You have never felt what an Israeli Arab girl feels and you can’t understand.
- Shadya
As part of the Global Girls Cinema Series – an initiative of the Center for the Advancement of Girls at Agnes Irwin – and in partnership with the Girls Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania, the film, Shadya, was presented to Middle and Upper School students in the West-Wike Theatre on Wednesday, November 9.
Trailing the life of Shadya Zoabi, a 17-year-old Muslim Israeli girl trapped between her passion for karate and religious tradition, students in the audience sat quietly, engrossed by Shadya’s transformation from an animated and independent teen defying gender-based expectations to an inhibited wife and expecting mother, resigned to a lackluster reality.
“It was disappointing to see her husband turn on her,” said one student. “When they were engaged, he praised her karate aspirations but, following marriage, his true colors came out when he wouldn’t let her compete.”
Student-led discussions broke out following the documentary, analyzing the film and its socio-political issues more critically. As the documentary was filmed in Israel, students observed the strife and sensitivity between the Jews and the Arabs in Israel, particularly in a scene involving Shadya’s Israeli karate coach asking the Palestinian coach to allow their students to train together.
“I feel like change comes directly from the people,” one tenth-grade student exclaimed. “So it was difficult to watch the Palestinian coach perpetuate the situation by forbidding his karate students to train with the Israeli students.”
Shadya is one of many documentaries addressing girls’ issues around the world that the Global Girls Cinema Series program will screen at Agnes Irwin.