Using Virtual Reality & Video to Document Ethiopia’s Falash Mura Community

Using both traditional and virtual reality filmmaking, SAS Professor Peter Decherney and Weitzman School of Design Lecturer Sosena Solomon will document Ethiopia’s Jewish community, exploring their history, religious practices, and decades-long struggle to emigrate to Israel. The project, provisionally titled “If I Forget You: Ethiopian Jews Between Two Worlds,” will chronicle the community of jews who remain in Ethiopia, separated on all sides from much of Ethiopian society, from the global jewish community, and from their families and friends who moved to Israel in the 1970s, 1980s, and more recently. The project will focus on the narratives of several members of the community, who inhabit a range of experiences and opinions about immigration. The project will bring viewers Intro the little-known world of Ethiopian jewish culture and religion.