World Beyond War UW-Madison and Veterans for Peace – Madison

Hundreds of Palestinian villages were depopulated in 1948. To Israelis, it was the War of Independence, to Palestinians it was ‘Al Nakba’ – the Catastrophe. Director Alon Schwarz revisits former Israeli soldiers as well as Palestinian residents in an effort to re-examine what happened in Tantura, the location of an alleged, Israeli-perpetrated massacre, and find out why ‘Al Nakba’ is still a taboo in Israeli society.

About Tantura

Post-film speakers

Esty Dinur was born in Israel to a father who survived the Holocaust and a mother who survived the Nazi blitz on London. She became a peace activist and supporter of Palestinian rights at an early age, and she is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace – Madison. Esty is a radio, print and digital journalist. Listen to her radio show on Fridays at noon on wortfm.org, 89.9 FM 

Samir El-Omari is a civil engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. He leads the Madison chapter of Playgrounds for Palestine, an organization that supports West Bank farmers by selling their olive oil, with proceeds funding the construction of playgrounds for children in Palestine. Samir’s family history is deeply rooted in the Palestinian experience. His father was born in Jaffa but was displaced to Gaza in 1948. Samir himself was born and raised as a Palestinian refugee in Egypt.

Lily Zyndorf Shell (she/her) is a Ph.D. candidate in Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she is a member of Students for Justice in Palestine. Though her academic work primarily focuses on anti-Black racism in contemporary theatre, her current project in progress revisits the play My Name is Rachel Corrie and the censorship it faced in light of the recent rise of American college campus protests for Palestinian liberation and the ensuing repressive campus policies such as UW-Madison’s new “expressive activity policy.” Lily grew up in New York City, practices anti-Zionist Judaism, and is the grandchild of holocaust survivors.