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This Is Not Your Grandmother’s America
More and more, one hears Jews standing up for Palestinian rights.
When I left Youngstown, Ohio for Palestine over two decades ago, serious conversations about Palestine were fringe, if not taboo. Those who knew anything about the topic didn’t want to discuss it, while others were simply uninformed (I’ll never forget meeting Americans who thought I was from Pakistan).
Fast forward to today, Palestine and Israel are openly discussed, from college campuses across the country to the airwaves of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
A case in point of Palestine mainstreaming in the US is the recent PBS’ airing of a new documentary, Naila and the Uprising, a story of a courageous, non-violent women’s movement that formed the heart of the Palestinian struggle for freedom during the 1987 uprising, known as the first Intifada. One woman whose story is told there — she happens to be a friend of mine — must make a choice between love, family and freedom. Undaunted, she embraces all three.
Naila and the Uprising is a film production by the non-profit Washington D.C.-based Just Vision, where I proudly serve as a board member, alongside several Jewish American colleagues. Over the years their films on Israel/Palestine have been making great strides in advancing the…
