Jewish Africa Film Festival
Kulanu hosted our first ever Jewish Africa Film Festival. The two evening event was held on January 28 and 29, 2019 at the Center for Jewish History in New York City, as a companion program to the Jewish Africa Conference of the American Sephardi Federation and Association Mimouna. The featured panelists included film makers and leaders of the Jewish communities in Ghana, Uganda, Madagascar, and Nigeria, which were featured in the four films.
The photo above shows the moderator, Boni Nathan Sussman, Kulanu’s vice president, with panelists: Rabbi Capers Funnye, Kulanu board member, chief rabbi of the Israelite Board of Rabbis, rabbinic advisor to several Jewish communities in Nigeria, Remy Ilona, Igbo scholar and author, Ph.D. student at University of California at Riverside, and Jeff Lieberman, filmmaker.
“What this conference is doing is that mainstream Judaism is beginning to notice them,” shared Boni Nathan Sussman, Kulanu’s vice president. “This is a huge accomplishment and a huge gift to be seen and spoken about in the same breath as they do North African Jews because for the most part North African Judaism really had very little to do with newly emerging communities. “
Missed the Jewish Africa Film Festival? Read the news article “African Jewish communities get some mainstream recognition after years on the margins” from the JTA by Josefin Dolsten and watch the Facebook live videos of the panel discussions.