Sandi DuBowski discussion
Sandi DuBowski is the Director/Producer of SABBATH QUEEN and TREMBLING BEFORE G-D, Producer of A JIHAD FOR LOVE, and Co-Producer of BUDRUS. His award-winning work has screened at Sundance, Berlin, Tribeca, and Toronto, theatrically released in 150 cities, and broadcast on ZDF/Arte, BBC, Channel 4, PBS. In 2020, he was invited to become a member of the Documentary Branch of the Outreach Director of Doc Society’s Good Pitch. He is the Co-Founder of The Creative Resistance, a collective of media makers who create award-winning political ads and design. In the mid-1990, he began his media and activism work at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, focused on the Christian right and the anti-abortion movement. Three generations of DuBowski’s family made chocolate syrup in Deep Coastal Brooklyn.
Oren Rudavsky discussion
Oren Rudavsky's first jobs in NYC after graduating from college were as the post-production supervisor for the television shows Tales from the Darkside and Monsters, and on the film unit of Saturday Night Live. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and several National Endowment for the Humanities and National Endowment for the Arts grants. Rudavsky co-wrote and directed the American Masters documentary, Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People. The film was nominated for an Emmy as part of the American Masters series as well as a Critics Choice Award. His film A Life Apart: Hasidism in America was short-listed for the Academy Awards and broadcast on PBS and his film Hiding and Seeking: Faith After the Holocaust was nominated for an Independent Spirit award and was chosen for the PBS POV series.
Rudavsky was the media producer for the permanent installations at the Russian Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow, which opened in 2013. He recently completed Elie Wiesel: Soul On Fire a feature documentary also with National Endowment for the Humanities funding in co-production with PBS American Masters.
Kenneth S. Stern discussion
Kenneth S. Stern is the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate and an attorney and award-winning author. For twenty-five years, he was the American Jewish Committee's expert on antisemitism. He has argued before the Supreme Court of the United States, testified before both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate, was an invited presenter at the White House Conference on Hate Crimes, and served as a member of the U.S. Delegation to the Stockholm Forum on Combating Intolerance. He has been a visiting assistant professor of Jewish Studies and a visiting assistant professor of Human Rights at Bard College. He is co-chair of the Higher Education/Hate Studies working group for the Eradicate Hate Global Summit.
As a trial attorney before his AJC tenure, Stern was involved in several high-visibility cases, among them his defense of American Indian Movement co-founder Dennis Banks in one of the last post-Wounded Knee cases (his book about this case, Loud Hawk: The United States vs. The xAmerican Indian Movement won the prestigious Gustavus Myers Award). His book about the Oklahoma City bombing -- A Force Upon The Plane: The American Militia Movement and the Politics of Hate -- was nominated for the National Book Award. He also has written books on antisemitism and on Holocaust denial. His most recent book is The Conflict Over the Conflict: The Israel/Palestine Campus Debate (New Jewish Press, 2020).
Seth Rogovoy discussion
Seth Rogovoy is the author of Within You Without You: Listening to George Harrison (Oxford University Press), Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet (Scribner), and The Essential Klezmer: A Music Lover’s Guide to Jewish Roots and Soul Music (Algonquin). Seth’s weekly cultural commentary can be heard on “The Rogovoy Report” on WAMC Northeast Public Radio Network on Fridays between 12:50 and 1pm.
Daniel Robbins discussion
Daniel Robbins is a NYC-based director. In his films, he takes exciting concepts and grounds them with authentic performances, surprising humor, and propulsive energy.
His breakout film PLEDGE was a hit at Fantasia Film Festival and sold to IFC Midnight as well as a streaming deal with Hulu. He also won “Best Director” at Screamfest. Variety calls it a “lean and mean shocker,” the New York Times proclaims “...the director is willing to move beyond the tease of his setup to deliver a ringing indictment of popularity as the cheese in a deadly mousetrap,” and The Daily Beast calls it “a fleet, ferocious, and razor-sharp affair.”
His comedy feature CITIZEN WEINER was boarded by Abso Lutely and Village Roadshow and is currently streaming for free on Tubi. And BAD SHABBOS, which won the Audience Award at Tribeca, is currently in select theaters.
Avi Dresner discussion
Avi Dresner is a journalist, documentary filmmaker and screenwriter. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, and he is a two-time winner of the Rockower Award (aka "the Jewlitzer”:) from the American Jewish Press Association. He is Executive Producer of the documentary-in-progress, “The Rabbi & The Reverend” and co-screenwriter of the feature film script “King’s Rabbi”, both of which tell the story of his father, Rabbi Israel Dresner, the most arrested and jailed rabbi during the Civil Rights Movement and an ally and friend of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.