Promises provides extraordinary window into minds and hearts
of Jerusalem's children
P.O.V. documentary premieres December 13, 2001 on MPT

OWINGS MILLS, MD: On December 13 at 9 p.m., as part of the 2001 season of P.O.V., public television's groundbreaking showcase of independent, non-fiction films, Maryland Public Television airs "Promises." This poignant account of the bitter and historically complex struggle of war and peace in the Middle East is told from the point of view of seven Israeli and Palestinian children. The award-winning documentary provides a window into the minds and hearts of Jerusalem's children on both sides of the checkpoints that divide the area. Their detailed and intimate accounts offer personal, emotional and sometimes hilarious insight into their experiences.

Between 1997 and the summer of 2000, three filmmakers went to Jerusalem to ask children what they thought about war and peace in the Middle East. The result, a riveting documentary called "Promises," is a prescient account of the bitter and historically complex struggle from the point of view of those who will inherit it. The film does not focus on news and current events, rather, the children's detailed and intimate accounts offer personal, emotional, and sometimes hilarious insight into their experiences.

Goldberg, returning to Jerusalem where he spent his youth, talks with children on both sides of the checkpoints that divide the area. Some of the seven Israeli and Palestinian children the film focuses on reside only minutes away from one another but are nevertheless worlds apart. Ten-year-old Moishe is the son of a settler family and dreams of being Israel's first "religious" prime minister. Eleven-year-old Mahmoud lives in Jerusalem's Old City, which allows him access denied other Palestinians. He prays for the liberation of Palestine at one of Islam's holiest shrines, the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the fiercely disputed 'Temple Mount' or 'Haram Al-Sharif'. Just below the mosque, 13-year-old rabbi-in-training Shlomo prays at Judaism's holiest site, the Western Wall.

The Israeli twins, Yarko and Daniel, come from a secular Israeli family. Their Holocaust-survivor grandfather is a link to the generation that founded the modern state of Israel. Not fifteen minutes by car from the twins, Faraj lives in the Deheishe refugee camp with his grandmother, who still treasures the key to her house that was destroyed in the 1948 war. Sanabel is also a refugee; the assertive daughter of liberal secular Palestinians, whose journalist father was held in an Israeli jail without trial for two years.

At first, the children repeat the ingrained attitudes of their elders, though with the surprising candor and insight that young people often bring to descriptions of adult affairs. As in the adult world, the children's thinking - and their hopes for a more peaceful future - seem to be at an impasse. Then the story takes a surprising turn when the twins and Faraj, who have shown growing curiosity about each other, decide to cross the checkpoints to meet in person. The encounters that follow offer an extraordinary demonstration of the human dimensions of the Middle East conflict, and of the weight of history on a young generation struggling to see a way forward.

"When I was covering the first Intifada in 1988 as a journalist, I was stunned the first time I saw Palestinian children playing the 'Intifada game'," says co-director/producer Goldberg. "Some would play 'Israeli soldiers' and others 'Palestinian protestors,' and they would re-enact the whole thing - stone throwing, arrests, beatings. That planted a seed to make a film about the kids on both sides."

Co-director/producer Shapiro adds, "My deepest motivation for making this film was I wanted so much to convey to an audience that 'Palestinian' does not equal 'terrorist' and
'Israeli' does not equal 'soldier' and the people living in Israel and the Palestinian Territories are not monsters. The children in "Promises" wake us up. They are candid, articulate and funny, and it is through them that we discover a deeper, more dimensional view of both Palestinians and Israelis."

For more information on P.O.V. "Promises," as well as other MPT on- and off-air programs, visit mpt.org.

Maryland Public Television is a not-for-profit, state-licensed public television station which serves the citizens and communities of Maryland and beyond through a variety of broadcast and nonbroadcast activities.

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