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by Hadassa Ben Ari, illustrated by Tehila Bar-Hama
by Ammiel Hirsch
Uri is bored hanging around his parents’ delicatessen in 1930s Tel-Aviv until his German-speaking Grandma takes him on a walk and introduces him to the famous classical musician, Mr. Huberman, a friend she knew back in Europe. A Concert in the Sand tells the story of the first performance of what was to become Israel’s Philharmonic Orchestra.
Whenever the author-illustrator runs in a field, climbs a hill, or swims in the sea in Israel, she looks for something small to hold in her hand. She finds a basalt pebble from the ice-cold Dan River, formed from lava over 100,000 years ago. Israel’s national bird, the hoopoe, leaves a feather in the grass at HaYarkon Park. Dead hood coral grows in the Red Sea, where fish play hide-and-seek. She holds small things in her hand and then leaves them in their habitats . . . for the reader to find.
The life story of Hadassah founder Henrietta Szold’s upbringing in Baltimore and her social justice work to help Jewish immigrants assimilate into American society and later, when Hitler came to power, to save Jewish children by organizing their transfer to pre-Israel Palestine.
A Sweet Meeting on Mimouna Night tells the story of a young Jewish girl in Morocco who is helping her mother gather flour from her Muslim neighbors to make special pancakes that are only eaten on the last day of Passover as they celebrate the Jewish-Moroccan holiday Mimouna.
ABC Israel, introduces readers to Israel’s people, food, languages, and more with colorful pictures, while also teaching the alphabet.
Aleph- Bet Israel introduces young readers to the Hebrew alphabet and popular sites around Israel using whimsical illustrations.
Sahay and Rahel are all alone, traveling through strange and dangerous territory in Ethiopia, trying to reach Jerusalem. They are both brave, but is bravery enough to survive?
Set in 1973, Melanie desperately wants to be accepted by the Shimmers, the popular girls in her class, but when she gets to know Dorit, the new girl from Israel, she must choose between popularity and true friendship.
As the UN votes to create a Jewish State, Aleppo explodes in a pogrom against its Jewish community. As the riot rages, young Ezra sets out to retrieve a midwife for his pregnant mother.
Yosef Mendelevich had always known he was Jewish, but in the USSR, teaching about Judaism was against the law. So Yosef applied for and was denied permission to leave the Soviet Union and move to Israel. This began Yosef’s harrowing journey through labor camps and prisons to ultimately achieve his dream of practicing Judaism and living in the Jewish homeland.
A memoir of former Mossad agent Gad Shimron’s experiences in the operation to rescue Ethiopian Jews from Sudan. First published in Hebrew in 1998, Shimron offers a thrilling, firsthand account of how the operation was put in place, and how the Mossad team in Sudan brought it off, despite great personal risk, running a partying vacation spot for wealthy tourists by day as they stole through the Sudanese desert to rescue desperate refugees by night.
As the world drifts closer to war and the nations shut their gates, a clandestine movement arises to get Jews out of Europe and into Mandatory Palestine before it’s too late. Spanning from the turbulent 1930s to the birth of the modern state of Israel, No Other Place on Earth is a story of family, duty, and enduring love that will appeal to readers who enjoy historical fiction.
Drawing from intensive on-the-ground reporting in Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon, Douglas Murray places the latest violence in its proper historical context. He takes readers on a harrowing journey through the aftermath of the October 7 massacre, piecing together the exclusive accounts from victims, survivors, and even the terrorists responsible for the atrocities. If left unchecked, misplaced sympathy could embolden forces that seek to undermine not only Israel, but all of Western civilization.
As a museum tour guide, the author educated visitors about the Jewish Adeni community and their abrupt flight from Yemen. Passage from Aden is a collection of true stories based on the author’s conversations with visitors from around the world who came to tour the Aden Jewish Heritage Museum in Tel Aviv. Amusing, poignant, insightful, these stories will take readers to forgotten times and places.
These are the stories of eight individuals who have gone above and beyond for Israel and the Jewish people during a difficult and turbulent period. Largely unheralded and not in the headlines, their stories can inspire us. They each demonstrate unique attributes. Collectively they teach us what it means to pursue a righteous path in the twenty-first century.
Raquela Prywes was a ninth-generation Jerusalemite who found her calling as a hospital and battlefield nurse, delivering babies in the Atlit detention camp, where Holocaust survivors were interned by the British, and tending the wounded during the 1948 War of Independence. This is the true story of a remarkable woman whose life mirrored the trials and tribulations of the beginning of the modern State of Israel.
Hebrew title: Machsomim
Directed by: Yoav Shamir
Produced by: Amit Breuer
Hebrew / Arabic / English; English subtitles
80 minutes
The film presents a one-sided depiction of the inconveniences to Palestinians caused by Israeli checkpoints.
Directed by Ronit Avni and Julia Bacha
Just Vision Films
Arabic, English, Hebrew
85 minutes
The documentary follows the stories of a South African-Israeli mother, a former settler, a former Palestinian protestor, an Israeli father, a Palestinian Christian father and a Palestinian ex-prisoner, all of whom are dealing with the loss of a loved one due to the conflict.
Distributed by Kino Lorber
Produced and Directed by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi
Hebrew/Arabic; English subtitles
90 minutes
This heavily edited, agenda-driven film purports to document the daily lives of the Palestinian film-maker and his fellow villagers and their activism against the Israeli security fence and settlements. 5 Broken Cameras is Palestinian film-maker Emad Burnat’s diary of his fellow villagers’ protest response to Israel’s security fence and to Jewish settlements on what he considers his land. Hailed as an artistic success, the film won an award at the prestigious Sundance Festival.
Directed by: Iman Zawahry
Produced by: Rifk Ebeid
English
~6 minutes
A frequent feature of anti-Israel activism is erasing the State of Israel from the map and replacing it with Palestine. One insidious example of this comes in the short video “I am from Palestine.”
Directed by Tim Wolochatiuk
Associated Producers
52 minutes, English
This moving documentary about the Israeli victims of the 2001 suicide bombing at the Sbarro pizerria follows terror victims in the years after the bombing, documenting both the immediate and the ripple effects of the violence on their subsequent lives.
Directed by: Erin Axelman and Sam Eilertsen
Produced by: Daniel J. Chalfen, Nadia Saah, and Erin Axelman
English, Arabic with English subtitles
124 minutes
Israelism is a lurid example of an increasingly popular genre of filmmaking that purports to be a documentary exposing human rights abuses but is really disguised political propaganda.
Directed by Mark Jonathan Harris
Narrated by Morgan Freeman
English, B&W, Color
120 min
At a time when Israel’s legitimacy is increasingly challenged and overt anti-Semitism again menaces Jews, the Academy Award winning documentary, “The Long Way Home,” provides a powerful reminder of the heroic effort to re-establish the Jewish homeland in the wake of the European Holocaust.
Written and Directed by Rona Segal;
Produced by Idit Klinger, Kobi Mizrahi;
Distributed by New York Times Op-Doc;
Hebrew, English with English subtitles;
22 minutes
The film purports to show reluctant soldier whistleblowers divulging tales of Israeli military and settler brutality but in fact it is just more slanderous propaganda from the anti-Israel activist group, Breaking the Silence.
Written, Directed, and Produced by Sufyan Omeish and Abdallah Omeish
Arabic, English with English subtitles
90 minutes
Occupation 101 falsely equates the Palestinian cause with civil rights struggles around the world, featuring well rehearsed indictments of the Jewish state by a who’s who of anti-Israel activists. It would have more aptly been titled Propaganda 101.
Directed by Kevin Macdonald
Narrated by Michael Douglas
English, German, B&W, Color
94 min
While Steven Spielberg’s 2005 film, “Munich,” blurs the line between historical fiction and real events to tell the story of an Israeli hit team’s hunt for those involved in the 1972 Olympic massacre of Israeli athletes, this Academy Award-winning film focuses on the massacre itself through live film clips, news broadcasts and interviews with police, close relatives of victims, and the sole surviving perpetrator.
Produced, Written and Directed by BZ Goldberg, Justine Shapiro; English, Arabic, Hebrew with English subtitles;
106 minutes
See our filmed review of a dated documentary that is still being used as part of the curriculum in some American public middle schools. The film examines the Arab-Israeli conflict through the eyes of seven children living in the Jerusalem vicinity, from both sides of the conflict. While the protagonists are appealing, the take-away message of the film, based on misleading context and a lack of essential background information, is one-sided and politicized.
Directed by Michael Grynszpan
Produced by The David Project and IsraTV
49 minutes, English
The film explores the history and destruction of Middle Eastern Jewish communities, some of which had existed for over 2,500 years.Featuring testimony from Jews who fled Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Morocco and Iran, the film explores the rich heritage and destruction of the Middle East’s age-old Jewish communities. Personal stories of refugees are interspersed with dramatic archival footage, including the mission to rescue Yemenite Jews.
Produced and Distributed by Yasmine Perni English 56 minutes
Yasmine Perni’s 2013 movie “The Stones Cry Out” allows influential and seasoned pro-Palestinian activists to present an emotionally charged, one-sided story of Palestinian Christians devoid of historical context and facts.
What do we know about the ancient Israelites? When did the ancient Israelites become the Jews? How did the emergence of other religions and the movement of peoples across the Middle East into the Land of Israel affect the Jewish people? How did Jews maintain their connection to the Land of Israel in the diaspora? How did World War I, World War II, and the Cold War impact the history of Israel? How did the modern state of Israel form? Why has there been ongoing conflict between Israel and the Arabs?
To answer these questions CEI offers educators a teacher-friendly curriculum tracing the history of the Jewish people in the land of Israel from ancient to modern times. This state social studies-aligned curriculum situates Jewish history in the larger context of Middle Eastern and World History. Students learn how geography and the development of religious, cultural, and political movements from ancient to modern times have created a complex society. Lesson plans utilize a wide- range of primary sources, maps, and videos.
The curriculum includes the following high school lessons:
The curriculum also includes the following elementary school activity: Understanding Timelines and Change Over Time.
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