This brilliant analysis of Palestinian children’s literature and teaching about Palestine includes a review of Ida in the Middle. It originally appeared in Middle East Eye.

One of the courses I regularly teach at my university is “Introduction to Arab American Studies”. Most students take it because it fulfills one of the university’s “diversity” requirements, not because they are invested in the topic. 

We get to read about the strong sense of community that sustains Palestinians as they navigate life in these extremely difficult circumstances

For me, the course is a window into mainstream America’s glaring lack of exposure to any Arab-American issues in the K-12 curriculum. It has been sobering to realise that most Americans can go through their entire school education without reading a single novel, or social studies chapter, about the diverse Arab American communities that are part of the fabric of broader American society. 

For most of my students, there are Arabs – swarthy foreigners living in inhospitable countries half a world away – but no Arab Americans; the doctors, teachers, cab drivers, grocery store owners and neighbours who may live next door to them. 

They have even less awareness of the effects of US foreign policy in the Middle East and the experiences and stories this policy shapes among immigrants from these communities.

What it means to belong

A new young adult novel, Ida in the Middle, by Nora Lester Murad, explores the deeply unsettling feeling that members of these communities’ experience, as they are told in both subtle and overt ways that they do not belong in the United States, even when it is the only country they have ever known.

In this debut novel for Murad, Ida, a bashful Palestinian American teenager, is dreading the final class project: discussing her “passion” with the rest of the class. 

Her anxiety skyrockets when the school principal informs her that she will be representing her school in this eighth-grade capstone for the entire region.

She is terrified at the thought that someone in the audience will shout out “terrorist” as she ascends to the stage, just as someone had scribbled that insult on her school desk. Home alone one afternoon, as she worries yet again about that presentation, she reaches for her comfort food, green olives sent by her aunt all the way from Palestine. 

Olives, as every Palestinian knows, are not just a savoury snack; they encapsulate our culture in each dense nugget. When they are cured by a favourite aunt, they can have magic powers. As she eats the olives, Ida is transported to her parents’ village, Busala, just outside Jerusalem, where she immediately feels at home. 

In this alternate reality, her parents have never left Palestine, and she has grown up with feelings of belonging amid kids who look like her, speak Arabic, and can pronounce her name correctly: ‘Aida, with an ‘ayn.

But life in Busala is also unpredictable, scary, and dangerous because of Israel’s occupation. Here, Murad skilfully weaves the narrative between Ida’s fantasy and the all-too-real events of life under occupation, as Ida has to brave Israeli military raids, curfews, and home demolitions. 

We get to read about the strong sense of community that sustains Palestinians as they navigate life in these extremely difficult circumstances. We witness the immense courage of Palestinian children – including Ida herself – as they dodge the occupation forces; and we hear discussions about survival and resistance, including the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. 

There are some exhilarating moments, such as when Ida carries a terrified three-year-old boy to safety, telling him his name, Faris, means “knight,” and that he is their leader, while he explains that her name means “Returning,” and he knows she will not leave him behind, as she scouts their whereabouts for a safe path home. 

And there are heartbreaking moments, as when Ida watches Israeli bulldozers demolish her friend Layla’s family home. This experience transforms Ida and, after having eaten more green olives, she is transported back to Boston, where she gives an impassioned presentation about the hardships that Palestinians endure under Israel’s settler colonialism. 

A resource for educators

As I put down the novel, I went over to the website that accompanies it, and where Murad, a longtime educator, has compiled a wealth of useful teaching resources. Murad addresses questions that other educators may have as they teach a novel about Palestine, linking to dozens of websites categorised by who compiled them (e.g. librarians, the Institute for Palestine Studies, the Middle East Children’s Alliance, and many more). 

There are lesson plans, Palestine-centric resources, resources about the Middle East and Muslim issues, and more valuable information than any book review can do justice to, all superbly organised and easy to navigate. 

In his endorsement of the book, publisher Michel Moushabeck wrote: “I have been waiting for this YA novel to be written since I founded Interlink 35 years ago.”

As for me, I can enthusiastically say this is the resource website I’ve been waiting for. But please don’t take my word for it, explore it for yourselves. Whatever your level of knowledge about Palestine, there will be something for you there. 

A seasoned activist, Murad knows there will be pushback against her novel. Ida in the Middle reminded me of Ann Laurel Carter’s The Shepherd’s Granddaughter about a young girl whose family home near Hebron is being threatened by encroaching Jewish settlements. The book won eight awards, including the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year Award for Children, and the Society of School Librarians International Best Book Award. 

But the Zionist advocacy group B’nai B’rith objected to what it described as its “anti-Israel propaganda”, and the novel has not been included in any Canadian school curriculum. 

Will Ida in the Middle suffer a similar fate because it mentions Israel’s demolitions of Palestinian homes – an absolute reality, yet one of Israel’s many crimes that are apparently taboo in American discourse? 

Pushing back

Murad was a speaker on the Boston Book Festival panel “Pushing Back Against the Pushback: Uplifting Marginalised Books for Young People in an Age of Censorship”, where she addressed the importance of assigning such novels in literature or social studies classes across the US, a topic she also discusses on the book’s website. 

On the FAQ page, the author addresses her identity as someone who was not born Palestinian. One of the questions she answers is: “You’re not Palestinian, shouldn’t people read books written by Palestinians?”

Her answer is an unequivocal “Yes”, and she lists some of the Palestinian authors she recommends: for children, Randa Abdel-Fattah, Ibtisam Barakat, Ahlam Bsharat, Susan Muaddi Darraj, Sonia Nimr, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Wafa Shami, among others.

For adults, some prominent fiction and non-fiction writers available in English are Susan Abulhawa, Hala Alayan, Ghassan Kanafani, Sahar Khalifeh, Edward Said, Adania Shibli, among many, many others. 

Educators have no excuse not to assign the wonderful books available to them about young Arab Americans
 

Murad herself is married to a Palestinian, lived in Palestine for 14 years, and mothered three Palestinian girls. Her sensitive portrayal of Ida is certainly that of a loving parent, steeped in Palestinian culture not as a tourist, but as an engaged member of a Palestinian family. 

Given her background, it is perhaps not a coincidence that the protagonist in Murad’s novel, like Susan Muaddi Darraj’s fabulous series, Farah Rocks, and The Shepherd’s Granddaughter, is a young girl, rather than a boy. 

Certainly, girls need all the empowerment they can get in our exceedingly misogynist, patriarchal world, and these books offer that needed boost. However, my wish is for the next YA novel about a Palestinian American child to feature a boy, even as I fully appreciate the present offerings, and would welcome more.

But a lack of narratives around young boys being sensitive, caring, or protective of their friends and siblings could inadvertently risk perpetuating the myth that Palestinian girls are redeemable, while Palestinian boys are always dangerous. 

For now, however, educators have no excuse not to assign the wonderful books available to them about young Arab Americans. And with the holidays fast approaching, everyone can push back against censorship by gifting precisely those novels that artfully inject our cultural and political experiences into the broader American landscape. 

Nada Elia teaches in the American Cultural Studies Programme at Western Washington University, and is currently completing a book on Palestinian diaspora activism.

Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this form. More about MEE can be found here.

A #MustWatch presentation! The Palestinian Museum US in Connecticut hosted a launch of “Ida in the Middle” and Luma Hasan, Sawsan Jaber and Mona Mustafa talked about the experiences of Palestinian students, Palestinian teachers and the challenges of teaching Palestine in US schools.

This review of They Called Me a Lioness and interview with Palestinian heroine Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri was first published by The Markaz Review.

They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl’s Fight for Freedom; memoir/biography by Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri; Penguin Random House 2022; ISBN 9780593134580

By Nora Lester Murad

Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri’s book, They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl’s Fight for Freedom (One World, 2022) quotes an Israeli interrogator trying to coerce information from stoic, 16-year-old Ahed: “Who? Is your father behind you? Or is it your mother who’s behind you?” “Who? Who is behind you?”

In 2017, Ahed was charged with assaulting an Israeli soldier, though family members point out that she wasn’t arrested until the video went viral, so she was most likely targeted because she humiliated the Israeli government.

Once the video of Ahed slapping and kicking a soldier went viral, two previous videos of her standing up to soldiers in her West Bank village of Nabi Saleh got new circulation, including one of 11-year-old Ahed threatening soldiers after her big brother was arrested and one of 14-year-old Ahed biting a soldier who attacked her little brother.

Ahed had become a heroine, not only in Palestine, but around the world.

When I talk to Ahed, she deflects all questions about herself, always using the pronoun “we,” referring to the collective Palestinian people.

“A reluctant heroine,” Dena Takruri corrects me when we talk about her experience co-authoring the book. “It was never about her. It was about the message.”

It’s true. When I talk to Ahed, she deflects all questions about herself, always using the pronoun “we,” referring to the collective Palestinian people. (We spoke in Arabic, with me apologizing several times. I recorded our interview and my husband, who is Palestinian, translated it with me.)

“‘Hero’ is a big word,” Ahed says, “and it comes with lots of responsibility. You can’t just say it casually. It’s a word that can change your life. But all of us in Palestine are heroes. We all live under the same occupation, the same injustice, and we all resist. Every single one of us is a hero inside, and that hero comes out when the time is right.”

Ahed’s videotaped interrogation shows the Israelis finally realized the threat posed by the heroine Ahed Tamimi. They were no longer laughing the way they did when she fake punched soldiers at age 11.

Though only 16 at the time, she was interrogated without the presence of her parents, lawyer, or even a female soldier. They inappropriately commented on her appearance and threatened her family and friends, but Ahed refused to talk.

“Who? Is your father behind you? Or is it your mother who’s behind you?” “Who? Who is behind you?”

The interrogators could not have known the significance of their question.

If the Israelis were to read Ahed and Dena’s book, they would understand that behind the lioness, Ahed Tamimi, stands an entire pride.

“Ahed mentions many girls and women in the book, and she credits all of them for their resistance and for enabling hers,” Dena continues.

I ask Ahed who is behind her, and her voice gets even stronger.

“Behind me? Behind me is the natural response to occupation — to reject it. Behind me are my mother and father who taught me to resist the occupier, and my grandmother who instead of telling me fairy tales about Layla and the wolf told me stories about how to resist the occupation. Behind me are the people all around me, the people I love, who I can lose in any minute. Behind me is an entire generation that I don’t want to live through the same experience that I did.”

Ahed is proud of her pride.

Nariman, Ahed’s mother, has been arrested more than six times and has held the family together during her husband’s more than nine arrests. Nariman was arrested and served eight months along with Ahed for incitement, since she filmed and shared the video of Ahed that went viral.

“If I hadn’t seen my mother demonstrate, get arrested, and be wounded, maybe I wouldn’t have done what I did and maybe my brothers and I wouldn’t be the way we are. Seeing my parents confront the soldiers helped us to believe that like them, we can defend our land and our country,” Ahed says.

Then she quickly adds: “But all Palestinian mothers are like mine, and all Palestinians are like us. Of course, there are some people who are controlled by fear. But most people are active and do things to resist the occupation, and this is not limited to our village, Nabi Saleh. Nabi Saleh just gets more media attention. But really, the same thing that is happening in Nabi Saleh is happening all over Palestine.”

Marah, Ahed’s best friend and cousin, was beside her throughout her growth. In the book, Ahed described how Marah was there at age six when the two girls joined a large group of kids running away from Israeli soldiers to Marah’s house where they packed themselves in a closet trembling in fear, only to tumble out onto a soldier’s combat boots when the house was searched. She was still there a decade later, the day Ahed  emerged from her eight months in jail to a heroine’s welcome.

Janna Jihad, Ahed’s younger cousin, started reporting from Nabi Saleh and Palestinian cities across the West Bank when she was just seven years old. She has amassed hundreds of thousands of supporters across various social media channels. In the book, Ahed says, “The sight of an innocent little Palestinian girl reporting on the suffering of other children and adults under occupation moved people. It compelled them to open their eyes to the countless injustices perpetrated by Israel.”

Ahed credits Palestinian activist, academic and elected representative Khalida Jarrar, who taught classes to all the young Palestinian girls in prison, for her successful graduation from high school. More importantly, she credits Khalida for helping her develop a larger vision and strategy for Palestinian society. In the book, Ahed says:

We must ensure that when we finally do achieve liberation [from Israel], we’re not left with a society that’s full of corruption and inequity. It’s imperative that we fight for women’s rights, to ensure that we have full equality between women and men. We need to get rid of traditional mentalities that judge girls and women through the lens of shame. We also need to fight for better employment opportunities for our youth and find ways to get them involved in the political process. Why should those holding political office be predominantly old men? They’ve consistently proven themselves incapable and irrelevant.

Ahed’s aunt, Manal, an early and consistent leader in Nabi Saleh’s popular resistance, has been arrested multiple times, shot, beaten and strip-searched, yet she continues to speak out about feminist resistance.

Even Ahed’s grandmother, Tata Farha (to whom the book is dedicated), features prominently in her political development. In the book Ahed says:

Tata Farha’s bedtime tales were all real-life stories that taught us the history of our family, of the village, and of Palestine. Many reflected the hell and heartbreak she and our people had lived through. All of her stories were educational. They not only shaped my imagination, but also revealed to me the generational trauma that’s embedded in our DNA.

There was no way I could get Ahed to speak about herself or acknowledge anything significant about herself, her family or her village. Even when I asked about the challenges of being labeled a hero, she gave others credit, uplifting those around her.

“Maybe in other parts of the world, people get upset and they go to a psychologist. For me, I don’t go to a psychologist, I go back to the people who understand me because they are living the same experience and they have seen it and already know all the details. They stand by me and help me more than anyone else. I get my strength from them. Wherever I go, I find them next to me.”

After all she’s been through, she still has hope. Ahed lifts everyone’s spirits. —Dena Takruri

Even if Ahed won’t admit it, there is something particularly inspirational about her. I ask Dena, who has spent years following Ahed and countless hours co-writing the book with her, to explain what it is.

“As a journalist, I’ve interviewed many people, and it’s rare that I feel electrified. It’s her poise, conviction, power and strength. After all she’s been through, she still has hope. Ahed lifts everyone’s spirits.” Dena Takruri, a prominent journalist and proud Palestinian in her own right, has also become part of Ahed’s pride, standing with her to protect the group and its territory. The book they’ve co-written is a kind of roar, one that the rest of us creatures in the forest would be smart to heed.

This article explores deception in this PBS-hosted documentary promoting UAE-Israel relations at the expense of Palestinians. It was first published by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.

WNET, the PBS station distributing the 2021 documentary feature Amen-Amen-Amen: A Story of Our Times, called it

the story of the first Jewish community formed in a Muslim country in centuries (in Dubai), and a historic gift of a Torah scroll dedicated to the memory of an Arab-Muslim ruler, the late Sheikh Zayed, the founding father of the United Arab Emirates.

The Boston Globe featured Amen-Amen-Amen in its documentary events program, GlobeDocs.  The Globe hosted filmmaker Tom Gallagher of Religion Media Company in conversation with Loren King on March 14.

The film has an attractive premise—that the United Arab Emirates is a champion of religious tolerance, exemplified by the establishment of a Jewish community in Dubai. This is presented as so historically significant (presumably because the Arab Muslim world is otherwise hostile to Jews) that the Jewish community decided to gift a Torah scroll in honor of Sheikh Zayed, the deceased founding father, to his son Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, crown prince of Abu Dhabi and deputy supreme commander of the UAE armed forces.

Despite the stamp of credibility provided by the Boston Globe and PBS, and the film’s ten international documentary awards, anyone familiar with current Israel/UAE relations will wonder how a film with such obvious political interests is seen as a documentary rather than pure propaganda.

Dubious champion of tolerance

“The United Arab Emirates is an oasis of tolerance,” announces a voiceover at the beginning of the film. Amen-Amen-Amen features the February 2019 visit by Pope Francis to the UAE for the much publicized Year of Tolerance, which attracted a diverse crowd of 180,000 people. This visit, and a signed document on human fraternity, are further presented as evidence of the UAE as a champion of religious tolerance.

The crown prince is described on camera as “a humble man” with “exquisite” communication. One describes meeting him as “a spiritual experience.”

The film also notes that the UAE is “very diverse,” as 90% of people in the UAE are not Emirati, and uses this fact to conclude that ““there is no way that the UAE cannot be inclusive.” It’s such a glowing portrait of the country that viewers might be surprised to know that the conservative nonprofit Freedom House rates it “not free,” ranking it below countries like Egypt, Russia and Qatar in terms of political rights and civil liberties.

The country’s diversity springs not from a commitment to tolerance but from the UAE’s dependence on imported workers. Human Rights Watch calls the “tolerance narrative” of the UAE a sham, and concludes:

United Arab Emirates authorities continue to invest in a “soft power” strategy aimed at painting the country as progressive, tolerant and rights-respecting. Many activists and dissidents, some of whom have completed their sentences, remain detained simply for exercising their rights to free expression and association. Prisons across the UAE hold detainees in dismal and unhygienic conditions, where overcrowding and lack of adequate medical care are widespread. The UAE continues to block representatives of international human rights organizations and UN experts from independently conducting in-country research and visiting prisons and detention facilities.

In 2020, Amnesty International and dozens of other human rights organizations issued an open letter (2/24/20) calling the UAE “a country that does not tolerate dissenting voices” and arguing that “the UAE government devotes more effort to concealing its human rights abuses than to addressing them and invests heavily in the funding and sponsorship of institutions, events and initiatives that are aimed at projecting a favorable image to the outside world.”

A 2020 report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace explored whether, despite some reforms, the UAE migrant policy is akin to human trafficking.

Of course, Amen-Amen-Amen doesn’t mention any of these critiques that contradict the image it wishes to portray. In fact, in the Boston Globe–sponsored discussion of the film, filmmaker Tom Gallagher squirmed out of an audience question about human rights violations in the UAE by saying the film sticks strictly to the issue of religious pluralism and intentionally stayed away from geopolitical analysis.

Hidden political motivation

But the relationship between the UAE and its Jewish residents can’t be fully understood without geopolitical context—including the country’s changing relationship with Israel.  The Abraham Accords, a series of US-sponsored treaties first signed in September 2020, normalized diplomatic relations between Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, formalizing long-term relationships that were previously covert. The bedrock of the Abraham Accords is a military alliance against Iran, though the UAE also benefits from direct access to US weapons, and there are huge opportunities for profit from new regional trade. Also important, the Abraham Accords officially break what was at least rhetorical opposition by Arab countries to Israeli violations of Palestinian rights, and expand the bloc of countries in alliance with Israel’s governing right wing.

The Abraham Accords have been and will continue to be extremely profitable for Israel and the UAE, both financially and militarily. At least $11 billion has been made available by the UAE for investment in Israel. The Rand Corporation, proponents of the Accords, concluded its 2021 report:

If these new relations evolve into deeper economic integration, we estimate that the economic benefits for Israel’s partners in this endeavor could be particularly significant, creating approximately 150,000 new jobs for just the four current signatories. This number could grow to more than 4 million new jobs, and more than $1 trillion in new economic activity over a decade, if the accords grow to include 11 nations (including Israel), as some have speculated may be possible.

Though it might not be immediately obvious, enhanced arms sales to the UAE, valued in the tens of billions, are tied up with, not contradictory to, the US commitment to Israel’s military superiority. In other words, both the US and Israel benefit from the increased militarization of Israel’s allies, especially given their shared interest in opposing Iran. And it is in the interest of the UAE, Israel and the US to rewrite the narrative they spun about terrorist Arabs into a good Arab/bad Arab story, with the UAE being “good guys” who will get political props for making nice with Israel.

Much is made in the film and its marketing materials about the Jewish community in Dubai being the “first Jewish community formed in an Arab-Muslim country in centuries,” implying that Muslim countries have not been friendly to Jews until now. But the film also goes into detail (13:00–15:00) about a time when there was “relative harmony, warm social relationships, neighborhood relationships, business relationships, intellectual exchanges” between Jews and Muslims over centuries, into the twentieth century. So which is it?

It’s true that Jews have been an integral part of Arab Muslim communities for many hundreds of years, and faced much less discrimination than in Christian Europe. The main rupture that occurred—which is conspicuously not mentioned in the film—was not a religious rupture between Arab Muslims and Jews, but a political rupture between Arab countries and the state of Israel over the position that Palestinians have rights, and should not be exiled, occupied and colonized.

Presenting the warming relationship between the UAE and its Jewish population without explaining any of the political context suggests that the more hostile relationship between the UAE and Israel that preceded it was simply due to antisemitism, rather than a political stance against Israeli colonization and occupation of Palestinian land.

In this overarching context, the release of a film that offers an entirely uncritical and glowing portrait of the UAE ought to make PBS take a closer look at the film’s funding.

Questionable funding 

FCC guidelines require broadcasters to “fully and fairly disclose the true identity” of all broadcast program funders,” including original production funders.

Amen-Amen-Amen‘s funders, however, are difficult to fully discern. It is the sole project of Religion Media Company (RMC), which appears to be essentially a one-man outfit run by Tom Gallagher. Gallagher is the former head of Religion News Service and has no apparent training or previous experience as a filmmaker. Although RMC was registered as a nonprofit public charity in 2021, there are no publicly available financial documents showing its sources of income, nor does it have a website listing its board of directors.

According to the film’s website, Gallagher “conceived of the documentary” in 2018 and founded RMC in January 2020—after the events shown in the film—to produce “original media projects that tell powerful stories of our common search for meaning, wherever those stories are found.”

The New Republic (4/27/18) called Gallagher’s short reign at Religion News Service a “spectacular implosion.” A highly regarded religion writer cited “irreconcilable differences” with him, after one journalist was fired and others left in protest. Religion Dispatches (6/19/18) reported that Gallagher was subject to widespread criticism for a “pro-Catholic bias,” considered ethically compromising in interdenominational publishing.

Notably, sources at RNS told the blog Get Religion (12/11/19) “that Gallagher had barely stepped into his position three years ago when he flew off to Abu Dhabi to talk with a moneyed sheik about some kind of RNS collaboration; as in the staff providing content for the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Tolerance.” His exit from RNS would have been just around the time that Gallagher took on the producing, writing and directing of Amen-Amen-Amen.

In terms of outside funders, several names are listed on the film’s website as executive producers—a title given to those who fund a film—with Marc Bell, an NYU trustee, given top billing. At least one other executive producer, James Deutsch, has ties to NYU. Deutsch was, at the time of filming, a trustee of elite Manhattan prep school the Trinity School alongside former NYU president and central Amen figure John Sexton; Deutsch has since become an NYU Law trustee.

Sexton himself plays a pivotal role in the film as the person who introduced directly to Sheik Mohamed the idea of the Torah gifting; he was also present at the gifting ceremony and interviewed in the film. Sexton was the founder of NYU Abu Dhabi, which is fully funded by the UAE. The film’s credits give “a special thanks” to “the inestimable John Sexton and his team of Nancy Gessner, Dan Evans, Elizabeth Cheung-Gaffney, Emily Daughtry and Catherine DeLong” and note that “the film would not have been possible without John Sexton’s overall leadership.” The only other people given special thanks are seven UAE government officials, including Sheik Mohamed. While special thanks do not always imply a transfer of money, this roster raises questions about conflicts of interest.

Essential individuals

PBS funding standards aim to “protect its credibility and integrity by ensuring the editorial independence of all content from funders.” In the case of Amen-Amen-Amen, questions should be asked about the individuals and organizations that appear essential to the film’s production. Moreover, the constellation of relationships among funders, participants, those featured in the film and their political and economic interests are complex, and raise suspicions about editorial independence.

In fact, numerous individuals associated with NYU are given thanks in the film credits, including:

• Nancy Gessner, administrative manager of NYU
• Dan Evans, chief of staff and deputy to the president at NYU
• Elizabeth Cheung-Gaffney, instructor and administrator at NYU Shanghai
• Emily Daughtry, preceptor of Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Scholars, NYU/ Abu Dhabi
• Catherine DeLong, associate vice chancellor & CFO at NYU/Abu Dhabi
• Sara Aeder, director of development of NYU’s Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life, as well as the staff of the Bronfman Center
• Emily Hirsch, formerly senior brand strategist at NYU
• Tracy Lavin, director of community and education engagement, NYU/Abu Dhabi
• Eric Hilgendorf, an employee of NYU/Abu Dhabi

In addition, Cheung-Gaffney and DeLong received credits as “legal” and “accounting and financial” for the film, respectively. Both worked directly under Sexton at the time in similar capacities for the Catalyst Foundation for Universal Education, which Sexton founded and directed.

Yehuda Sarna, another prominent figure in the documentary, is the executive director of the NYU’s Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life, who simultaneously serves as chief rabbi of the Jewish Council of the Emirates (and is a public proponent of the Abraham Accords).

The large role that NYU staff and trustees played in the film raises questions about the film’s financial relationship with the school and potential conflicts of interest.

Also featured in the film is Eli Epstein, identified as an “interfaith activist” and American businessman, with the idea of the gifting of the Torah. Epstein is also listed as an executive producer, which indicates he not only stars in the film but also helped fund it.

In the film, Epstein alludes to his decades of business activities in the UAE; he is currently chief innovation officer at the aluminum company Aminco Resources, and he was the founder and CEO of Calco, a partner of Conoco Oil. Epstein currently also runs a US-registered nonprofit organization, Visions of Abraham, which “provide(s) our clientele with a one-stop-shop for individually curated group tours to two of the world’s most popular destinations.” Its website also says:

Recently, our team has adopted a common goal of maximizing the historic potential of the Abraham Accords by making it as easy as possible for Jewish and Israeli groups of all sizes and denominations to explore the UAE and Bahrain firsthand.

Amen-Amen-Amen filmmaker Tom Gallagher said he didn’t take any money from the UAE government, but the funding sources of the UAE-based Muslim Council of Elders, which is thanked in the credits, are not transparent, and are very likely to include government funding. And as noted, NYU/Abu Dhabi, many of whose employees are credited by the film, is a project fully funded by the UAE.

In other words, the film appears to have been funded or otherwise made possible by the same people who are featured in the film, and who also have economic and political interests in the narrative advanced by the film.

If it looks like a duck

In light of its funders and collaborators, it’s dubious to view Amen-Amen-Amen as simply a celebration of religious tolerance. It makes more sense to read it as a performative film that seeks to promote the UAE’s and Israel’s political interests in normalization, as well as the interests of NYU.

The manipulation of the film and its backers is very well done and consistent. For example, in the filmmaker talk sponsored by the Boston Globe, Gallagher stressed that Jews in Dubai who descended from Holocaust survivors were especially moved by the UAE’s welcome. He said, “So many come to this with the horrific history of the Holocaust and persecution, and they see that they can actually be accepted.” An uninformed viewer might find this poignant, except that Arabs and Muslims had nothing to do with the Holocaust.

But the filmmakers mince no words when they tout their own importance. In a discussion in Amen-Amen-Amen among Epstein, Sarna and Elie Abadie, senior rabbi of the Jewish Council of the Emirates, they call the events featured in the film a “landmark.” They call it “an anchor in a way that could redefine the terms of civilization.” This is a powerful claim, to say the least—one that the film does little to justify.

While there isn’t a strict or agreed upon definition of “documentary,” among the general public the word tends to evoke the idea of objectivity. Given how close expository documentaries might be to propaganda, it is surprising that there are no industry standards for evaluating films branded as documentaries; and each promoter is left to develop and enforce their own guidelines.

After several inquiries, the Boston Globe answered my question about selection criteria and due diligence simply by saying, “We often have filmmakers reach out and pitch us their ideas and their films throughout the year to screen during our GlobeDocs monthly screenings—that was the case for this film.”

WNET also didn’t provide details, but told me: “All of our programs are carefully vetted to ensure that they meet broadcast standards and represent community needs. Vetting includes funding, content, and other production standards.”

In fact, it is not clear how Amen-Amen-Amen  complies with the standards of any media organization that claims to be nonpartisan. The problems include the absence of context that would inform an understanding of the political motivations of the film, several questions about the integrity of the story and production, and lack of clarity about the transparency and independence of funding for the film. The dubious credibility of this “documentary” ought to give pause to discerning viewers and lead them to look more deeply at the Abraham Accords and those who profit from them. Hopefully, the gatekeepers like PBS and the Boston Globe who lift up films making politically-interested claims can also learn to comply with their own standards, which are necessary to ensure public trust.