One Film. One Question: Why Are Jews Afraid to Be Jewish?

Mike Huckabee, Nataly Dadon, Rabbi Friedman, Yosef Yitzchak Brauman (Photo: i24News)

Against a backdrop of surging antisemitism, and days after two Jewish men wearing kippot were stabbed in an attack that shook communities worldwide, a new documentary is making the rounds online with an unambiguous message: enough apologizing.

"Not Afraid," a 45-minute film now available on YouTube, brings together prominent Jewish and pro-Israel voices to tackle what its creators describe as one of the defining crises of this moment: the fear many Jews feel about openly expressing their identity.

The film is presented in English and Hebrew and was made as a non-profit initiative, intended as an advocacy and identity-strengthening tool for Jews and supporters of Israel everywhere.

What makes the project unusual is its origin. "Not Afraid" was not produced by an established filmmaker or major studio. It was initiated by Rami Ricardo Cielak, a Mexican-Jewish entrepreneur based in Mexico City with no prior background in cinema, who decided the Jewish world could not wait for someone else to tell its story.

"Not Afraid was not started by a filmmaker," Cielak said. "It started with one idea, one conviction, and a refusal to wait for permission. The answer to antisemitism is not better explanations, but a people that stops being afraid to be who they are."

Cielak, who is active in Mexico City's Jewish community, says he believes the connection between the Jewish people and the State of Israel should never have to be justified or apologized for. "My hope is that every Jew who watches this film stops being afraid, of the world, of his enemies, and most of all, of himself."

The film was directed and edited by Yosef Yitzchak Brauman, in what the production describes as an unusual collaboration between Jewish communities in Israel and Mexico. Participants include Mike Huckabee, Rabbi Manis Friedman, Moshe Feiglin, Natalie Dadon, Rudy Rochman, Ofir Dayan, and Lizzy Savetsky, among others.

Through personal interviews, archive footage, and stories from Jewish communities around the world, the documentary sets out to answer a single central question: how does a Jew stop being afraid of being a Jew?