Al Helm: MLK in Palestine, Film & Discussion w/playwright & filmmaker

Kehilla Community Synagogue's Middle East Peace Committee is pleased to host this moving documentary and a post-screening discussion with award winning filmmaker, Connie Field (Have You Heard About Johannesburg) and Dr. Clay Carson, Stanford professor and founder of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Institute. They went to Israel/Palestine as Carson's play about King was being produced by the Palestinian National Theatre with the support of an African-American gospel choir in 2011. The singers, who didn't know each other beforehand, came from around the United States. They got to know one another as they also learned about the lives of the Palestinian actors in "The Holy Land" as they performed across the West Bank.

Field's film catches the intensity of the cultural exchange between the performers encompassing the joy and confusion of new friendships and creative collaborations amidst the hardships of Palestinian life under occupation. No one who participated remained unchanged.

The film is a moving tribute to the power of nonviolent resistance and cultural life and interchange as we commemorate the 49th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and challenge 50 years of Israeli Occupation.

This program is a fundraiser for the Center for Jewish Nonviolence,
http://www.centerforjewishnonviolence.org, our partner organization that leads delegations to Israel/Palestine, "engaging in creative nonviolent activism with the aim of bringing an end to the occupation."

$10 to $20 donation (No one turned away for lack of funds.).