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''Awake Zion'' is a 2005 documentary by Monica Haim that documents the connection between
In ''Awake Zion'', Haim travels from 
The Cinema GuideReview of ''Awake Zion''Programa Radial de Reggae y Cultura de Jamaica
{{Authority control Jamaican documentary films 2005 films Films about music and musicians Documentary films about Jews and Judaism Documentary films about religion Rastafari 2000s Hebrew-language films 2005 documentary films 2000s English-language films 2005 multilingual films
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
and Rastafarians.
Synopsis
In ''Awake Zion'', Haim travels from Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
to Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
and Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
, interviewing Rastafarians and Rabbi
A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...
s to highlight similarities between their worldviews. Haim, a young Jewish woman, says she first perceived a connection between Jews and Rastafarians at a reggae
Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...
concert.
Haim interviews Super Dane, an African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
DJ in the reggae scene in Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
who is shocked by Matisyahu
Matthew Paul Miller (born June 30, 1979), known by his stage name Matisyahu (; ), is an American reggae singer, rapper, beatboxer
Beatboxing (also beat boxing) is a form of vocal percussion primarily involving the art of mimicking drum mac ...
, a Hasidic
Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of contem ...
reggae artist from White Plains New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
. The film also features Jamaican-born Israeli rapper Yehoshua Sofer
:''Yehoshua Sofer is also the name of a victim of the June 2010 West Bank shooting.''
Yehoshua Sofer ( he, יהושע סופר) is an Israeli-Jamaican hip hop and rap artist, and a martial artist.
Biography
He was born in 1958 in Jamaica and h ...
.
Response
Most reviews of ''Awake Zion'' emphasize the documentary's social conscience in trying to bridge a gap between two seemingly different cultures. Rather than being scholarly, Haim's tone is described as "gently irreverent".See also
* History of the Jews in Jamaica *History of the Jews in Morocco
Moroccan Jews constitute an ancient community. Before the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, there were about 250,000 to 350,000 Jews in the country, which gave Morocco the largest Jewish community in the Muslim world, but by 2017 only 2 ...
*History of the Jews in South Africa
The history of the Jews in South Africa began during the period of Portuguese exploration in the early modern era, though a permanent presence was not established until the beginning of Dutch colonisation in the region. During the period of ...
References
External links
The Cinema Guide
{{Authority control Jamaican documentary films 2005 films Films about music and musicians Documentary films about Jews and Judaism Documentary films about religion Rastafari 2000s Hebrew-language films 2005 documentary films 2000s English-language films 2005 multilingual films