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Kitchen coexistence in a film about Middle Eastern food
with Beth Elise Hawk
When these people are cooking together and eating together, the labels are stripped. You're not a Jew, a Muslim, or a Christian. You're just a person. The chefs bond together over ingredients, over recipes. That is the beauty of this film.
-- Beth Elise Hawk on Making Peace Visible
EPISODE NOTES
Dr. Nof Atamna-Ismaeel is on a mission to bring about social change through food. A Palestinian Israeli citizen who operates in both Arab and Jewish cultures, she says “being stuck in the middle is the best place to be.” After winning the Israeli cooking competition show MasterChef– the first Muslim Arab to do so– she founded an annual food festival in the city of Haifa to showcase dishes with roots in the region. And she added a twist: Arab and Jewish chefs are paired together to recreate “extinct” or little known dishes.
The award-winning 2020 documentary film Breaking Bread showcases the friendships that emerge through these collaborations, along with mouth-watering food cinematography. Our guest, American filmmaker Beth Elise Hawk, discusses how making the film challenged preconceived notions about Israeli society, and choices she made to avoid inflaming attitudes in a place where politics is inescapable.
Breaking Bread is now streaming on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and Google Play.