The Team

Filmmakers

Director/Producer Heather Tenzer is a documentary filmmaker and multimedia producer making films that document the struggles of marginalized communities. She’s been supported by grants and fellowships from Yaddo, the Jerome Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Queens Council on the Arts, and others. Her film MENSCH broadcast on WNET (PBS) and her short films have screened at US and international film festivals. Tenzer’s productions have earned Telly Awards, CINE Golden Eagle Awards, and recognition by the American Library Association. Her first feature film (in progress), The Rabbis’ Intifada, won the Al Jazeera Documentary Co-Production Award at Al Jazeera Documentary Industry Days (2023). The film was also an Official Selection in the New Voices category at Sunny Side of the Doc in La Rochelle, France (2023). Tenzer has taught at Bryn Mawr College and at Temple University in Philadelphia. She holds a Master’s degree in Documentary Film Production from Stanford University and a Bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College.  

Cinematographer Melanie Aronson directed the short film, Refuge, which had its U.S. premiere at the 2014 Seattle International Film Festival and its European premiere at the 2014 London Short Film Festival. Melanie received her MFA in Documentary Film from the School of Visual Arts in NYC. She currently works in Malmö, Sweden as a director, cinematographer, and photographer.

Cinematographer Sergio Yahni is a Jerusalem based filmmaker. He wrote and produced the award winning documentary Intramuros (2017), produced and shot For The Resistance: A Popular Movement in Palestine (2011) and Sheikh Jarrah (2011). 

Board of Advisors

We’re deeply grateful to our Advisory Board:

  • Issam Aburaya, PhD – Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Seton Hall University; Author, "Islamism, Nationalism and Western Modernity: The Case of Iran and Palestine," International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society.

  • Daniel Boyarin, PhD – Professor of Talmudic Studies, UC Berkeley. Author of nearly 20 books including, Unheroic Conduct, A Traveling Homeland, and co-author with Jonathan Boyarin of Powers Of Diaspora: Two Essays On The Relevance Of Jewish Culture.

  • Emmaia Gelman – PhD Candidate at NYU American Studies Department. A queer activist and parent in NYC, she works most directly on public education equity, opposing racism and Islamophobia, and anti-Zionism.

  • Ahlam Muhtaseb – Professor of Communication Studies and director of the Center for Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies at California State University, San Bernardino. She is co-director and executive producer of the film 1948: Creation and Catastrophe.

  • Yakov Rabkin, PhD – Professor of Contemporary History, University of Montreal. Author, A Threat from Within: A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism  and What Is Modern Israel?

  • Brant Rosen – Rabbi of Tzedek Chicago and author of Wrestling in the Daylight: A Rabbi’s Path to Palestinian Solidarity.

  • Sarah Schulman –Novelist, nonfiction writer, playwright and historian; Author of nearly 20 books including, Israel/Palestine And The Queer International and Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility and the Duty of Repair.

  • Irene Siegel, PhD – Independent scholar, educator, performer & community organizer. Author, "A Judeo-Arab-Muslim Continuum: Edmond Amram El Maleh’s Poetics of Fragments."