Special to the Record
A free community screening of the Jewish Journal of Greater Boston’s original documentary, “Hostage,” will be shown at the JCC on Community Road, Marblehead, on May 5, 7 p.m.
“Hostage,” is a powerful companion film to a Feb. 12 article in the Jewish Journal featuring interviews with four Israelis who were kidnapped and held by Hamas – some for more than two years. The 45-minute film, which premiered at the Warwick Cinema on March 5, was produced by Steven A. Rosenberg, Jewish Journal publisher and editor, and Mark Steele, a former editor of PBS’s “Frontline” and the “American Experience.”
Rosenberg is the son of the late Samuel Rosenberg of Murray and Eddy’s Delicatessen fame in Chelsea.
“The story of the released hostages – how they were kidnapped, dragged to Gaza, tortured, starved, sexually assaulted and forced to endure psychological warfare daily – has been largely overlooked by the mass media,” Rosenberg said.
“Outside of Israel, few knew just how brutally they were treated,” he said. “This film is one of the few documentaries on the released hostages in English, and I wanted to document their stories so Americans could grasp what really happened to them and what Hamas really thinks about Israelis and Jews.”
“This film,” Rosenberg said, “is also important because it will be part of the historical archives of what really occurred on Oct. 7, 2023, and in the tunnels of Gaza. We know that on that day propagandists and pro-Hamas supporters throughout the world began to deny that Hamas attacked Israel, and to this day they are trying to erase history and present Hamas and Palestinian terrorists as the victims and not the perpetrators of this horrible war.”