Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) demanded answers on Monday from a cinema in his district after it refused to screen “October 8,” a documentary about the rise of antisemitism in the United States after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, N.Y., declined to screen the film, according to a spokesperson for the film’s studio, but is screening “No Other Land”—a controversial, Oscar-winning film co-directed by an Israeli-Palestinian collective showing Palestinian activists protecting their homes from demolition by the Israeli military.
While Lawler expressed his disappointment in the choice, he specifically questioned the center’s recent hiring of Eric Hynes, who holds anti-Israel views and accused the Jewish state of genocide, according to Lawler, as its director of film curation and programming. The congressman called the decision “a complete slap in the face to the Jewish community in the Hudson Valley.” (Many of the tweets Lawler linked as evidence of Hynes’s views could not be attributed to Hynes)
“Unfortunately, this hiring decision has reared its ugly head in the biased choice to refuse screening of ‘October 8,’ a critical film that highlights the challenges faced by Jews in the U.S. following the horrific Oct. 7 attacks,” Lawler stated. “Given Mr. Hynes’s praise for the antisemitic protests at Columbia University and at CUNY, one doesn’t have to wonder if his personal anti-Israel bias factored into his decision to refuse screening this important film.”
“The choice to screen ‘No Other Land,’ while simultaneously denying screening of ‘October 8,’ calls directly into question Mr. Hynes’s intent, and given his long track record of being anti-Israel and supporting antisemitic protests, I fear the worst,” he continued. “The Jacob Burns Film Center should reflect on its choices and step in to ensure that there is a balanced set of films,” rather than “one worldview pushed by someone with an axe to grind.”
