The AICE (Australia-Israel Cultural Exchange) Israeli Film Festival this year is hosting Brigadier General Gal Hirsch as a special guest, where he will be introducing a documentary about his life as well as appearing at community events and visiting Jewish schools. AJDS is deeply concerned by this decision to foreground Hirsch, his story and his actions in […]
By Sol Salbe. This year’s Israeli Film Festival in Australia deserves a lot more attention than in most years. But before saying anything I need to disclose that in 2013 I had a serious clash with the Israeli Film Festival organisers over the way in which the financial powers that be overruled the Israeli artist […]
Gesher Le-Aravit (Bridge to Arabic) is a grassroots Arab-Jewish project and a unique social change model, developed by four teachers in Jisr A Zarqa, the poorest Arab village in the country. The project offers Jewish Israelis from all over the country to learn the Arabic language and culture in an Arabic-speaking environment. To this day, more […]
‘Tales of a City by the Sea’ is a play about Gaza, which tells of a love story set amid war and siege, remains on the VCE curriculum despite accusations it spreads anti-semitism. “It seems that I, the writer, missed the memo that I can’t write an artistic piece about Palestinian life without inserting Israel’s […]
Samah Sabawi’s play “Tales of a City by the Sea” was recently named by the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC), chaired by Dvir Abramovich, as a text that incites against Israel and should therefore be removed from the VCE curriculum. The ADC claimed that the play portrayed Israel as a “blood-thirsty, evil war-machine” and amounts to “anti-Israel propaganda”. This […]
By Keren Tova Rubinstein Sary Zananiri’s mounted and manipulated photographs in Unpicking Jerusalem: a re-examination of the archives reflect Jerusalem’s historical trajectory from 1850-2015 in overt and subtle ways. Though the subject is as infinite as time itself, and though the architectural and human landscape that comprises this place is equally vast and complex, entering […]
By Ann Fink Tales of a City by the Sea was a stunning theatrical experience. It is a many layered love story, set in the Gaza Strip. It is a unique play, written by Samah Sabawi, a Palestinian-Canadian-Australian writer, poet, playwright and political commentator; a wordsmith of great talent. It is a poetic and musical […]
On the Banks of the Tigris: the hidden story of Iraqi music has just been completed! This feature length documentary shows the human face of Iraqis and their culture – a face that’s missing from most media. When Majid Shokor escaped from Iraq he discovered that the songs he loved as a child in Baghdad […]
By Keren Rubinstein Can art stand up to the Occupation? Is it crude or privileged to turn to art when countless lives are relinquished for political gain? Perhaps. And yet, I wanted to look at Israeli and Palestinian visual portrayals of the ongoing disempowerment, appropriation and violence entailed by the Occupation. Can I group Palestinian […]
By Micaela Sahhar Shrinking Policing over the possible, Dagan, I note down now how you would note rumours as facts. Surveying a space where (it was said) the dead (even then) had no land, as those who still made sound scooped trenches for an olive grove whose massive roots heaved like a pod […]