Jewish community needs to reevaluate focus on Holocaust

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Natalie Portman says Jewish community needs to reevaluate focus on Holocaust


American actress Natalie Portman

American-Israeli actress questions whether Jewish education should prioritize Holocaust over other tragedies

American-Israeli actress Natalie Portman has called on the Jewish community to question how much emphasis it places on the Holocaust in comparison to other atrocities.

Portman, who is Jewish, said during an interview with British newspaper The Independent that she had begun to question whether it is correct for Jewish education institutions to prioritize the Jewish Holocaust that took place in Europe during World War II above other tragedies.

The actress, who was born in Jerusalem and emigrated with her family to the US at the age of three, told The Independent that the education she received at Jewish schools in America led her question how much focus is put on the Holocaust.

“I think a really big question the Jewish community needs to ask itself, is how much at the forefront we put Holocaust education," the star said during the interview. "Which is, of course, an important question to remember and to respect, but not over other things."

Portman said that she began to question the emphasis put on the Holocaust after she visited a museum about the Rwandan Genocide in 2007 and realized she was not taught about it in school.

"I was shocked that that [genocide] was going on while I was in school. We were learning only about the Holocaust and it was never mentioned and it was happening while I was in school," Portman told The Independent. "That is exactly the type of problem with the way it’s taught. I think it needs to be taught, and I can’t speak for everyone because this was my personal education."

“We need to be reminded that hatred exists at all times and reminds us to be empathetic to other people that have experienced hatred also. Not used as a paranoid way of thinking that we are victims," she said. "Sometimes it can be subverted to fear-mongering and like ‘Another Holocaust is going to happen’. "

"I don’t mean to make false equivalences, we need it to serve as something that makes us empathetic to people rather than paranoid,” she added.

Portman also discussed her directional debut, "A Tale of Love and Darkness" - an adaptation of Amos Oz’s memoir about the birth of Israel and the impact that it had on his family.

Portman also plays Oz’s mother, Fania in the film, during which she speaks Hebrew. Even though she had studied Hebrew at school “it was more challenging than I expected,” she told The Independent. “I am pretty good but I still make a lot of grammatical errors, and I had to work a lot on my accent. It was okay to have an accent because my character in the movie is an immigrant, but it’s not OK for her to have an American accent.”

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This is a very fascinating and honest speech of the Israeli author Amos Oz

[Jaga]

I always liked Natalie Portman and I guess I was right in this aspect.
She is not only beautiful and intelligent but she also has a broad perspective into the world.

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Nathalie played in the Movie Free Zone about Israeli Jewish and Palestinian Arab women who travel together

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Palestinian actress of Free Zone and director of Le Donne della Vucciria:





Hiam Abbass



Hiam Abbass (Arabic: هيام عباس‎; Hebrew: היאם עבאס‎ born November 30, 1960), also Hiyam Abbas, is an Israeli Arab actress and film director of Palestinian descent.

Personal life

Hiam Abbass was born into a Muslim family in Nazareth, Israel. She was raised in the Arab village of Deir Hanna.

During the filming of the Steven Spielberg film Munich, Abbass lived in a hotel with the Arab and Israeli actors for three months. During that time, they had many discussions that "helped both sides grow closer." In an interview in 2006, Abbass said, "I still remember how difficult it was for the Arab actors to manhandle the Israeli actors in the first scene where the Israeli national team is taken hostage."

Film career

Abbass is known for her roles in Satin Rouge (2002), Haifa (1996), Paradise Now (2005), The Syrian Bride (2004), Free Zone (2005), Dawn of the World (2008), The Visitor (2008), Lemon Tree (2008), Everyday is a Holiday (2009) and Amreeka (2009). In Spielberg's film, depicting the response to the Munich Massacre, she also served as a dialect and acting consultant.

















She directed two short films, Le Pain (2001), and La Danse éternelle (2004). She portrays humanitarian Hind al-Husseini in Julian Schnabel's film Miral (2010), based on the life of Husseini and her orphanage.



In 2002, she appeared in Satin Rouge by Raja Amari, a film about the self-discovery of a middle aged Tunisian widow. She also a similar role in The Syrian Bride, about a Druze woman eager to break down barriers.

Abbass appeared in the French films "Le sac de farine" and "Le temps de la balle".





In 2008, she played the mother of an illegal Syrian immigrant in Thomas McCarthy's movie The Visitor, and the mother of an Iraqi soldier in Abbas Fahdel's film Dawn of the World.



Also in 2008, she played the principal role in Israeli director Eran Riklis's film Lemon Tree (Etz Limon in Hebrew). For this role, she won Best Performance by an Actress at the 2008 Asia Pacific Screen Awards. In Jim Jarmusch's 2009 film The Limits of Control, in the role of Driver, she recites in Classical Arabic one of the film's leitmotif-phrases, "He who thinks he is bigger than the rest must go to the cemetery. There he will see what life really is."



Abbass also appears in A Bottle in the Gaza Sea (2011), a French-Québéecois-Israeli film produced by Thierry Binisti. It is based upon the young adult novel Une bouteille dans la mer de Gaza by Valérie Zenatti. She plays the role of Naïm's mother.



In 2012, she was named as a member of the Jury for the Main Competition at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.

She made her directorial feature film debut with The Inheritance in 2012.



Interview in Arabic about cinema, the Palestinian cause and the Intifada!

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