Sunday, November 23, 2014, 2:00 p.m.
Location: The Little Theatre, 240 East Avenue, Rochester NY ~ Tickets WPFS pass or $8 student, $10 others from The Little box office
Film run time: 57 minutes ~ Style: documentary ~ Language: English ~ Format: video projection from DVD ~ Year released: 2013
Filmmaker Alice Rothchild is an American Jew raised on the tragedies of the Holocaust and the dream of a Jewish homeland in Israel. Voices Across the Divide follows her personal journey as she begins to understand the Palestinian narrative while exploring the Palestinian experience of loss, occupation, statelessness, and immigration to the US. The documentary is both a personal journey to understand the Palestinian narrative as well as the implications and contradictions of deeply held cultural beliefs in the Jewish community.
Rothchild interviews those who participated in the Nakba – and those affected by it.
Themes covered in the interviews include:
- History background starting with 1890 as Jews fled anti-Semitism and persecution in Russia
- Mandate Palestine
- Jewish immigration surged with the Nazi holocaust
- UN 1947 resolution
- Internally displaced
- Extent to which Arab leaders told their people to flee
- Arab families often left their homes to avoid violence – with the idea they’d be able to return in days or weeks
- Destroyed Arab villages
- Absent present
- Present-day unequal treatment under the law
Voices Across the Divide co-won the 2013 Audience Award (with “A World Not Ours”) at the Boston Palestinian Film Festival.
Panelist
Alice Rothchild
Alice Rothchild is co-director of the film we’re screening, Voices Across the Divide. She’s a retired physician, activist, and author. Her books are:
- Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience
- On the Brink: Israel and Palestine on the Eve of the 2014 Gaza Invasion
Alice is co-founder and co-chair of American Jews for a Just Peace-Boston, is on the coordinating committee of Jewish Voice for Peace Boston, and has organized health and human rights delegations to Israel and Palestine since 2003, lecturing widely, and writing numerous articles.
She’ll join us in person for the panel.