James G. McDonald with his daughter Barbara and Golda Meir in 1948

Photo: Courtesy of Israeli Government Press Office

We were privileged to meet Shuli Eshel, the director of a documentary shown at the Cinematheque in Sderot on Holocaust Day and to see her fascinating, informative and well researched, “A Voice among the Silent – the Legacy of James G. McDonald”. He was the first U.S. ambassador to Israel, a Catholic from Indiana.

An alarming meeting with Hitler in 1933 impelled him to use his position with the League of Nations to warn world leaders including Franklin D. Roosevelt and Pope Pius XII of the impending Holocaust. Although his tireless efforts to protect the Jews of Europe were little heeded at the time, they were recorded for posterity in his diaries, discovered in 2003. The film details the life’s work of this unrecognized champion of human rights,

Shuli Eshel is a returning Israeli after many years spent in Chicago. She is an award-winning producer-director of documentaries dealing with the arts, politics, social and historical matters.

www.avoiceamongthesilent.com

Shuli Eshel: tel: 054 545 2889

Adele Rubin
Sderot