METROPOLITAN CITY OF VENICE Film Festival
Sarah Friedland won Best Debut Film at the Venice Film Festival, accepting the Lion of the Future award in the Italian city at the weekend.
Familiar Touch won won three prizes at the festival’s 81st
edition—one for best debut feature, another for Chalfant as best actress
in the Orizzonti section (which the performer accepted in Italian), and
a third for Friedland as best director.
J Street strongly opposes efforts by congressional Republicans to cut US assistance to Palestinians and permanently ban funding for UNRWA – the only organization with the infrastructure, people and expertise to address the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
J Street is acutely aware of allegations that several of UNRWA’s 13,000 Gaza-based staff may have taken part in the horrific October 7 attack. We take these allegations seriously. We support full and thorough investigations underway to ensure accountability and initiate any necessary reforms, and urge Israeli authorities to provide investigators with details supporting the allegations. The Biden Administration’s temporary pause on payments to UNRWA shows that a permanent legislated ban is in no way necessary.
“It’s nauseating that while parents are watching children die of starvation and famine spreads across Gaza, MAGA Republicans are focused on amendments to tie the president’s hands and make this nightmare even worse. Being anti-Palestinian doesn’t make one pro-Israel. This focus on cruelty is wildly out of step with the American Jewish community’s values,” said Hannah Morris, Director of Government Affairs at J Street.
“Beyond the clear moral reasons to oppose this effort, this comes just weeks after former security officials warned that fuelling a humanitarian crisis on Israel’s doorstep poses a major risk to Israel’s own security and strategic interests. The blow to America’s international standing and moral authority will also be significant,” Morris said.
On March 10, Commanders for Israel’s Security – an Israeli group comprised of hundreds of former Israeli security officials, including former heads of the IDF and Mossad – warned that the humanitarian crisis was “a threat to vital national interests” and was dealing “cumulative damage to Israel’s security and strategic interests.”
Born in Warsaw Poland in 1907, graduated from University of Berlin died in 1972 in New York City. In late October 1938, when Heschel was living in a rented room in the home of a Jewish family in Frankfurt, he was arrested by the Gestapo and deported to Poland in the Polenaktion.
Heschel's sister Esther was killed in a German bombing. His mother was murdered by the Nazis, and two other sisters, Gittel and Devorah, died in Nazi concentration camps. He never returned to Germany, Austria or Poland. He once wrote, "If I should go to Poland or Germany, every stone, every tree would remind me of contempt, hatred, murder, of children killed, of mothers burned alive, of human beings asphyxiated.
Heschel arrived in New York City in March 1940
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel believed that no religious community could claim a monopoly on religious truth. For these and other reasons, Martin Luther King Jr. called Heschel "a truly great prophet." Heschel actively participated in the Civil Rights movement, and was a participant in the third Selma to Montgomery march, accompanying Dr. King and John Lewis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Joshua_Heschel
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| Heschel, left, presenting the Judaism and World Peace Award to Martin Luther King Jr., December 7, 1965 |
"The opposite of good is not evil, the opposite of good is indifference."
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| 500 Jews and allies took over the Statue of Liberty, disrupting business as usual to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. |
NOT IN OUR NAME
