my work, not by my biography," is perfect. But the operative assumption fueling the controversy is disturbing. The arguments against Bronner assumed the son's actions reflected the father's wishes and would bias the father in favor of Israel. Twenty-year-olds frequently defy their parents. And many Israelis criticize Israeli policy even more intensely because their children serve in the army. Especially given even very Zionist American Jews' ambivalence about their sons enlisting, why assume young Bronner's decision will make his father more sympathetic to Israel? Yes, reporters have personal lives. Who knows how many Times reporters have army-age children serving in Iraq and Afghanistan? Journalists are not nuns, although they belong to a guild with its own assumptions, norms and narratives. Usually, reporters are judged but what they write, not who they are - until we get to Israel.

These two incidents put another raging controversy in context. The organization Im Tirtsu was called "McCarthyite" for issuing a report detailing "a staggering example of a self-propelled process: the very organizations that pressed for the establishment of the [Goldstone] commission provided the testimonies used by the Goldstone commission to justify its claims against the IDF and Israel, and most of these organizations are supported by the NIF [New Israel Fund]." The report also revealed that the Coalition of Women for Peace - also an NIF grantee - initiated the writing of a letter on December 22, 2009, to top British officials demanding they try top Israeli officials.

Israel is a vibrant democracy. I am proud that organizations like the New Israel Fund exist to support a full range of Israeli human rights organizations. However, I am frequently dismayed by these organizations' one-sidedness. The report notes that few of these organizations bothered supporting Sderot or reaching out to Israeli victims of Palestinian terror - don't Israelis have human rights too? Moreover, many of these organizations do not acknowledge the toxic context in which the discussion about Israel takes place, and take no responsibility for their role in further poisoning the atmosphere. The New Israel Fund would boost its credibility by refusing to fund organizations that single out Israeli leaders for war crimes allegations. It would increase the credibility of the organizations it funds if it demonstrated some sense of proportion, some sensitivity to the disproportionate, hysterical demonization of Israel emanating from the Arab world and, I regret to say, rationalized by the left. Typically, while attacking Im Tirtsu for daring to look at who the NIF funds, Ha'aretz and other critics looked at who funds Im Tirtsu. And while objecting to criticism of the NIF's chairwoman Professor Naomi Chazan, as well as making her a martyr to free speech, her supporters overlooked The Jerusalem Post's justification for dropping her column; because she threatened legal action against the paper.
None of us, reporters, academics, or politicians, can afford to turn our ideological battles into legal wars. Only the lawyers win. Of course Israel should not be immune to criticism, and Israel's democratic values must be maintained. Citizens should argue about the Im Tirtsu report, while the Knesset and Cabinet should keep away, demonstrating respect for free speech. But citizens have rights as well as responsibilities. Voices from the left should leverage their credibility - and ultimately enhance it - by condemning the cycle of demonization rooted in Arab anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, then rationalized and perfumed by the UN and the left, resulting in hooliganism on campus, vendettas against reasonable reporters and a one-sided, hysterical discourse that makes the dream of peace appear ever more distant.
Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University on leave in Jerusalem. He is the author of Why I Am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today. His latest book The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction, was recently published by Oxford University Press.

Click Here to Read More..

The Brewing Controversy over NIF (New Israel Fund), Goldstone, and Freedom of Speech

Freedom of speech cuts both ways. As Yaacov Lozowick blogs below, there are some thorny issues here that can make one uncomfortable; the right to openness and freedom of speech in a democracy, but also responsibilities when that freedom may veer into aiding and abetting the enemy in times of war. Several other takes as well, including Ben-Dror Yemini of Ma'ariv and notes from the JPost's firing of NIF head, Naomi Chazan.
david brumer
seattle

The New Israel Fund has turned itself into yet another body, one among many in the world, that are party to global deception. There are a million and one attacks on human life and human rights in the world. Israel, as a state in the midst of conflict, makes fewer attacks than any other element. This has been verified. This is anchored in numbers. But it is Israel that absorbs most of the criticism. This is called demonization, delegitimization and obsession.
Ben-Dror Yemini--Ma'ariv

NIF, Democracy, Decency and Other Problems
Earlier this week I wrote about the New Israel Fund (NIF) affair that just blew up (here and here). As it was easy to foretell, the usual suspects immediately swung into action to portray the attack on the NIF as a bold attack on Israel's democracy. That was a no-brainer. Haaretz takes it one step further, and is digging deep into the matter of who funds Im Tirzu, the organization which launched the attack. If memory serves, it was only a few months ago that questions were raised about the sources of funding that benefit left-wing organizations, at which time they branded such questions as.... A threat to democracy. All of which seems to me a fine demonstration of democracy in action.
We don't like you, you don't like us, we think you're stinkers, you think we're funded by Bad Guys, we're convinced your backers are Evil... that's what freedom of speech is all about. That the tones in Israel are harsh and strident is because Israelis have a culture of discourse which is not at all like what they teach in Oxford. The rancor of American political discourse these past 15 years (or is it 50?) can't hold a candle to the vitality (nice name) or vehemence (realistic name) of standard Israeli fare. Just as the Israeli ability to come together at times of crises is quite unimaginable in America or Europe. (Well, the Americans didn't do badly on 9/12). This is the Jewish way: the Talmud has many examples of scholars bad-mouthing one another while simultaneously engaging each other in complex discussions, and uniting in the face of external enemies.The Arabic word which has been adopted (colonized) by modern Hebrew is dugri: when you tell your interlocutor what you really think about them. Israelis are extremely dugri; this also means they know where they stand with one another, and can get on with living together.

Which is not to say there's no substance to the present spat. There is.The decision by Im Tirzu to attack Naomi Hazan personally is bad taste and enables the NIF to change the subject; it may or may not be a good tactic, however, since it's certainly generating a lot of attention, and attention is what Im Tirzu wanted. So if it was a good tactic or not, the PR people will have to say.The decision of the NIF to respond as they're responding, however, is telling. They've got two official responses up, one in English, on the American NIF website, and the other in Hebrew on the Israeli NIF website. The English one is signed by an American, the Israeli one by an Israeli, and if you compare the two it's pretty clear they were both written by the same person. How does the NIF defend itself? Poorly. First, they're the victims. Second, democracy in Israel has been their doing (you might even think: almost only their doing). Third, the attack on them is part of a purposeful undermining of democracy in Israel. Fourth... well, I'd like to tell you that fourth is some sort of response to the allegations against them, but alas, it isn't. Naomi Hazan (in the Haaretz link above) says there's nothing to respond to (she's a professor, so she knows); the rest of her colleagues don't even go that far. The historical reality has been that NIF-funded organizations indeed have made valuable contributions to the Israeli political and social sphere. They have and hopefully will continue to play an important role. A democracy really does need as many voices as possible, and theirs is sometimes a valuable one. Sometimes, it isn't. That's the crux of the matter. Some of the same NGOs which participate positively in Israel's democracy, also take positions which are legal but morally and of course factually indefensible. Pretending this is not so is delusional. Claiming that they are above reproach is anti-democratic. Finally, there's the comic aspect of how thin their skin is. Remember, the NGOs in question dish out criticism, harsh criticism and sometimes rancid animosity; they often intentionally supply Israel's enemies with rhetorical ammunition against it at time of war. They've got a serious case to answer, and preening that requiring them to do so is antidemocratic, is silly.


New Israel Fund Head Naomi Chazan Fired from Jerusalem Post
In case you missed the reference in Hillel's post below, here's an article about Namoi Chazan's firing from the Jerusalem Post: Amid row over contentious ad, Jerusalem Post fires Naomi Chazan of New Israel Fund
The trouble with the NIF is not that they support groups that are simply critical of Israel out of love, they support groups that would like to see Israel fundamentally changed until the word had no meaning anymore, and it's good to see the matter finally getting the wide spread attention it deserves so people have all the facts before they decide to either give money or have the NIF at the table.
Also, see Caroline Glick: The New Israel Fund and the next war

Ben-Dror Yemini: 'The New Israel Fund is part of the global deception campaign.'

The following piece by Ben-Dror Yemini first appeared in Maariv Hebrew, here. Here is the English translation that's circulating:
SLUSH FUND
by Ben-Dror Yemini, Ma'ariv, 2.2.10
The New Israel Fund is part of the global deception campaign. It does not deal with human rights but with denying one people's right to self-determination.
The New Israel Fund is angry. It thinks that it is correct to spread false testimony about the State of Israel. It thinks that it is OK to participate in the demonization campaign of groups whose goal is to eliminate Israel. It thinks that it is OK to cooperate with the Goldstone Commission, even though it was established by the automatic majority of dark countries that controls the "UN Human Rights Council." It thinks that it is OK for Israel to cooperate with the Commission even though no country in the free world supported its establishment. It is certainly legitimate, in a democratic country, to do all these things. But there is something else that is also legitimate: Expose the truth about the Fund and the groups that falsely carry the description "human rights." If most of the political groups that are supported by the Fund do not recognize the State of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state - do not say human rights. Tell the truth: Denial of rights only for Jews. The Palestinians have the right to a state, a national state, of their own, just as the Croats, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks and other peoples do - but not the Jews.
For example, the New Israel Fund supports the Zochrot non-profit association, which openly aspires to eliminate the State of Israel via the realization of the "right of return." Not that there is any such right and not that there has been even one precedent of a mass "return" after post-war population exchanges - but this does not bother the Fund. It always jumps at the slogan "human rights."

None of this is to say that Israel is exempt from criticism. Among the hundreds of claims, there are those that have merit. But many sane people abhor the human rights bodies, not because they abhor human rights, on the contrary. It is because most sane people are fed up that human rights have become a weapon for dark forces.



The New Israel Fund has turned itself into yet another body, one among many in the world, that are party to global deception. There are a million and one attacks on human life and human rights in the world. Israel, as a state in the midst of conflict, makes fewer attacks than any other element. This has been verified. This is anchored in numbers. But it is Israel that absorbs most of the criticism. This is called demonization, delegitimization and obsession.
There is no defense of human rights here but rather an orchestrated campaign in the service of Iran and Hamas. This is not the Fund's intention but this is the result. Things should be called by their name. Most of the groups supported by the Fund deal in the delegitimization of Israel. But the Fund rolls its eyes and whines: What is wrong with human rights? There is nothing wrong. There is something wrong with those who clearly aspire to deny the Jews' right to exist in the only place where they have sovereignty, in order to turn Israel into a "state of all its citizens," in which the majority will be Hamas supporters. There is something wrong with those who want to perpetrate politicide on only one people in the world. There is something wrong with those who collaborate with dark forces and try to sell the lie that it is all about "human rights."

How is it that so many people, mainly Jews, support the Fund? How is it they facilitate this systematic campaign that masquerades as humanitarian and is, in effect, demonic? They are not anti-Semites. They are people with good intentions. Their rhetoric deals with human rights and minorities. Jews are sensitive to this and good for them. Most are simply unaware. Most truly and innocently want Israel to be more enlightened and more progressive, and stricter about human life and human rights. But they do not know that the money goes to other goals.
Even Professor Naomi Chazan, who heads the Fund, does not hate Israel. But what has happened to countless bodies that deal with "the rights talk" has happened to them. In the end, they serve the agenda of Iran and Hamas.
Human rights groups can restore the confidence in themselves. They need to support human rights, not groups that deal in denying Israel's right to exist. In the meantime, these groups, including the New Israel Fund, are the major enemy, not only of Israel but of the free world and human rights.

Click Here to Read More..