Project Synopsis

Jewish American journalist Katie Halper travels from Detroit to London, Washington D.C. to  Vienna, Vancouver to Brussels, to document the people Israel does not want you to know about: Holocaust survivors who oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza and the way Israel is exploiting one genocide to justify another one. 

At the heart of the film are Jewish Holocaust survivors Marione Ingram, Rene Lichtman, Stephen Kapos, Gabor Mate, and Agnes Koury, as well as Haim Bresheeth, the son of Holocaust survivors and a historian, all of whom insist that “Never Again” applies to everyone. The survivors do not act in a vacuum, but create friendship and community with Jews and non-Jews, Palestinians, and allies. Rene, for instance, starts Coalition Against Genocide with Palestinian organizer Ismael Noor and lies in the street in protest with Lebanese activist Nabil Sater. Haim works with Palestinian intellectuals Ghada Karmi and Ramzy Baroud to organize the world’s first Jewish Anti-Zionist congress. Agnes learns that she has been duped by liberal zionism after speaking to Ahmed Alnaouq, a journalist from Gaza now living in London, whose family members were killed in an Israeli airstrike.    

The film features powerful interviews with survivors as well as renowned figures including Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, Former Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn, and dissident and exiled Israeli historians Ilan Pappe and Avi Shlaim. These interviews are combined with archival footage, frontline activism, and Katie’s own media appearances where she confronts people like Alan Dershowitz, Laura Ingraham and IDF spokesmen. Never Again documents how Israel’s weaponization of Holocaust memory has deadly consequences for Palestinians, betrays its victims, and actively endangers Jews worldwide, as the deliberate conflation of Judaism with Zionism will only fuel antisemitism. The film also captures the crackdown on protest and free speech by governments who are complicit in Israel’s actions. The survivors Katie follows and befriends lose family and friends over their actions. They experience marginalization, verbal assaults, health risks, and even arrest. Yet they know that the price they pay pales in comparison to what is being done to Palestinians and so they persist.  

Katie was already familiar with Israel’s history of ethnic cleansing and genocide when she started the film. But what she learns along the way is shocking and changes the way she, and anyone who watches the film, sees history and the world today. Eye-opening, timely and urgent, Never Again shows that Jewish safety and a better world for all can only be achieved through solidarity with, not oppression of, Palestinians. 

Artist Statement – Katie Halper, Director of Never Again

As a Jewish-American journalist, filmmaker, and podcast host, I’ve spent much of my career challenging dominant narratives, especially around Israel and Palestine and the misuse of Jewish identity as a shield for injustice. I’ve been fired, censored, and publicly attacked for calling Israel an apartheid state, defending Rep. Rashida Tlaib, and reporting on human rights abuses like the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh. 

After October 7, when Israel and its supporters invoked the Holocaust to justify an unprecedented genocide against Palestinians, and claimed to speak for all Jews, I knew I had to make this film. Never Again is a documentary about the Jewish voices they don’t want you to hear: Holocaust survivors and descendants who stand up and say, “Not in our name.” “Never again for anyone.” But it is also a universal story about values, resistance and solidarity. 

As a director, this project represents the most personal and ambitious work of my career. For the first time, I step in front of the camera not as a commentator, but as a character on a journey. The film follows me around the world as I meet people whose lives and stories challenge everything we’ve been told about history, identity, and what it means to be Jewish in a time of genocide.

Thematically, the film reclaims Holocaust memory from political manipulation and re-centers it as a moral call to solidarity. Stylistically, Never Again Is Now blends vérité footage, archival materials, and deeply human interviews, shaped by a narrative that is emotionally grounded and intellectually rigorous. And like my previous films Commie Camp and La memoria es vaga it uses irony and warmth to tell difficult stories in a way that engages viewers without flattening complexity.

We’ve already filmed with over ten Holocaust survivors and descendants, including Dr. Gabor Maté, and interviewed political leaders like Rashida Tlaib and Jeremy Corbyn. In the coming months, we’ll continue to follow the people whose voices form the heart of this story—especially those who’ve undergone a change of conscience—and work with scholars to connect the dots between history, memory, and resistance today.Katie will go to Hamburg with Marione Ingram. We will also conduct an interview with legendary public intellectual Norman Finkelstein. The son of survivors, a brilliant political scientist and the author The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History,  as well as, Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom,  and Gaza’s Gravediggers: An Inquiry into Corruption in High Places, Finkelstein is uniquely positioned to expose how Israel has used the Holocaust to support its genocide of Gaza.

This film is the culmination of my creative evolution, but more importantly, it’s a tool for collective reimagining and activism. It insists that Jewish safety and a better world for all can only be achieved through solidarity with, not oppression of, Palestinians. And it invites audiences to ask what “Never Again” should mean in the 21st century.

Bios

Katie Halper – Director

Katie Halper is a Jewish-American writer, filmmaker, and podcast host known for her bold political commentary and uncompromising journalism. She is the host of The Katie Halper Show, a podcast, YouTube series, and PACIFICA WBAI radio program, and co-host of Useful Idiots. Katie’s work interrogates U.S. foreign policy, media bias, and the politics of Israel/Palestine with humor, depth, and moral clarity. Her guests include Rashid Khalidi, Susan Sarandon, Noura Erakat, Michael Moore, Naomi Klein, Bernie Sanders, Ramzy Baroud, Medea Benjamin, Rashida Tlaib, Mosab Abu Toha, John Mearsheimer, Norman FInkelstein Yanis Varoufakis, Omar Casif, Giden Levy, Ghada Karmi and Gaza poet and professor Refaat Alareer who was killed in a targeted bombing by Israel but who lives on through his students and haunting poem “If I Must Die.”

In 2022, Katie was fired from The Hill’s morning show Rising after delivering a viral monologue defending Representative Rashida Tlaib and stating that Israel is an apartheid state. The incident cemented her reputation as a fearless media figure willing to speak truth to power—especially on issues many others avoid. Katie has appeared on Fox News and CNN, where she has debated figures such as Laura Ingraham, Alan Dershowitz and an IDF spokesperson.

Her writing has been featured in The Nation, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, New York Magazine, and more. She is the recipient of the Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press’s Women and Media Award (2022) and American Muslims for Palestine’s Leadership Annual Award (2023). In 2020, she founded her own production company, Katie Halper Media.

Katie directed and produced the award-winning documentary Commie Camp, about Camp Kinderland, a summer camp founded by secular Jewish socialists in the 1920s, which Katie and her family attended and worked at. The movie deals with the demonization of the Left, then and now, and how to raise children in a way that helps make the world a better place. The film was the closing night feature at Flaherty NYC at Anthology Film Archives and won the Domani Vision Film Society’s Board Special Grand Jury Prize. Actress Susan Sarandon called the film “so much fun.”

Her previous film, the award-winning La memoria es vaga, (Memory is Lazy) explores historical memory and the Spanish Civil War and centers on The Valley of The Fallen, a monument Franco forced those who fought against him and fascism to construct in his honor. Based on interviews Katie conducted with former political prisoners as well as supporters of Franco, the film was part of a collection of documentaries and a world-wide traveling film series dealing with Spain’s present-day grappling with historical memory. The film screened at several universities throughout the U.S., Europe and Latin America. 

Never Again is her third feature documentary. In it, Katie follows Holocaust survivors and their descendants who say “Never again for anyone,” challenging Israel’s use of Holocaust memory to justify its war on Gaza. Blending interviews, archival footage, and global protest, the film continues Katie’s commitment to socially conscious filmmaking and courageous storytelling.

Jeanine Ibrahim – Producer

An award-winning documentary producer, Jeanine Ibrahim has directed, produced and written hour-long documentaries to minute-long news pieces. Her work spans nearly two decades, airing both nationally and internationally, across network news channels, cable television, international news publications and digital media. She’s the recipient of a SABEW national award for a CNBC Original documentary. She’s also part of the team that garnered an Emmy nomination for the documentary series “Cold Case Files,” and that created the long-running documentary series “American Greed.” As a former longstanding board member of The Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association, she successfully created its first-ever mentorship program.

Basel Hamdan – Consulting Producer 

Basel is a longtime collaborator of filmmaker Michael Moore. He has produced “Capitalism: A Love Story,” Oscar-nominated “SiCKO,” and Palme d’Or-winning “Fahrenheit 9/11” and “Farenheint 11/9.”    

Eyas Salman – Consulting Editor

Eyas Salman is a Palestinian film editor. His credits include Hany Abu-Assad’s Oscar-nominated Omar, Huda’s Salon and The Idol. He was editor and co-writer of the documentary Lyd.

Josh Olson – Script Consultant 

Josh Olson is an award-winning screenwriter and podcaster. His screenplay for the film A History of Violence was nominated for the Academy Award, the British Academy Award, the Writers Guild Award and the Edgar. Olson wrote both seasons of the audio drama, Bronzeville, which is produced by and stars Laurence Fishburne and Larenz Tate.  He co-founded Rainy Day podcasts with Mick Jagger and the late Steve Bing. He is the co-host of the film interview podcast “The Movies That Made Me” along with director Joe Dante. Olson co-hosts with Dave Anthony The West Wing Thing, a podcast rewatching and discussing episodes of The West Wing and its impact on politics.