A soon-to-be released documentary film called "Uncommon Ground" will be screened this weekend in Connecticut. It explores the struggle over the future of the last remaining abandoned Palestinian village on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
Lifta is the only Arab village abandoned in 1948 that has not been destroyed or re-populated. Plans are currently underway in Israel to build a luxury development there.
The film centers on efforts by some of Lifta’s former Arab residents and some Jewish activists to save the village. ?
Oren Rudavsky co-produced and directed the film. As he describes the opening scene, co-producer MenachemDaum -- an Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn whose family survived the Holocaust -- walks through Lifta with Palestinian activist YacoubOdeh, leader of the effort to save the abandoned village.
"Yacoub is reminiscing about his growing up there," said Rudavsky. "Menachem tells him that his uncle might have had something to do with an attack on the coffee shop that led to the abandonment of the village. Menachem says, ‘I always considered my uncle a hero, because he helped create the State of Israel.’ And Yacoub responds with what happened to his family."
Rudavsky, who describes growing up himself in a family of ardent Zionists, said that working on the film has profoundly affected the way he understands Israeli/Palestinian relations.
"One of the lessons of this film is never assume you can understand somebody else’s experience," Rudavsky said. "We have our own experience, each and one of us. And the Palestinians and Jews have their own experience and until we hear each others experience and accept it, even if we don’t agree with it, but accept it as their experience, we can’t move forward."
"Uncommon Ground" will be shown on Saturday, May 9 at the Scoville Memorial Library in Salisbury. Producer Oren Rudovsky will be there for a question-and-answer period following the screening.
