Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Do Good Fences Make Good Neighbors?

Adam Klasfeld: Playwright of Good Fences

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors, written by Adam Klasfeld, is an absurdist play about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Klasfeld is making a name for himself with surreal plays focusing on the human root of political problems -- his docu-drama about Mark Twain, The Report of My Death, was a New York Magazine top pick when it debuted last year, and it will soon begin touring in the tri-state area.

Of Klasfeld’s plays, I think Good Fences is his most challenging, dynamic, and politically charged. It follows Rosh, a writer in a country called "Arabia." Rosh's neighbors recently shot him in the arm, resulting in an amputation, but neither his wife nor his friends nor even his doctor can tell that he's missing a limb. Convinced he and his family are in danger, Rosh begins patrolling his house, and soon he is negotiating with an elf in order to protect himself from his neighbors.

Is Rosh seeing things? Is his pain real? I met up with Klasfeld to better understand the symbolism of his play and his feelings regarding the conflict. Despite his strong political opinions, Klasfeld has never been to Israel, but he's heading out on a Birthright trip this weekend, so I'll check back with him when he returns to see if the visit changed his mind.

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Debra Sugarman: Filmmaker, photographer, and production designer.Debra Sugarman's documentary, Dear Mr. President, is about an arts camp she founded in New Mexico designed to bring Israeli and Palestinian youth together.  I met Debra on the set of a documentary called The Voices Project; she was the production designer and I was the costume designer, and she helped me build new garment racks, alter dresses, and preserve my sanity.  Afterwards, I asked her some questions about Dear Mr. President and the arts camp that she had founded.

You started an arts camp for Israeli Arabs, Palestinians, and Israeli Jews. Why did you do this and what has that process been like?

My family all gave time and money to improving Jewish life or to Israel. So I learned from that role model: we should give back to the community. I started doing it when I was very young, as a teenager. I worked specifically with mentally and emotionally disturbed kids. I quit doing it because it was really wiping me out and started doing what I am good at, which is art. Then, I began thinking about what I wanted to do to give back, and I really wanted to connect with something that I knew, which was Israel. My family is from Israel, my grandfather was one of the first settlers of Israel, and he worked for the Haganah. So, since I don’t identify as being a Jew religiously at all, but I relate to it as being my ethnicity, I decided that the best use of my time would be to find a way to connect the youth of Israel and Palestine. I think that teenagers are tomorrow’s leaders— I know they are in fact. So the decision became, how do I work with boys and girls that are teenagers without them being attracted to each other, when they should be breaking down barriers between their enemy cultures, not thinking “oh they’re hot.” So that’s how the camp became all girls, and I also think that both cultures under-serve women, though that’s changing a lot. Then the idea of using art and dialogue at a camp came from my life experience being an artist, and having art ameliorate healing in my life as a child.

What was the inspiration for the film Dear Mr. President?

The girls and I watched a film that a guy that was volunteering at the camp had produced. It was about a guy on a road trip across the US looking for this doctor, who later told him that he wouldn’t live long. So we watched Daniel’s film and afterwards, we talked about going in an RV next summer and calling the film some funny, superfluous title like “Looking for Daddy” or something. That’s how the seed was planted. From there I just thought that we should create a mini version of the camp, and used the RV as a stage. Then my friend Devon came up with the idea that we should deliver a message to the president, and that’s how we came up with the title Dear Mr.President. So the goal became to go from one side of the US to the other with these girls, and to meet up with the president.

On the trip, one of the girls, an Israeli Jew, asks another, a Palestinian, “Why would I trade places with you? Why would I choose to suffer?” Do you think this mentality is at the core of the conflict?

Dear Mr. President: The girls have a moment. First, I want to say that Amit (Israeli and Jewish), who said that, to Hameen(who lives in the West Bank), didn’t mean it the way that it sounded. As you saw, she made amends with Hameen and let her know that. But Amit was a very brilliant girl, all of those girls were very bright, and her point is well-taken, so in answer to your question I think it’s a kernal, it’s not the core issue. But yes, who wants a perceived enemy to be stronger than they?

In your trip across the country with the five girls, you visited many historical sites, including Wounded Knee. What were your reasons for this, and how were the girls affected by these landmarks?

I knew that I was going to have to stop in South Dakota for a million reasons, not the least of which is the history of native culture. Stopping at Wounded Knee, I felt like we had the potential to discover something about a culture that had been obliterated, but that still exists. When Amit read what was on the plaque at Wounded Knee, it really resonated with the Palestinian girls. That feeling of entrapment and of capture. It was what they feared most: that their land, their lives, and their families’ lives could be gone completely.

You have said that young women will make very good leaders. How do you think the women in your film can change politics in the Middle East, and why do you think that they would make good leaders?

One thing that happened with the camp, and consequently happened with the girls, was that they learned what it takes to build a new paradigm. When I picked the girls in the film, I got very lucky because all of the girls, were incredibly, uniquely intelligent. I think that when given the opportunity, young women, and the female gender in general, become multi-taskers. If we go the route of say, my mother, she was finishing up school, answering the phone, making meals, putting the baby to bed, being a good wife— I mean we are just genetically pre-disposed to multi-tasking really well. We haven’t been given the largest leadership roles, say, in the United States, or in our generation, but it’s really changing. It’s also changing over in Israel. I think that things take time. We’re talking about huge cultural shifts. How do you get a male-dominated society to get in touch with their feminine energy enough so that a woman runs their country or their world? How does that happen?

More on Debra Sugarman

Pickles was the most challenging and touching documentary that I saw at the Other Israel Film Festival. A moving film about the limitations of faith and culture, it follows the lives of eight Muslim widows who start a pickling factory in Israel.

Each woman in the film has her own struggle: Samira is estranged from her daugher, whose husband's family won't let the two women interact; Matza's son dies of a botched operation; Fatma begins a career in marketing once she is well into her fifties. Working in the factory gives them the opportunity to share these stories with each other. As they form a community, the women begin to question their roles in society. I interviewed Nitza Gonen, the producer of the film, to learn more about the significance of the film, its legacy, and the ideas behind it.

Women at work: In the pickles factory.What inspired the film Pickles?

One day, Dalit, the director, read an article about eight Muslim women in a northern village in Israel who started a pickle factory, and this story was very unusual because it was about widows. A widow isn’t supposed to go out of the home, she is supposed to watch over her children. She lives off social security and is watched over by her husband’s family. She is very miserable. She is not supposed to remarry. If she does, she cannot bring her children with her, and she must give them to her former husband’s family. There are few films about the inner lives of Muslim women. We wanted to lift the veil—and show that on the other side they were having a revolution.

As an Israeli Jewish woman making a documentary about Muslim widows, what were some of the obstacles that you faced during the production of the film? How did you deal with the language barrier? Were the villagers or women’s families suspicious of the motives of your film?

First, I don’t speak Arabic—none of us on the film crew speak it. We needed a common language so we got a translator. She was a Muslim woman who taught us the different cultural codes. The widows were very nice to us. They knew we had good intentions and that we were just trying to expose their lives to the world. The problem was with this woman in the municipality. Her role was to care for the women of the village and when she saw that we were making a film she interfered and forbade us from shooting private moments in the home and in the factory. She represented women trying to keep up their modesty and tradition, so I don’t blame her. Somebody had to protect the widows. But they couldn’t disobey her. She had lots of influence and she helped them to take care of their families. It was difficult because we didn’t want to raise conflict, so we missed some interesting situations.

In an interview with PBS, Dalit Kimor, the director, said that "Not one political word was said when we were filming" between the filmmakers and the widows. Why did you choose to do this? Do you consider your film political?

We didn’t want to make a political film. The widows weren't concerned with politics—on the first day of filming, Arafat died, and no one talked about him in the village. No one was occupied with his death. No one was praying for him in the mosques. They didn't speak about it. We didn't speak about it. We wanted to make a social human film. In Israel every film is political. Choosing Arab women as a subject of a film is political. Some people have criticized the film for not being political. It is completely innocent of politics.

Nitza Gonen: In her house in Israel.You have said that the women had never heard of the word feminism and yet were creating a small revolution. Was this film made from a feminist perspective? Did a feminist thread evolve during the production of this film?

Neither Dalit nor myself are feminists in the classic sense. Feminism is old news—we are feminists, but we are beyond this term. We didn't aim to make a feminist film, but the film talks about the rise of feminism in Arab society in Israel. The widows made a revolution in the village and the young women respect them. Now they are thinking of going to work, to school, and developing careers—and they weren't thinking of this before. These women did something for feminism without knowing it. Feminism is not the subject of the film, but it is the subtext.

After the production of Pickles, did any of the women stay in touch? Was a social network established? Did the pickle factory leave a legacy for the women in the film?

Widows are supposed to live in loneliness, and the factory gave them the opportunity to have a social club. In the film they cry together and tell jokes and comfort each other, and this it is not something that was in their lives before. So when the factory closed they had to go back to their former lives—but not Fatma. Because she was the marketing director she had a lot of contacts, so she is still making pickles, with her daughters. They have started their own business. Her daughters want to go to school, so she is saving money so they can study.

What has been the response to Pickles internationally and in Israel?

People liked the film very much, although it's unusual because when Israelis make films on Arabs it's always about identity, conflict with Palestinians, or about Palestinians, and this film was not dealing with this. In Israel, our subject was not dealing with the hard stuff. The big success of the film was abroad. People were surprised to learn how Arab women were living, to discover that they are like us, like everybody. The Muslim world in the eyes of the West—it's a kind of riddle. We see them as fanatics or fundamentalists, but we don't see their lives. The film revealed a lot about this without saying it.

Through the production of Pickles, you started a dialogue between secular Muslim women and secular and non-secular Jewish women in Israel. Have you done other work to increase dialogue or contact between Muslims and Jews in Israel? What are your thoughts on Jewish and Muslim relations in Israel?

We are both Mediterranean and we come from the same area. We have many shared characteristics: hospitality, human warmth, we are straight-forward. Before 1948, Arabs and Jews lived together and sometimes had good relations. Through progress I think that we will have better relations. On the last film I worked on, the director of photography and director were both Arab. I would like them to join all fields of life in Israel. We share the same country and there is no excuse for being apart.

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Also in Jewcy:

The Other Israel Film Festival

Revital Melech Revital Melech is an Israeli pastry-chef that has a flair for breaking with tradition. Her desserts are not only sweet- they are complex and provocative. At Abboccato, an upscale Italian restaurant that she works for in Mid-town Manhattan, Revital reinvents classic Italian desserts and gives them a twist. I wanted to get to know the woman behind the sophisticated desserts, and on the road we discovered how her Jewish heritage influenced her baking.

Why did you become a pastry chef?

It's tedious. It's annoying. It’s a struggle. It tests my own limits and what I can do. You have to be very precise, because you can't go back once your done. It's pretty- don't quote me on that.

How would you describe your baking style? What spices and flavors are you attracted to?

It has to be classy in a way, and have its roots in Italy— whether it’s the ingredients or the actual desserts. I like making Italian desserts but with a twist, so that they are up-to-date and not old-fashioned. Most of my desserts have some sort of spice or tweak to them. I like to use salt, it brings out the flavor of caramel or certain nuts. Pepper is also a really great thing. If you don't tell people it's pepper, they later find out that it's nice.

How has your Jewish heritage informed your cooking?

It's mostly being Israeli- I bring things that work with Southern Italian flavors. Like, I made a sesame mouse. I also made an orchid flower custard with rose petal semi-freddo. It was really good. I got the rose powder when I went back to Israel and once I ran out I had to take it off the menu at Abboccato. I had a honey cake for a while. It was to show that I could make a good honey cake because they have such a bad reputation. People were asking for the recipe afterwards because they couldn't believe it was a honey cake.

TiramisuWho are some of the major players in Israeli cuisine?

I don't know. The last few times I went back to Israel, I went to high profile places and was really disappointed. My friends blamed New York. I know that Brassiere is doing very well. There's also Nitzan Raz who used to work at Sushi Samba in Israel. I don't know, it's hard to keep up. My culinary experience in Israel was very limited, because I left after I served in the military and came straight to the US to go to the Culinary Institute of America.

Is it hard to be a woman in a professional kitchen?

Yes and no. It’s a hard job to be on your feet all day long. But to say kitchens are chauvinistic? I came from the Israeli military— not to brag about it, but it was a hardcore experience, so now, I'm fine. You do find less women in (professional) kitchens overall, but its really different in every kitchen, and I have had a really nice experience working in most kitchens.

What do you think is the essence of good cooking?

To like it. You need to have passion and enjoy it. You need the right technique and skills, but without passion, you don't have anything.

If you had one last meal, what would it be?

A brownie. A really excellent brownie.

The mission of the Other Israel Film Festival is to expose the lives of Muslims that live in Israel. I am behind the mission of the festival. I am interested in the Muslim perspective in Israel and I am interested in the art that Muslims are generating. Do they feel like second-class citizens, how do Muslim women view themselves, and what is the Other Israel?

This is the first year of the festival, and I believe that it was an inspiring one. I have been to my share of festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival and the New York Film Festival, and I've thrown my own. There were technical problems with the festival, like the films being re-sized as we watched them, but I understood these problems as a festival's growing pains. The Other Israel Film Festival got a group of films and filmmakers together that got the other side seen and heard, and I commend them for that.

Here are some highlights of the festival.

The Syrian Bride

Nervous on your wedding day?Every bride is nervous on her wedding day. She might trip on her dress or Aunt Ethel might get wasted at the reception. A million things might go wrong, but eventually, her nervousness recedes, she kisses the groom, and the two begin a married life.

Mona is nervous on her wedding day for different reasons. As a Palestinian, once she marries her Syrian fiancé, she can never return to Israel or see her family again—the Israeli government has also prohibited her father from attending her wedding. So Mona must turn her back on her family in order to get married. This is more than most brides have to deal with on their wedding day.

The Syrian Bride exposes the difficulties of not being a citizen of your homeland. My biggest critique of the film is that it could have gone further, and investigated what it means to live with resignation— to know that you are not in control, do not have basic privileges, and are denied happiness because of your lack of identity. The Syrian Bride alludes to these themes, but the lack of resolution leaves loose ends where solid conclusions are necessary.

Pickles

Women starting a feminist revolution through...Pickles?According to convention, Muslim widows are dead to the world. They cannot remarry or work outside of the home, or do anything other than raise their children and mourn their husband's death. They must live the rest of their days with their husband's family as well. The family watches over the widow and ensures that she does not disrespect her husband's memory.

These are the makings of a barren, miserable, and lonely life.

However, this is not the case for a group of eight Muslim widows. They start a pickling factory to earn money for their families, and in so doing, they give meaning to their lives. They have a place to go to, a job to do, and soon, a social network forms. However, none of the women is prepared for the difficulties that await them.

This is a moving documentary about the limitations of faith and culture, and the inherent disadvantages of living in a chauvinistic society. Pickles asks: must we accept these limitations? It is an articulate and intimate portrait of Muslim life.

Roads

The road from poverty.Amores Perros begins with two young men in a speeding car, escaping a car full of thugs, as a dog bleeds to death in the backseat. Roads begins with two young boys in a speeding car, escaping a car full of thugs, as a sheep bleeds to death in the backseat. Coincidence?

Roads is about a young Arab boy working for a heartless drug-dealer. One day, he decides to take the money and run. Then, he gets his best friend and a Jewish drug-addict involved. Will he escape his life of poverty or get stopped along the way?

Perhaps if Roads were not a rip-off of Amores Perros, I could appreciate it. Then again, the terrible plot-development, sloppy editing, and lazy camera work were no picnic to sit through. As a filmmaker, I've learned that a great idea does not make a great film; good storytelling, strong acting, and careful attention to detail make a great film. It takes vision and a high level of technical skill to pull one off—and you must make your stories your own. Roads lacks the originality that makes a film worth watching.