Some Jewish film festivals tiptoe around Oct. 7. A Miami festival is leaning into it
Running from Jan. 9-23, the Miami Jewish Film Festival features 13 films dealing with the Hamas atrocities, to help combat denial of the tragedy and make victims’ voices heard
Reporter at The Times of Israel
How much can or should a Jewish film festival add the theme of October 7 and its aftermath to its usual repertoire, with feelings still raw and tensions remaining heated? That’s been a Talmudically tough question ever since the Hamas onslaught on Israel over a year ago and Israel’s subsequent, ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
So far, most festivals have either left the subject out or included it in a limited way. The Miami Jewish Film Festival is going another route: Placing October 7 prominently within its programming.
When the festival opens on January 9, it will do so with the world premiere of “Soul of a Nation,” director Jonathan Jakubowicz’s look at Israeli society before and after October 7, 2023.
As the festival screens 133 diverse films through its January 23 closing date, it will continue to feature October 7-related content. Its lineup of 13 films dealing with the attacks is the largest such number at a festival, according to Miami Jewish Film Festival executive director Igor Shteyrenberg.
“The decision to present such a robust slate of October 7-related programming was not made lightly,” Shteyrenberg said in a statement. “In a time when survivor stories are increasingly being ignored or, worse, denied, we feel a profound responsibility to ensure these voices are not silenced.
“To us, this denial represents a second tragedy — one that compounds the suffering of those who have already endured the worst of humanity’s hate,” he continued. “It is heartbreaking to witness survivors relive their trauma through the dismissal of their lived experiences. As the world’s largest Jewish film festival, we see it as our duty to stand against this tide of negation and to provide a platform where these vital stories can be witnessed, experienced, and discussed.”
That includes “Soul of a Nation,” which Venezuelan Jewish director Jakubowicz initially viewed as an exploration of the judicial reform crisis that fractured Israeli society before the Hamas surprise invasion changed everything. Among other documentaries addressing October 7 at the festival is “Milk and Honey, Blood and Tears.” Directed by Miami-based journalist and filmmaker Leslie Gelrubin Benitah, it’s an up-close look at Kibbutz Be’eri, which was devastated during the October 7 attacks.
Both films represent changes of direction for their directors. Jakubowicz’s previous project was the 2020 Holocaust drama “Resistance,” starring Jesse Eisenberg as legendary Jewish French mime-turned-antifascist Marcel Marceau. Gelrubin Benitah has been documenting Holocaust survivors on camera for the last seven years as part of an initiative titled “The Last Ones.”
“It’s not easy to do a documentary or release a documentary on Israel in 2025,” Jakubowicz said.
And, he added, “Hopefully it’s going to reach audiences who want to understand a little more about the conflict and are sick of the propaganda. At the end of the day, there’s no other situation on Earth where there’s so much disinformation, so many people trying to convince you their truth is the only truth.”
Jakubowicz arrived in Israel in January 2023, for reasons both business and personal. His mother lives there, and he was intrigued and concerned by the judicial reform crisis and the mass protests it aroused. He likened the social unrest to his native Venezuela and feared that Israel might follow a similar trajectory to his fractured homeland. Compounding his concern is the fact that Israel holds a special place in his heart: Most of his family perished in the Holocaust, and he posited that had a Jewish state existed back then, it could have saved world Jewry.
“I witnessed a nation be completely polarized, to a degree it became a failed state,” Jakubowicz said. “There’s been a lot of polarization in the US the last 10 years … I never thought it could be possible in Israel.”
Normally based in Los Angeles, Jakubowicz stayed with his mother in Tel Aviv and began interviewing Israelis on both sides of the political divide. They shared prescient concerns that the battle over judicial reform was distracting Israel from a bigger problem relating to national security.
“Everybody was saying on camera, weeks before October 7, that things were gearing up for a complete disaster,” Jakubowicz said. “Then October 7 happened. It was worse than anybody anticipated.”
“The documentary took a turn,” he said. “The story of a society that fights each other, considers each other as enemies, until a real enemy attacks. Society is forced to recognize itself, see our differences as secondary, unite, fight together to survive.”
For Miami-based Gelrubin Benitah, “My role, as I see it, has two hats: storyteller and a memory-keeper, whether it’s ‘The Last Ones’ or in this very specific area,” she said. “It’s always been about preserving resilience, capturing the strength and humanity of individuals that are facing immense challenges.”
In the wake of October 7, Gelrubin Benitah joined a group of Jewish community leaders on a visit to Israel that November. That visit included Kibbutz Be’eri.
“I think I truly understood, that day, what it meant to bear witness,” Gelrubin Benitah said. “It was really obvious to me — everything I saw, meeting all these people — I should have taken my camera and done something. Why didn’t I? Why was I not doing it? After a few minutes, I thought, maybe I should come back.” As she recalled, “I came back super-fast. I really wanted to be able to tell the story of this particular community.”
It is a community located about three kilometers — just under two miles — from the border with the Gaza Strip. On October 6, 2023, the kibbutz celebrated its 77th birthday, which swelled the number of those staying there.
Ecologically, Benitah said, the kibbutz is “extremely green … so green, so many trees, different plants, flowers, it’s unbelievable. It’s an oasis in the middle of the desert.” And, she said, “The values they have out there are coexistence and community. It’s one of the last kibbutzim in Israel that works the old-fashioned way — they really, to this day, share everything together.”
Kibbutz Be’eri suffered significantly on October 7: One hundred twenty-one people were killed and 32 taken hostage. Others have been hospitalized or displaced. The documentary follows the narrative of individuals such as agricultural worker Avida Bachar, who lost his wife and their son in the attacks. Bachar’s leg had to be amputated, and his daughter was also injured.
“It was hell for him,” Benitah said.
She built up enough trust among those who remained that even after access was closed to the public several months later, she got to stay.
“I was sleeping there, living with them,” she recalled, “eating in the cafeteria,” even enduring “bombing in the middle of the night.”
“You are so close [to the border], when a bomb resonates … your body is shaking,” she said. “The window would shake. You are that close, really close.”
That said, there has been a significant amount of destruction on the other side of the border: Israel’s war in Gaza has claimed upwards of 45,000 Palestinian lives, according to unconfirmed figures from the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, with much of Gaza’s infrastructure in ruins.
“There has been so much suffering on both sides,” Jakubowicz said. “It is something we don’t shy away from in the documentary. You see some of the horrific images from Gaza. Nobody should be in denial. The war has been devastating for children, civilians.”
Israel’s conduct of the war has aroused extensive opposition worldwide, including the accusation of genocide. In this heightened atmosphere, it has sometimes been difficult to show Israeli-related content.
“Social media has unfortunately become a breeding ground for hate, and our festival has not been immune to this phenomenon,” Shteyrenberg said. “The anonymous vitriol we receive in targeted comments every day on posts is a sobering reminder of why it is so essential to resist succumbing to fear. To step back in the face of such hostility would be a disservice to the survivors and filmmakers whose courage brings these stories to light. We hope other festivals around the world will join us in standing by these narratives and promoting understanding within their communities — Jewish and non-Jewish alike.”
“Most people in the general audience, the general public, understand the situation is complex,” Jakubowicz said. “They were horrified by the October 7 attacks. I have seen horrific images out of Gaza. This is a war Israel did not start and does not want.
“The documentary very clearly is not propaganda. It’s critical of a lot of things happening in Israel before the war. I think people appreciate we are simply taking an inside look at Israel,” Jakubowicz said.
He remembers a screening for a particularly tough left-wing audience in Spain.
“They were as anti-Israel as it gets,” Jakubowicz said. “They were appreciative of the nuance. They obviously identified with the Israeli left. In my [mind], if you have a person who hates Israel, show him the documentary, and now he hates one-half of Israel, you won.”
