Fighting Antisemitism

FIGHTING ANTISEMITISM: STUDENT-PRODUCED DOCUMENTARIES

With the dramatic rise of antisemitism around the world, all of us might be asking what we are doing today to help fight antisemitism.

In the summer of 2023, students in the Summer Internship Course of the Beacon Academy of Media and Digital Arts in South Elgin, Illinois (School District U-46) had four weeks to research and produce short documentaries that investigated this question with the supervision of digital arts instructor Brian Erlich. This group of all non-Jewish students spent half of their summer devoted to learning about antisemitism and how to fight against it.

Co-directors/executive producers Phyllis Zimbler Miller in Los Angeles and Brian Erlich in Elgin, Illinois worked closely together to assemble the student-produced documentaries into an overall film.

The range of the 10 student-produced documentaries is quite varied — all choices of the non-Jewish student producers — from interviewing a young Muslim male in Malmo, Sweden working against antisemitism to featuring a Jewish gay organization working to promote tolerance.

The titles of the individual documentaries and their student producers are:

“Luke Berryman and the Ninth Candle” – McKenna Hopkins, Pamela De La Concepcion

“Keshet” – Mac Klinger

“Catherine Bernstein” – Kenyen Vignaude, Jorge Mazariegos, Justin Denton

“Siavosh Derakhti” – AJ Foster, Mia Galindo

“Dov Forman” – Noah Cheney, Jaxson Krzyzanowski

“Gen Z Jews” – Camila Monroy, Sam Dankel

“Fighting Online Antisemitism” – Tim Addison

“B’nai Brith” – Carlos Cabrera

“Magen Chicago” – Jason Phillips

“Evelyn and Rosa” – Jordan We