'Home Game:' When Israeli hoop dreams lost to Gaza pullout (Podcast, video)

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'Home Game:' When Israeli hoop dreams lost to Gaza pullout (Podcast, video)

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sourced by davebender

While
media coverage of Israel’s evacuation of 9,000 Jewish residents from
the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2005 focused on the political and
physical struggle between the government and its citizens, filmmakers Yaron Shane and producer Avi Abelow chose to focus on the human aspect.

The
massive police operation which garnered the world's attention and
brought emotions to a fevered pitch within the country, played out on
very same day as the final game of the annual high-school basketball
championship between the 22 Jewish communities in Gaza.

That's the backdrop for Home Game, their recently-released film.

A
movingly edited amalgam of hundreds of amateur film clips, recorded by
the residents themselves, along with one-on-one interviews with
residents Home Game chronicles daily life before and during the
evacuation of the 30-year-old farming community of Netzer Hazani, in
the southern Gush Katif
settlement bloc. Shane and Abelow carefully pieced together the myriad
personal and public dramas taking place both within, and beyond the
echoing walls of the sports hall into a dramatic whole.

"My
ultimate goal is for people to put aside their political orientations,
and religious affiliations and whatever baggage they have that stops
them from feeling empathy for their fellow Jews who go through
tragedies; and in this case, with the movie dealing with the people and
the families and the youth of Gush Katif, who went through an
unbelievable tragedy,” Abelow told www.ISRAEL21c.com at a screening of the film in Tel Aviv.

Here's a bit of background:

Gaza Pullout: Settlers & Supporters Protest on Vimeo

(Cross-posted at Israelity)

A full version of this article, and the podcast will be cross-posted at Israel21c in coming days.