HERITAGE FLORIDA JEWISH NEWS, MARCH 8, 2019 PAGE 3A
e
(JNS)--Israeli govern-
ment officials congratulated
Israeli director Guy Nattiv for
winning the Academy Award
for Live Action Short Film
on Sunday--the first Israeli
Oscar in 41 years.
"Skin," a 20-minute movie,
focuses on hate crimes and
their impact on a skinhead
and two young children, one
black and one white.
The elated Nattiv ascended
the stage to accept his award,
telling attendees that "I
moved here five years ago
from Israel," adding "Lila Tov,
Yisrael!" (Goodnight, Israel!).
"My grandparents are Ho-
locaust survivors," he said.
"The bigotry that they ex-
perienced in the Holocaust,
we see that everywhere
today--in America and in
Europe. This film is about
education; it's about teach-
ing your kids a better way."
"We dedicate this to our
5-month-old baby, who is
sitting at home with my
parents watching this,"
said Nattiv's wife and film
producer, Jaime Ray New-
man. "We hope that you
grow up in a world where
these things don't happen
because people learn to love
and accept each other."
Israelis screenwriter Sha-
ron Maymon also accepted the
award, and told Ynet that "it's
exciting to realize a childhood
dream and send a message
about racism, parenthood and
education.
Israeli President Reuven
Rivlin congratulated Rivlin
on Twitter.
"Congratulations to Guy
Nattiv on winning Best Live
Action Short at tonight's
Academy Awards. Dear Guy,
all credit for 'SKIN' goes to
you, Sharon and Jaime Ray,
but the movie is a gift to our
children and grandchildren
and for the future we wish for
them," Rivlinwrote. "Proud to
be Israeli! Mazal Tov!"
"This win is another story of
the success of Israeli cinema,"
said Sports and Culture Min-
ister Miri Regev. "Nattiv, the
son of Holocaust survivors.
Nattiv's win, for a film about
hatred and racism, is an im-
portant cinematic chapter in
the uncompromising struggle
against those who choose
racism as their way of life. I
congratulate Guy and all those
whowere partners in his film."
Yisrael Beytenu leader
Avigdor Lieberman said Nattiv
was "waving a red flag with his
film in front of the troubling
growth of anti-Semitism in
the world. It is more food for
thought for Jews around the
world that only Israel is their
real home."
The last Israeli film which
won anOscar was the 1979
"Madame Rosa," which won
Best Foreign Language Film
for its adaptation of the 1975
novel "The Life Before Us" by
Romain Gary.
Nattiv's full-length film,
also titled "Skin," is based on
an 2012 MSNBC documentary
about Bryon Widner, one of
Director Guy Nattiv and his wife, film producer Jaime Ray
Newman, accept the Academy Award for Best Short Film
for "Skin," Feb. 24, 2019.
the FBI's most wanted white
supremacists, who changed
his ways after meeting a single
mother and her three young
daughters. It is expected to be
released later this year.
Eitan Tal
Shown here (l-r): Heather Johnston, founder and executive director of USIEA; Ashraf
Jabari, a Palestinian business and community leader from Hebron; and Avi Zimmerman,
co-founder of the JSC.
By Israel Kasnett
(JNS)--With so many new
businesses sprouting up in Is-
raeli and Palestinian commu-
nities in Judea and Samaria,
isn't it possible to create some
form of collaboration between
them to share resources and
take advantage of shared op-
portunities? That's what many
people hope to achieve.
Last week, the Judea Sa-
maria Chamber of Commerce
and the U.S. Israel Education
Association came together
at Jerusalem's David Citadel
hotel to launch the Regional
Development Financial Ini-
tiative as part of the Israeli-
Palestinian International
Economic Forum. It would
see Israeli and Palestinian
business leaders in Judea and
Samaria partner together to
advance regional economic
opportunities.
Avi Zimmerman, co-found-
er of the JSC, told JNS that
"the objective is economic
development for the region
of Judea and Samaria. As
we see it, from a capitalist
perspective, economic devel-
opment is for all parties--all
populations living in the
area--and through all par-
ties. We need to engage the
business community, which
needs to become a leader. It's
an area that lives with a great
deal of uncertainty. We need
to create circumstances that
are more conducive to stabil-
ity and sustainability."
Zimmerman highlighted
the possibilities of collabora-
tion, which include the tech
industry, tourism, rehabilita-
tion projects, transportation,
regional development and
plenty of other areas. He ad-
dressed the elephant in the
room, of course, which is
the political aspect of Israeli-
Palestinian relations, but said
that the emphasis is on busi-
ness a|one, with the intention
of staying away from politics.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel
David Friedman seemed to
support this when he ad-
dressed the forum. "The politi-
cal process will continue," he
said. "We're hopeful we will
make real progress on that in
the near future, but it is never
a substitute or a means to de-
lay the opportunity to provide
a better future for the Jews and
the Palestinians in Judea and
Samaria, who are entitled to
the very same things that we
all want for our families."
Eli Cohen, Israel's Minister
of Economy and Industry,
spoke about the government's
commitment to the economic
development of Judea and
Samaria. "The State of Israel
is a country of innovation and
technology," said Cohen during
his address at the forum. "There
is a term we use called tikkun
olam, which means 'repairing
the world.' We are trying to
make the world a better place,
andwe use technology to make
Israelabetter place. I congratu-
late all those who took part
in organizing this important
Viability on page 14A
By Ben Sales
(JTA)--Deborah Lipstadt,
the prominent Holocaust
historian, is resigning her
membership in her local
synagogue because it be-
longs to a movement that
defended an Israeli politi-
cal deal with the extremist
right wing.
Lipstadt belonged to
Young Israel of Toco Hills
in Atlanta, an Orthodox
congregation. The broader
Young Israel movement, in
a statement Monday to the
Jewish Telegraphic Agency,
defended an agreement be-
tween Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and
Jewish Power, a far-right
political party. Critics of
the deal note that Jewish
Power is led by followers of
the late Rabbi Meir Kahane,
who advocated the expulsion
of Arabs from Israel.
"Prime Minister Netan-
yahu acted to get right-wing
parties to merge in order to
meet the threshold necessary
to secure avictory in the elec-
tion," read the statement by
Farley Weiss, president of the
National Council of Young
Israel. "We understand what
Prime Minister Netanyahu
did, and he did it to have min-
isters of the national religious
and national union parties in
his coalition."
The rabbi of Lipstadt's
synagogue, Adam Starr,
himself condemned the
statement in a Facebook post
Monday, writing "Not in my
name and not in my shul's
name!" But Lipstadt still felt
that she could not continue to
be associated with the Young
Israel movement, despite
having fond words for her
synagogue and rabbi.
"I cannot be associated
with an organization that
gives such racism, celebra-
tion of violence, and immoral
policies a'heksher,'" or impri-
matur, she wrote in an open
letter posted to Facebook
Tuesday. "At this time of ris-
ing antisemitism, Jew hatred,
and prejudice of all kinds,
each of us--and not just
our spiritual leaders--must
speak out and act individu-
ally and collectively. And so
I speak out with deep sadness
that such a despicable action
is given 'cover' by people who
claim to walk in the ways of
the Kadosh Baruch Hu," a
Hebrew term for God.
Lipstadt told JTA Tuesday
that she felt a particular
urgency to act because her
latest book is about present-
day anti-Semitism.
"This is a party that has
racist views," she said. "This
is a party that condones
murder. This is a party that
condones the man who
committed the largest mass
murder in Israel by a Jew.
Those are all things that I
find despicable, and to say
it's just politics is really bad."
One of the leaders of Jewish
Power hung a picture in his
home of Baruch Goldstein,
the Jewish terrorist who
killed 29 Palestinians at
the Cave of the Patriarchs
in 1994.
Lipstadt also condemned
Netanyahu for the agree-
ment, which saw Jewish
Power merge with other
right-wing parties in a joint
slate for Israel's upcoming
election. The unified slate
will give the parties a better
chance of getting enough
votes to enter Israel's Knes-
set. She said the deal was
of a piece with Netanyahu's
recent tendency to cozy up to
right-wing nationalist lead-
ers in Europe, like Hungarian
Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
"It was sadly in sync with
a number of things we've
seen," she said. "This was just
one more step but this was a
dealbreaker."
Netanyahu defended the
deal on Twitter by noting that
the Labor Party partnered
with non-Zionist Arab par-
ties to maintain power in the
mid-1990s.
"Such hypocrisy and dou-
ble standards from the left,"
Netanyahu wrote. "They con-
demn a bloc on the right with
right wing parties while the
left worked to bring extrem-
ist Islamists into Knesset to
create a bloc The height of
absurdity."
9
(JNS)--U.S. Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo declined
to comment on last week's
controversial merger between
the Jewish Home and the far-
right Otzma Yehudit parties
ahead of the Israeli elections
in April.
"We're not about to get
involved in an election, to
interfere in an election of
a democracy, Pompeo told
CNN's Jake Tapper on Sun-
day. "Election campaigns are
tough. We'll allow the Israeli
people to sort this out, and I
am confident that when the
election's over the United
States will continue to have a
strong, important, very, very
deep relationship with Israel
that protects the American
people and benefits Israel
as well."
Otzma Yehudit, or "Jewish
Power," was formed by follow-
ers of the late extremist Rabbi
Meir Kahane, who was based
in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Last week, the American
Israel Public Affairs Commit-
tee and the American Jewish
Committee condemned the
merger.
"The views of Otzma Yehu-
dit are reprehensible. They do
not reflect the core values that
are the very foundation of the
State of Israel," said AJC in a
statement, prefacing that it
was compelled to speak out
despite its prerogative not to
"comment on political par-
ties and candidates during
an election."
"The party might conceiv-
ably gain enough votes to
enter the next Knesset, and
potentially even become
part of the governing coali-
tion," added the organization.
"Historically, the views of ex-
tremist parties, reflecting the
extreme left or the extreme
right, have been firmly re-
jected by mainstream parties,
even if the electoral process of
Israel's robust democracy has
enabled their presence, how-
ever small, in the Knesset."
"We agree with AJC. AIPAC
has a longstanding policy
not to meet with members of
this racist and reprehensible
party," the latter tweeted.
Despite Israeli Prime Min-
ister Benjamin Netanyahu
brokering the merger, AIPAC
announced that he will ad-
dress next month's annual
policy conference in Wash-
ington.
