In her native New York, Estee Nemeth was warned not to wear any visible symbols of Jewish or Israeli identity in the subway. So she wore her Star of David inside her shirt. But she never dreamed that in Sderot, the Kassam-battered symbol of Israel’s struggle against terrorism, the chain around her neck and the patchwork Israeli flag she sewed on her day pack would get her into trouble.

In the fall of 2006, Nemeth, 25, walked into a cinematography class at Sderot’s Sapir Academic College, sat down and placed her bag down by her feet, just like any other student.

When the lecturer, Nizar Hassan, a celebrated Arab-Israeli documentary filmmaker, walked in and started teaching, something on Nemeth’s bag clearly bothered him. Nemeth says he stopped the lecture and asked her: “What is that?” referring to the credit-card sized Israeli flag sewed onto the bag. “Turn that bag around. I don’t want that side facing me,” he said.

Nemeth, initially thinking Hassan was joking, didn’t comply.

“Some of the other students also thought this was one of his jokes, one of his many ways that he challenges the students and gets them to think differently,” Nemeth says.

What happened next ended all notions that this was a game. Continue reading →