Published: 25 August 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
The NSW Premier's Multicultural Award for Best Audio-Visual report was award to The Jewish Independent for the series 'Palestinian Citizens of Israel'.
The Jewish Independent was last night recognised by the NSW Premier’s Multicultural Communications Awards for the landmark video series From their perspective: Palestinian citizens of Israel.
The series consists of five short video interviews with Palestinian Israelis who discuss issues including politics, identity, social challenges, culture and Arab-Jewish partnership.
It is the second year in a row that The Jewish Independent has won Best Audio-Visual Report in the awards, which recognise the valuable contribution multicultural media and marketing make to our society by connecting people to their culture, identity, and language.
Last year, the video series Covid Courage Stories took out the award.
The Jewish Independent commissioned Palestinian citizens of Israel filmmaker Ghousoon Bisharat and videographer Tom Dallal to interview well-known and representative personalities from their community, to ensure that the voices would be authentic. The entire series was produced from within the Palestinian community, rather than from an external production lens, looking in.
The series was filmed in December 2022 in the wake of the election of Israel's most right-wing government.
The winning series was initiated and developed by Communications Director Sharon Offenberger, who has lived for many years in Israel, where she worked closely with local media and civil society and Israeli-Palestinian peacebuilding, and raised her Jewish family deep in an Arab neighbourhood in Jaffa. She was inspired to bring what she had learnt to her Jewish-Australian community in an authentic and unfiltered way, breaking down stereotypes of Palestinian citizens and challenging the audience to listen to a different narrative.
