“There Are No Lions in Tel Aviv” Post-Film Discussion with Film Director Duki Dror

Classrooms Without Borders, in partnership with Rodef Shalom Congregation, is excited to offer the opportunity to watch the film “There Are No Lions in Tel Aviv” and engage in a post-film discussion with the film director, Duki Dror. CWB scholar Avi Ben-Hur will open the discussion.
A special thank you to Susan Farrell and Dr. Don and Mrs. Carol Vogel for sponsoring this discussion.

The story of the Chief Rabbi of Copenhagen’s Jewish community, who would come to be known as Rabbi Doolittle. Arriving in Tel Aviv in 1935, Max Shorenstein left his honorable position, in order to fulfill a longtime dream: to build a zoo and teach the children of Palestine-Eretz Israel about the love of animals. His dream had come true and against all odds, the Tel Aviv Zoo became the city’s greatest attraction. Yet the envy, greed and corruption by city officials had him banished from the very paradise he himself built.

It is a tale of a city raised from sand, only to become an international cultural and financial hub a century later, and the price that was paid for this exponential growth.

Director’s Statement:

I am very attracted to people or topics that no one else will deal with. Unnamed, unknown heroes. People who have had or are having a very big impact but which no one notices, or topics that are not commonly dealt with. In There are No Lions in Tel Aviv (2019), I reveal the story of Rabbi Shorenstein, from Denmark. Perhaps everyone knew about the Tel Aviv Zoo, but most people have not heard the story of the man behind it. A man, who loved animals and had a dream to build a zoo, which he fulfilled, but from which he was later cruelly expelled. I’m attracted to these stories of dreamers, who have to fight against the establishment to fulfill their dream. It’s something within me, the ground is unsafe, unsteady. You have to be on the move all the time. You are constantly in motion. This is how I perceive my characters, they all are going through some kind of journey.

​The film is a trip back to my childhood experience in Tel Aviv, on the rooftops above the city, right behind the zoo, that’s where my playground was. And that’s where I could have some space alone, away from my family. A space for contemplation.

Duki Dror

Born in Tel Aviv and educated at UCLA and Columbia College in Chicago, Duki Dror is an internationally award-winning documentary filmmaker. His extensive body of work – his personal films, character-driven feature-docs, experimental docs, and unique biographies on artists – have won him international attention and success. In each of his films, Dror examines and re-examines the definition of “Identity” as it plays in the life of his protagonists. With his acute sensitivity and engaging story-telling, he creates parables that convey human dilemmas and challenge the viewer’s conventions. Duki Dror’s films are distributed worldwide.