“My Tree”: Voices from the Holy Land online film salon

Using children’s donations collected via “little blue boxes,” the Jewish National Fund has planted more than 250 million trees in Israel/Palestine. Ostensibly to “make the desert bloom,” the planting has radically altered the land’s biodiversity. My Tree follows filmmaker Jason Sherman’s journey to find the tree planted in his name on the occasion of his bar mitzvah. When he discovers that “his” tree is in a forest covering up a Palestinian village destroyed in 1967 – one of many forests hiding scores of destroyed villages – he seeks to learn the motivations behind JNF’s tree-planting enterprise and to understand his own culpability.

Watch the film for free at your convenience, then join the Q&A discussion organized by Voices from the Holy Land on Sunday, July 16.

• Jason Sherman: Jewish Canadian playwright, screenwriter, and filmmaker
• Seth Morrison: Treasurer, Jewish Voice for Peace Action, publicly resigned from Washington D.C. Board of Jewish National Fund
• Mazin Qumsiyeh: Author, founder and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History (PMNH) and the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability (PIBS) at Bethlehem University
• Iymen Chehade (moderator): Professor of Middle Eastern History, Columbia College; founder, Uprising Theater

You must register to get the free film link and to participate in the Q&A discussion: Tinyurl.com/VFHL-July2023