MELVILLE, New York — The movie No Other Land won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. The film, made by two Israelis and two Palestinians, chronicles the experience of Palestinians living in the Masafer Yatta region of the West Bank from 2019 through 2023.
The focus is on a Palestinian activist, Basel Adra, who recorded the destruction of many Palestinian homes by the Israeli military and West Bank settlers. Adra befriended a Jewish journalist, Yuval Abraham, and they worked together to tell the story of the local Palestinian community.
The film has won much critical acclaim in addition to the Oscar award, while others have criticized the film. Israel Culture Minister called it a “defamation of Israel” while the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel criticized the film because of the Palestinian/Israeli partnership that produced it.
Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner called the film antisemitic and called for a cancellation of the film’s screening by a local independent movie theater which leases space from a city-owned building. Because the showing proceeded, the mayor is now trying to cancel the theater’s lease.
Miami Beach has a long Jewish history. While some Jews settled there during the Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe in the late 19th century, yellow fever and a major fire wiped out the community. But Jews began to return, and upon the death of a Jewish tourist in 1913, the 35 Jewish residents established a cemetery and a synagogue. Florida banned discrimination in real estate and hotels in 1949, leading to a huge growth of the Jewish population and the building of many hotels that attracted Jews from the North. In the 1970’s, as much as 80% of the Miami Beach population was Jewish. What was a nickname for Miami Beach which arose based on the large Jewish population?