Director’s Statement

I first met choreographer Hadar Ahuvia in 2014, when we performed solos on a shared evening of dance. We felt an immediate kinship, rooted in a mutual investigation of our Jewish cultural lineages through body and voice. Over the years, our artistic friendship has grown through performances, collaborations, and long, poetic exchanges about the complexities of identity and history. This film is a product of that enduring relationship— a story witnessed from the inside, shaped by years of care, consent, and collaboration.

Everything You Have Is Yours began as a short artist profile. I admired Hadar’s bold and charismatic dance work, particularly Joy Vey, a response to the 2014 assault on Gaza that reckons with the Nakba of 1948. What unfolded through the lens of my camera was a far messier, deeply personal story that challenged us both. As an American Jew who once avoided engaging with Israel/Palestine, I was forced to confront my privilege and disconnect. The film unravels a diasporic wound, one that shaped our Jewish ancestors in divergent ways— Hadar’s family forged “Israeli-ness” on kibbutzim, while mine pursued the “American Dream.”

The 2016 election of Donald Trump further illuminated the stakes of historical violence and cultural complicity for white liberal Americans like myself. I began to understand my body as a political site, grappling with the ways settler colonialism and white supremacy enmeshed with my generational Jewish experience. Then and now, these legacies continue to quietly embolden both Islamophobia and antisemitism under the guise of Jewish safety. In Hadar’s work, I saw someone daring to confront these uncomfortable truths. How, for example, could a family of Israeli expats living in Hawai’i build allegiances with Christian Zionists, despite their inherently antisemitic beliefs? Hadar’s exploration of Zionism’s cultural complexities paralleled my own reckoning with American exceptionalism and Jewish whiteness.

This film does not seek to oversimplify— reclamation of history looks vastly different across the Jewish landscape. Jews from Sephardi and Mizrahi backgrounds have faced distinct histories of violence and marginalization, often in stark contrast to the experiences of Ashkenazi Jews. Israeli Jews and American Jews embody divergent histories. But dance, as our most primal physical expression, holds the power to transform these narratives. Through the film’s interwoven portraits, I invite viewers to consider what it means to take ownership of cultural inheritance. How can we find accountability and joy in what belongs to us? How might we heal what we carry?

The inclusion of Palestinian voices in this film was a deliberate and complex decision resulting from years of process and dialogue. Early on, Palestinian artists warned us that representation in a film like ours could perpetuate false political balance. We are grateful to partner with Freedom Dabka Group, amplifying their voices as Palestinian-Americans navigating the diaspora. Our decision to weave a parallel narrative reflects a commitment to acknowledging apartheid’s relational segregation— while uplifting a shared story of political transformation through dance.

In 2024, with global eyes on Gaza, the stakes are painfully clear. How can we move forward, through fractured communities and historical trauma, during an unfolding genocide? This film embodies a soft form of activism that does not claim to provide answers but rather to hold space for the questions. I hope it inspires viewers to approach their own histories with curiosity and courage, emerging softer, more empathetic, and ready for the difficult conversations that change demands.

This is a film about unraveling, excavating, and reckoning— together. It’s about the work of healing in imperfect community, acknowledging the weight of what we inherit, and daring to imagine something different.

— Tatyana Tenenbaum, Director of Everything You Have Is Yours