South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Festival films focus on Black-Jewish alliance
A new program by the Miami Jewish Film Festival focuses on connections between the Black and Jewish communities.
For its 24th edition, MJFF is launching the inaugural Building Bridges/ Breaking Barriers program featuring six films that are available for all Florida residents to stream online for free from April 15-29.
Igor Shteyrenberg, the film festival’s executive director, said, “We believe that cinema has the ability to act as an agent for change, giving a voice to the voiceless, offering new perspectives and connecting people from around the globe, whether they’re Jewish or non-Jewish.”
“We hope that through our Building Bridges/Breaking Barriers program, we can all learn to do a better job at standing against all forms of racism, bigotry and xenophobia, and engage in the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, or repairing the
world, and do so in the pursuit of social justice,” Shteyrenberg continued.
Among the films include “Dreams of Hope,” which makes its Florida premiere at the festival. The concert
documentary tells the story of a performance at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL more than 50 years
after a hate crime there killed four Black girls. The concert, conducted by Dr. Henry Panion III — the film’s director — also features violins restored from Holocaust concentration camps.
Panion said, “When you look at the plight of the Jews and the Holocaust, and you look at the plight of African Americans in this country, particularly as it pertains to the Civil Rights movement and of course present-day turmoil, strife and all the things that seem to plague us, I think the beautiful aspect of the film demonstrates triumph over tragedy and the beauty that there is rebirth out of destruction.”
“The overarching theme is the dreams of hope, which is the hope for a better world, better society and better relations among people of the world,” he continued.
“They Ain’t Ready For Me” makes its Miami premiere at the festival. The documentary is about
Tamar Manasseh, founder of Mothers Against Senseless Killings and a Black rabbinical student who is a leading activist against gun violence in Chicago.
Brad Rothschild, the film’s director, said, “Tamar is both Black and Jewish, so she has a really interesting perspective on the Black-Jewish alliance.”
“To my thinking, she can serve as bridge between the two communities in the United States,” Rothschild continued. “I feel that Black Jews have a very important role to serve as that bridge.”
Manasseh hopes audiences can take away from her story that anyone can be involved as an activist.
“Everyone can do something,” she said. “There’s no classes that you need to take to be an activist. It’s not something that you need major qualifications for.”
Also making its Miami premiere is the documentary
“Shared Legacies: The African American-Jewish Civil Rights Alliance.”
The film, produced and developed by Spill the Honey Foundation, is about the
Black-Jewish civil rights alliance that featured Harry Belafonte, Jesse Jackson and the late John Lewis.
Shari Rogers, the film’s director and foundation’s president, said, “Spill The Honey Foundation’s primary goal today is to reignite the power of Black and Jewish memory by lighting a fire under both communities to again work together, inspired by the recognition of their shared history fighting injustice.”
“We must also use their shared history as a template for bridge building today,” Rogers continued. “A renewed alliance is especially relevant at this moment of racial reckoning and rising anti-Semitism.”
Other films in the program making premieres are “A Crime on the Bayou,” “Tahara” and the short film “Broken Bird.”
Visit miamijewishfilmfestival.org or call 305-5737304 for more information.
The festival is a program of the Center for the Advancement of Jewish Education, a subsidiary of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation.