Product Description

To Die In Jerusalem recounts the heart-wrenching story of two teenage girls - 17-year-old Israeli student Rachel Levy and her killer, 18-year old Palestinian suicide bomber Ayat al-Akhras -- who died together at a Jerusalem market in 2002. The horrific incident ignited international outrage and set in motion one mother's journey to meet the mother of her daughter's killer. More than four years later, they finally meet in an emotionally charged encounter that underscores the deep roots of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26680 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-12-01
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: Arabic, English, Hebrew
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 76 minutes

Review
Some politically minded documentaries work hard to elicit a reaction from their audiences. Without even trying, the beautifully structured and emotionally devastating "To Die in Jerusalem" is strong medicine about the toll on human life and family ties exacted from suicide bombings in the Middle East. Without ever manipulating or appearing to sermonize, the documentary, directed Hilla Medalia, makes the viewer wonder when and if the nightmare will ever end. It takes a simple story, and Medalia has it down. One day in 2002, a 17-year-old Israeli student, Rachel Levy, walked into a Jerusalem supermarket -- the exact same moment 18-year-old Palestinian suicide bomber Ayat al-Akhras blew herself up in the market. Both girls died, and it wasn't until several years later that their mothers finally met. "Jerusalem" is that simple in structure: the meeting of two mothers whose grief represents two grieving populations. The docu resounds with emotion and lessons learned, lessons that go unheeded, emotions that ignite time and again. Medalia catches the two mothers and their families in close-up shots that have much larger implications. It couldn't be simpler than the grief of two mothers and two peoples at war. Yet after decades of retaliation between Israelis and the Palestinians, as the docu shows, grief is just part of the landscape. --Hollywood Reporter By Marilyn Moss

Review
To Die in Jerusalem Thursday night at 9, HBO. The resemblance between the two teen girls was so great, and the differences between them so striking, that Newsweek ran a cover at the time featuring them both in closeup in a split-screen cover. One was Ayat al-Akhras, an 18-year-old Palestinian suicide bomber. Another was 17-year-old Israeli student Rachel Levy, one of the bomber's two victims. That bombing occurred in a Jerusalem grocery store five years ago. Thursday night at 9, HBO presents "To Die in Jerusalem," a new documentary probing the motives and ramifications of that act - and the quest, by Rachel's mother, to meet with the mother of the girl who killed her daughter. Filmmaker Hilla Medalia accompanies Rachel's mother, Abigail, but doesn't take sides. Instead, she serves as a witness, recording reactions as both mothers try to come to terms with their grief. "Oh, I hope you won't have to taste this, ever," wails Um Samir al-Akhras early on, mourning her daughter's act of what she saw as martyrdom. "What made you go blow yourself up?" Abigail tries, and initially fails, to make contact with Um Samir. Instead, she contents herself, temporarily, with visiting a woman imprisoned for planning, but not successfully carrying out, a suicide bombing mission. They speak through interpreters - and when Abigail identifies herself to the prisoner as the mother of the girl killed by Ayat al-Akhras, the interpreter is both stunned and skeptical. "Is this true," the translator asks Abigail, "or only in front of the camera?" Abigail seems taken aback by the prisoner's lack of remorse, and insistence that occupation is to blame for her people's violent resistance. Meanwhile, "To Die in Jerusalem" takes us to the forensic pathologist who worked on the 2002 bombing - and who admits, hauntingly, that he had a very difficult time separating and identifying the remains of the two young women because their bodies were so eerily similar. Finally, the two women confront one another - this wouldn't be much of a documentary if they didn't - but while the common ground and pleas for peace are there, the resentments and resistance run deep. "The first thing about peace is talking," one says to the other. "Teach me about you." It's a laudable, difficult step, given the circumstances. But the second thing about peace, which "To Die in Jerusalem" suggests is even tougher, is listening. Watching this documentary, in one respect, is a small part of that process. --NY Daily News David Bianculli

Review
Grieving Mothers on 2 Sides of a Suicide Bombing; The cover of Newsweek framed the story starkly: side-by-side pictures of Ayat al-Akhras, an 18-year-old Palestinian suicide bomber, and 17-year-old Rachel Levy, killed by the bomb that Ms. Akhras detonated on March 29, 2002, at a Jerusalem supermarket. The two looked as if they could have been sisters and should have been living the lives of carefree teenagers, instead of becoming tragic symbols of the intractable Middle East conflict. HBO s documentary president, Sheila Nevins, haunted by the cover, dispatched two established American producers she declined to name them in an interview to begin work on a film. They weren t able to make inroads with Ms. Akhras s family, and the project was dropped. But HBO got its film anyway, from a first-time Israeli feature-filmmaker, Hilla Medalia, who saw the same magazine cover, had the same idea and succeeded where the others had failed. Her film, To Die in Jerusalem, will be shown on HBO beginning on Nov. 1; it will also open the Paley Center for Media s documentary festival tonight. The film traces the efforts to bring the two mothers of the dead girls, who live less than four miles apart, face to face for a meeting that Ms. Levy s mother, Avigail Levy, said she believed would be cathartic as well as a symbol of hope, a chance to transcend entrenched hatreds. Ultimately, stymied by fears of venturing into enemy territory, cultural differences and the bureaucracies of war, the two meet only by satellite, unable to bridge the physical chasm. The emotional gulf proves equally unfathomable. At the time of the bombing, Ms. Medalia, now 30 and living in New York, was looking for a topic for a film she needed to make to complete her master s degree at Southern Illinois University. The story of the girls struck her as a way to show the conflict in a manner that even those who didn t follow the situation closely could comprehend. This is a very humanistic, personal story of mothers and daughters that can be told, she said. With a call to directory assistance, she found Avigail Levy. It was harder to track down Ms. Akhras s parents in the Dheisheh refugee camp outside Bethlehem, but soon she was talking, separately, to Abu and Um Samir al-Akhras. The resulting film, Daughters of Abraham, won an award at the Angelus Student Film Festival in Los Angeles and drew the attention of the brothers John and Ed Priddy, entrepreneurs in Boise, Idaho, who were beginning to finance films. Here you had two dead daughters, two grieving mothers and a woman who had the tremendous courage to go in and examine what was going on, said John Priddy, one of the executive producers. Ms. Nevins of HBO learned about the project, and jumped at the chance to get the film she had wanted. Ms. Medalia, who had initially been afraid as an Israeli to venture into the Palestinian territory for the filming, returned to Jerusalem, confident that she could arrange a meeting of the mothers. It was obvious to anyone who saw the student film, Mr. Priddy said, that these two women have to meet, which was the naïveté of the whole thing. Among other challenges, Ms. Akhras would not or could not travel without her husband, and he, the father of a suicide bomber, was not eligible for a visa to visit Jerusalem, Ms. Medalia said. At one point the filmmakers reached out to the Rev. Mitri Raheb, pastor of Bethlehem s Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church, to be a neutral mediator, and in April 2006 he escorted Ms. Levy into the West Bank. But the accompanying members of the film crew were detained for several hours by Palestinian authorities, and by the time they were released, night was falling. A scared Ms. Levy asked to return to Jerusalem, the plan for a meeting abandoned. --NY Times Elizabeth Jensen

Customer Reviews

Beautiful and heart renching.
A true documentary, no hidden agenda. A great insight into the daily struggles of both sides of the Palestinian-Isreali conflict. I would recommend it for everyone.

to die in Jerusalem
Great documentary, but embarassing to buy a DVD from Amazon. I used to be a big DVD buyer there, but like with this latest one, I invited a lot of friends to see it. 3/4 toward the end of the movie, the DVD froze and stopped playing. We never saw the end of it. My DVD player is not the problem, as other DVD's played well and it's a great unit. The DVD is of a bad quality, and I am tired of trying to find a receipt to return the DVD.. so be warned!

Two Mothers
"To Die in Jerusalem"

Two Mothers

Amos Lassen

Four years ago, 17 year old Rachel Levy was killed in Jerusalem by a Palestinian suicide bomber. Her mother, Avigail, has still not found peace. Ayat al-Akhras, also 17, a schoolgirl from a Palestinian refugee camp four miles from Jerusalem was Rachel's murderer and like Rachel, she was also 17. This is an emotionally charged documentary that explores the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through the loss of the families of Rachel and Ayat and we are privy to a meeting between the two mothers and get a contemporary reflection of the conflict as see through the eyes of two mothers who each lost a daughter.
The documentary cements the fact that we may never see an end to the conflict. We look into the eyes of two women who have lost something very precious but we also look into the eyes of hate and despair. The film is meant to spread awareness and bring about dialogue by having the audience to feel the situation from a very personal perspective of both sides of the problem. There seems to be a leaning toward the Palestinian side in the film even though the filmmaker is an Israeli. We see the family experiences of the suicide bomber. The controversy is that the film shows how both sides are victims of the occupation of Palestine and how little the two sides see eye to eye because of the lack of dialogue. Here is an issue of power between the oppressed and the free. The oppressed do not have the power to communicate their situation. What we need is empathy for both sides where power is more equally distributed. The film shows how barriers can be broken down--the Israeli filmmaker allows a Palestinian woman to have a voice for the Palestinian cause and how the only way to find a path to peace is to listen to what is being said. I could relate to both sides and as an Israeli citizen that is not always east to do. We watch as the complexities of the issue are unraveled and we see that the easiest way to bridge the gap is through listening to each other speak. This can also be the most difficult thing to do.
The Palestinians live in misery under the occupation but they maintain a lust for armed resistance and revenge stops them from allowing the situation to get any better. When Avigail said to the Arab mother "we, the mothers should feel each other's pain and work for wats to make the pain stop for future generations", she was not trying to justify the occupation or the transgressions of Israel. We do not know how she really feels abut the occupation. What she wanted to do was to get the Palestinian women to agree that violence has to stop. Ayat's mother would not meet her on that. She claimed that violence was necessary as long as Palestinian demands were not satisfied.
Alleviating the misery of the Palestinians is not the top priority. They could do this by honestly working toward the two countries living side by side in peace but to them this would be a peace of humiliation. They want their lands and their fields back--will this guarantee a good life for them? This seems little more than sentimentalism.
This is not an easy movie to watch and the opposite views of the mothers comes as no surprise. We are al fully aware that the endless cycle of death achieves nothing.