BY JODY BENSON
Los Alamos
First, thanks to Rabbi Jack Shlachter for bringing attention to the Palestinian Summer Series and for advocating for free speech and discussion (https://losalamosreporter.com/2025/07/15/lte-free-palestine-summer-series-not-as-benign-as-it-sounds/). The Series will be Free at SALA at 7 p.m. on Tuesdays: July 22, Aug. 5, and 19, and Sept. 9,10, and 11. And in fact, education and discussion are the purpose of this series.
Rabbi Shlachter is correct that peace requires discernment and an unwavering rejection of hate. To advance discernment and rejection of hate, the films in this series show the rarely seen Palestinian point of view from behind the fences and within the rubble. They allow us to see Palestinians as human beings who want the right to provide for their parents and children, to have food and shelter, who mourn the loss of family and land….
And yes, Israelis and Jews are being targeted in America. But those murders in America are spawned by rage and revenge—just as Israel’s rage justifies its ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
I was a little girl when I first found out about the Nazi Holocaust. When I asked my daddy why America let this happen (that was back in the days when America was the moral leader of the world), he soothed my distress by making the excuse, “Well, because nobody knew. Nobody knew until the concentration camps were liberated. But when we found out,” he assured me, “we all joined together to fix the injustice. And now we have the UN and Israel.”
Now, 70 years older, the reality was: Of course people knew. In Europe people saw their neighbors disappear. In the US, newspapers reported what Hitler was doing to his opponents including communists, gypsies, unionists, and Jews.
Now, as then, Americans know what’s happening in Palestine. We also probably know that our continued arming of the Israeli government supports its ethnic cleansing in Gaza as well as its squeezing Palestinians from their lands in the West Bank. Once again, as when America ignored the Holocaust, we’re on the wrong side of history.
It is to subvert this excuse of not knowing that our group, some of us formerly life-long Zionists, is presenting this series of films. We believe that if good people are informed, we will take action. The film will suggest some action we can take.
So come to the Palestine Summer Film Series at SALA. Let’s learn. Let’s talk. Don’t be afraid of being labeled antisemitic. Being compassionate, or at least curious, doesn’t make you an antisemite, any more than standing against ICE raids and deporting immigrants to South Sudan makes you anti-American. All the prophets criticized their regimes and the sins of their people. In the end, history—and God—sided with the prophets.
Check out the Resources Page for Where Olive Trees Weep, the first film of the series: https://whereolivetreesweep.com/resources/.