We are honored that our former executive director and current creative director Jacob Bender received an award at the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) Annual Convention in Chicago to recognize his years of service to the American Muslim community and to CAIR.
Thank you, Jacob, for your ongoing service to our communities!
Jacob Bender’s Remarks
ISNA Interfaith Banquet, Chicago | September 4, 2022
Before being hired as the first Jewish Executive Director of CAIR-Philadelphia in 2013, I directed a documentary film about Al-Andulus (medieval Muslim Spain) called “Out of Cordoba.” The film criticized the so-called “Clash of Civilizations” thesis as intrinsically flawed and Islamophobic. Instead, “Out of Cordoba” provided the American audience a view of Islam as a great civilization that had created a garden of convivencia (interfaith coexistence) in southern Spain and Morocco.
I began fundraising for the film a few months after 9/11, but at first it was hard going at first. Then, out of the blue, I received a phone call from a man who introduced himself as Dr Sayyid Syeed from an organization named ISNA. He told me he had read about my film project on the internet and invited me to talk about the film at this very banquet back in 2003. With Dr Syeed’s support, and the help and support of many other leaders and scholars in the American Muslim community, I applied for funding to the Alwaleed bin Talal Foundation of Saudi Arabia. About a year later I received an email informing me that the Foundation was donating the sum of $200,000 to the help turn “Out of Cordoba” from a proposal into an actual film.
I was obviously very honored that a Saudi prince was a contributor to a film about a 12th century rabbi and Jewish philosopher, and both the Foundation and I publicized news of the donation on the internet.
Enter Islamophobe Daniel Pipes, who in his online newsletter JIHAD-WATCH, wrote that the only reason Prince Alwaleed gave me money for the film was because I was an agent of the Saudi Secret Police, a traitor to my people, and, oh yes, a “self-hating Jew.”
“Out of Cordoba” was released in 2010, and was screened over 300 times at secular, religious, cultural, and educational institutions around the world, including an Arabic version on AlJazeera and a Spanish version on Spain’s public television station.
As for PBS, I was told unofficially that the film was “anti-Israel” because it concluded with a segment showing non-violent Palestinian resistance to Israel’s destruction of their homes and olive groves so as to make room for yet another apartheid Israeli settlement.
Alas, documentary filmmaking is not a terribly lucrative profession, and after screening the film around the world for 3 years, it was time to look for steady employment. And thus I applied to, and was hired by, CAIR-Philadelphia as their new executive director in 2013.
It was an experiment for both of us, whether a Jew could direct a Muslim organization? But the naysayers and skeptics and haters were proved wrong, and tonight, I answer in the affirmative, and I am honored to stand with CAIR, and ISNA, and all those who struggle with samud (steadfastness) for democracy and human rights in China, Kashmir and India, in Burma, Brooklyn and Palestine.
Not for a second, however, do I believe that this award is bestowed on me alone, but as well for my wonderful staff and executive board members who have kept CAIR-Philadelphia afloat and indeed thriving during these turbulent times.
It has been an amazing ride, and I feel blessed beyond all words to have made this journey into the heart of the Muslim Ummah. The knowledge I gained, the friends I made, the speeches I gave, the programs I produced, will be with me forever.
Thank you,
Jacob Bender
