A screening of the documentary film “No Blacks, No Jews, No Dogs” — which follows Jewish students from Los Angeles coming together with African American students in Selma, Alabama — was held on March 6 at Radford Studio Center in Studio City.
Among those in attendance at the screening was former LA City Councilmember Jan Perry, who moderated a panel after the film was shown. Those on the panel were Pressman Academy Rabbi Chaim Tureff, the rav beit sefer at Pressman Academy; Joumana Silyan-Saba, director of policy discrimination enforcement for the City of Los Angeles’ Civil and Human Rights and Equity Department; filmmaker Kenny Stoff; student Miya Peterseil; and Shanda Wolkowitz, director of community engagement and network at Challah and Soul, which seeks to foster relations between Jewish and Black communities through food, storytelling and education.
The film, shot by Stoff, follows a group of eighth-grade students from Pressman Academy as they travel to Alabama and spend three days with students their age from their sister school, RB Hudson, a middle school in Selma. Together, the students visit sites of significance to the Civil Rights Movement, including the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the site of the “Bloody Sunday” conflict on March 7, 1965, when police attacked African American demonstrators with horses, clubs and tear gas.
During their time together, the students also visited the 16th Street Baptist Church, which was targeted in a deadly bombing in 1963.
Though their interactions begin as shy and tentative, the group of Jewish and Black students depicted in the film gradually form friendships as Tureff, joined by community leaders, lead the kids around several stops in Alabama.
During the post-screening panel, the participants spoke about the importance of breaking the cycle of antisemitism and racism that has longed plagued society as well the history of oppression that ties the two communities together.
The screening of the film, which was held before a crowd that included students from local magnet school, Valley Oaks Center for Enriched Studies (VOCES), coincided with the 60th anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” attack on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Accompanying the students was Jamal Speakes, a teacher at VOCES.
Milken Community School recently held its sixth annual “State of the School” address, featuring Milken Head of School Sarah Shulkind providing an update on the many goings-on at the LA private Jewish day school.
The Feb. 24 event marked the first time that Milken held its “State of the School” address on its recently acquired Milken East campus, a 22-acre hilltop site that Milken purchased from American Jewish University (AJU) in 2024.
The theme of the evening — which included Shulkind’s keynote; remarks from school leaders; and panels and artistic performances by Milken students — was “Only at Milken.”
“‘Only at Milken’ reflects our pride in what we’ve accomplished, our ambition for the future, and, most significantly, our unshakable belief that the world our children will inherit tomorrow is born in the school we build today,” Shulkind said. “In other words, Milken, in our very mission, aims to shape the future of the Jewish people and the world.”
At the start of the evening, Milken Board Chair Richard Sandler said Judaism is core to the school’s identity even as it seeks to outperform the best Jewish and secular schools in the city.
“Our responsibility is not to have the best Jewish school in Los Angeles — our responsibility is to be the best school in Los Angeles,” Sandler said, garnering enthusiastic applause. “And as most of you probably know, since you’ve entrusted us with your students, we are already there.”
Milken parent Ronit Cohen was among those in attendance at the “State of the School.” Her 16-year-old daughter, Noa, is in the tenth grade at Milken and plans to spend an upcoming semester studying abroad in Israel.
ZAKA — a renowned search, rescue and recovery organization in Israel — has played a key role in the response to the Oct. 7 attack. At a recent event, Israel Defense Minister Israel Katz (left) appears with ZAKA CEO Duby Weissenstern. Photo courtesy of ZAKA
