The Sephardic Congregation of Teaneck will hold a movie night on Motzaei Shabbat, February 25, at 8 p.m. The film to be shown is the documentary, “What I Saw in Hevron.” The movie will be presented at the Shulman Auditorium, Cong. Beth Sholom, 354 Maitland Avenue, Teaneck.
Teaneck’s mayor, Mohammed Hameeduddin, a recent participant in the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Muslim Leadership Initiative, will participate in a “talk-back” about the film and a Q&A dialogue.
Pre-paid registration due by Wednesday, February 22.
Cost of reservations is $12 for members; $15 for non-members; and $18 at the door. Checks may be sent to Shaarei Orah, 1425 Essex Road, Teaneck, NJ 07666 or you can request a “copy and paste” registration link by e-mailing [email protected].
“What I Saw in Hevron” begins with an eyewitness account of the 1929 Arab pogroms in Hebron written by 16-year-old Zmira Mani, daughter of the Sephardic chief rabbi of Hebron. While the account describes the vicious slaughter of the Jewish community, it also records the role of Arab rescuers who saved their Jewish neighbors at the peril of their lives. While the pogrom was remembered, the rescuers were forgotten. We hear, and in more discreet fashion, see what happened in horrifying detail.
The film then shifts to modern Hebron. In today’s Hebron we meet Jewish settlers who declare Arabs can never be trusted. Yet there are Jewish Hebron families who would gladly return to their original homes to live among Hebron’s over 200,000 Palestinian Arabs but don’t want to be associated with the present-day settlers there, some of whom live in the houses they grew up in. We meet Arabs who were among the rescuers who would welcome the return of their historic neighbors, and others who declare that Arabs and Jews can never live together in peace.
“What I Saw in Hebron” is a provocative documentary steeped in the conflicting narratives and diametrically opposed Israeli and Palestinian claims regarding what both consider to be their home.
The film ultimately is so nuanced that it speaks to the left and the right of the political spectrum and tends to please and displease each side equally.
Beautifully filmed and narrated in Hebrew with English subtitles, “What I Saw in Hebron” is a must see!
