Jewish Filmmaker Makes Documentary About the ‘Secret Life of Muslims’

Image by secretlifeofmuslims.com

By Daniel J. Solomon December 16, 2016

After President-elect Donald Trump’s victory, and a spike in hate crimes against Muslims, one Jewish filmmaker is pushing back. Joshua Seftel produced a documentary called “The Secret Life of Muslims.”

“American Muslims still face an uphill battle in the national imagination. The current political climate spurred on by constant fear mongering during this election cycle, as well as the saturation of negative stereotypes that flood the news and media continue to make Muslims the target of suspicion and hostility,” read an online description of Seftel’s video series, hosted on the web sites of Vox and USA Today.

“The Secret Life of Muslims” tries to change that environment by featuring American Muslims describing their hopes, desires, worries and accomplishments in their own words. Included in the film are prominent figures like religion professor Reza Aslan and civil rights activist Linda Sarsour.

Seftel, an award winning documentarian, told the Times of Israel that his involvement in the “Secret Life of Muslims” in part sprang from his childhood experiences, when he was picked on for being a Jew in upstate New York. “There wasn’t much he could do as a boy to fight anti-Semitism. Today he has the professional tools to counter negative portrayals of another group in the media,” the news site wrote.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.

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