Peace of the Puzzle

  What happens when you put a Palestinian refugee and a Holocaust suvivor in the same room? An inspiring documentary, courtesy of Mark Freeman.
By James Giza

  Nader Elbanna grew up in a refugee camp. Martin Stern escaped the Nazis and fled through Europe before finally making it to freedom in New York. Miko Peled’s niece was killed in a suicide bombing.

   They’re three of the six people Mark Freeman focuses on in his new documentary, “Talking Peace.” For one year, Freeman attended and filmed the monthly meetings of a Jewish-Palestinian living room dialogue group in San Diego. But the bulk of his film is devoted to his subjects telling their personal stories, many of which are painful to tell and to hear.

   An associate professor in the School of Theatre, Television and Film at San Diego State University, Freeman was amazed at how open and candid his subjects were.

   “It is necessarily an invasive process when you bring cameras and crew in people’s homes and ask them to talk often about things that are particularly painful,” says Freeman, 55, sitting in his campus office, taking a break from putting the finishing touches on the film. “But not only did they tell me their stories and invite me to their homes and share their food with me, but I got them digging around in their shoeboxes and albums for old photos and stuff.”

   An estimated 50 to 75 Jewish-Palestinian and Jewish-Muslim dialogue groups meet throughout North America. But Freeman didn’t know about them until his brother-in-law, Seth Brysk, executive director of San Francisco Hillel, tipped him off. He was fascinated and contacted Len and Libby Traubman, a Bay Area couple active in fostering dialogue groups. They put him in touch with Doris Bittar, an Arabic artist who facilitated a San Diego group of about 20 people that had been meeting for three years. (Eight groups currently meet in San Diego.)

   Freeman attended a few meetings of Bittar’s group and then began his project, opting to remain behind the scenes. 

  



“I think it’s impossible to be politically aware or socially conscious and not be affected by what happens in the Middle East,” he says. “And so there was always a question about whether I was going to participate in the dialogue itself, and I chose not to – not because I didn’t care or didn’t have opinions – but I thought I was already affecting the process enough.”

   Freeman isn’t expecting to heal the world with his film.

   “It’s not intended to resolve this issue. It’s intended to build relationships,” he says. “I think this movie is optimistic in the fact that human beings can cross boundaries and learn about humanized, particularized, personalized people who were other and mysterious and frightening. That we can overcome fear and stereotypes is a fact that we can take some energy and hope from. But in itself it doesn’t resolve the problem. It’s necessary but not sufficient. It’s part of the first step.”


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