Title: Acknowledging the Nakba and Struggling for Justice: Jewish South Africans travel to Lubya
Author: Heidi Grunebaum, Centre for Humanities Re- search, University of the West- ern Cape

Voices from the South E-Newsletter: May 2015

Description:

In June 2013, the documentary film “The Village Under the Forest” had its world premiere in Cape Town, South Africa. The film, by Jewish South Africans Mark J. Kaplan and Heidi Grunebaum, presents an example of how a Jewish diaspora has been implicated in the erasure of the memory of the mass depopulation of Palestinians.

Nearly two years later to the date, in May 2015, a group of Jewish South Africans (many of whom had been anti-apartheid activists) traveled to Palestine and Israel, in particular to the destroyed Palestinian village of Lubya in the Galilee. The aim of their trip was to visit this village under the forest that the documentary described, to stand in solidarity with the village’s Palestinian descendants who are still displaced, and to take responsibility for the actions being done in their name.

This month’s “Voice from the South” features a reflection from Heidi Grunebaum on the South Africans’ visit to Lubya. Their visit was covered by several international media outlets, including CNN International. The text and video are found below.

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