By Skip Kozakewicz
“Blind Spot is the students’ story,” noted Executive Producer Lenny Gold.
The New Yorker has been on a mission to document and communicate widespread antisemitism in schools since 2009 when he learned his son encountered antisemitism at his school in Manhattan.
“I first became aware of this problem when our son encountered it in the 8th grade at his Quaker school,” he explained. “The school had a great reputation and always had about 1/3rd of the students being Jewish. I had never heard a bad word about the school …”
Gold said a Jewish history teacher compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to the treatment of Jews by the Nazis. “My son who was the only Jewish student in class challenged that contention.”
Needless to say, he was upset, shocked and even surprised. He said they heard from parents about other comments from teachers at the school and met with school officials, and then the ADL and other organizations for assistance when not satisfied with the school’s response.
What he learned from his investigation was that the American Friends Service Committee – the controller of the school’s board – was one of the most virulently antisemitic organizations in the world. As his efforts and research continued, he kept hearing about incidents at all levels of schools in the U.S. – public and private schools as well as colleges.
While his initial efforts were personal, as time when on as he learned more about widespread antisemitism, he wanted to do something to raise greater awareness. “If I could do something about it, I wanted to do it. Along the way, there were various attempts on my part to address the problem.”
One effort was co-sponsoring a series of programs with University of Pennsylvania Hillel for two years. These went well, he said, but he wanted to expand his efforts. “The reach was limited.”
He along with others, including Gloria Zimmerman (who later became a co-producer of Blind Spot ) looked into other possibilities until they had a phone conversation with Bari Weiss “almost five years to the day.” Gold said she suggested they look into doing a documentary starring students who were standing up to the problem. And who were most impacted.”
“So, that’s how Blind Spot came about."
The first footage for the film was shot in July 2021 at a rally in Washington, D.C. They recorded seven interviews. However, they experienced some delays moving forward as they needed to find a different film company. When a new company was hired, they moved ahead, facing some challenges but still focused on completing a film featuring college students.
“The students (in the film) were not random,” he noted. “They knew by standing up to the schools … they were putting themselves at great risk. You can’t underestimate the courage they had for speaking out and participating. It was really a selfless and courageous endeavor on their part.”
A majority of the filming took place between September 2022 and September 2023 with a goal of reaching, educating and inspiring as many Americans as possible about antisemitism. “A problem few Americans knew about.”
After Oct. 7, they shifted slightly but now understood that millions of Americans knew antisemitism was widespread.
Gold said the 95-minute film is the product of thousands of hours of research, with the single largest source of information being the reporting of Dion Pierre of The Algemeiner Journal, their campus antisemitism beat reporter. Most of the stories featured were the result of incidents reported by Pierre, or were indirectly related, such as connecting with Jewish on Campus.
(FROM LEFT): Co-Producer Gloria Zimmerman, Director Jeremy Newberger, Rep. Ritchi Torres (D-NY), and Executive Producer Lenny Gold (in Rep. Torres' Bronx district office after he was interviewed there on July 7, 2023.
He expressed satisfaction that the film achieved its goal of educating and inspiring many people, noting successful broadcasts and streaming by JBS TV and Stand with Us. In less than a year, the film has garnered 160,000 combined online views and 60,000 household broadcast views. Using a conservative multiplier, they estimate that more than 300,000 people have seen the film.
“This makes it the most watched and most awarded current antisemitism film.”
Gold added, “Even people who are committed to the civil rights of every group in this country, often have a ‘blind spot’ when it comes to the Jews.” He now can be proud that his mission begun in 2009 has reached a large number people to date.
The executive producer and the team are especially pleased to report that the film just received the 2026 Award of Excellence from the Religion Communicators Council.
He invites community members to the March 23 Jewish Community Federation of Richmond special screening of Blind Spot at the Weinstein JCC where he is scheduled to attend and take part in a Q&A.
For details, https://jewishrichmond.regfox.com/blind-spot-special-screening