Open Bethlehem Campaign
HCEF is proud to join the Open Bethlehem campaign in partnership with it’s sister organization, Open Bethlehem, a UK-based non-profit. Working side-by-side, HCEF is spearheading the campaign effort in the Americas, spreading Bethlehem’s message of peace and reconciliation to our faithful supporters throughout the U.S. and Latin America.
Open Bethlehem and HCEF share an important mission to educate people of good will about the difficult situation in Palestine, and to challenge damaging stereotypes that frame Palestinians as violent and backwards. Anyone who visits Bethlehem will understand the incredible desire for peace that exists there. Through our Open Bethlehem campaign, we seek to make this desire and message known to the international community, not only to foster global awareness, but to inspire concrete action to build a more just and open Bethlehem. We hope that you will join us in this effort by getting involved in our movement.
Open Bethlehem Mission
OPEN BETHLEHEM exists to advocate and proactively promote support for a free and flourishing Bethlehem city within a vibrant and sovereign Palestine.
About the Film
Open Bethlehem is the cinematic diary of filmmaker, Leila Sansour, who returns to her hometown of Bethlehem after a long absence, and chronicles the building of the wall that winds its way in and around the city. The film offers viewers an intimate look inside this iconic city and its life between past and present.
OPEN BETHLEHEM is the story of the creativity, resourcefulness, and determination that spring from each of us when we have no choice but to try to save what we love the most.
Watch the Trailer
About the campaign
OPEN BETHLEHEM is an international campaign that works to promote global engagement with Bethlehem as a contemporary and strategic city in the Middle East. It does so by galvanizing international awareness of Bethlehem, and by creating an opportunity for the world’s inhabitants to know and live the contemporary city more intimately.
The Campaign OPEN BETHLEHEM is an continuous initiative developed with HCEF is partnering with humanitarian, social justice, religious, educational, peace and many more organizations and institutions to sponsor, attend, hold screening events and support the campaign to expand the outreach effort. The intention is to raise awareness about the current situation of a city that is heritage to much of humanity and submitted to a conflict that has afflicted thousands of people for close to 70 years.
The desire is also to open discussion and open hearts regarding finding other ways to live in and share our world. We want to bring down walls, both literal and figurative, and seek peaceful and mutually beneficial collaboration.
Working with various local and international partners, the OPEN BETHLEHEM campaign seeks to support lasting peace in Palestine by using Bethlehem as a doorway for global engagement. As an iconic city and a Palestinian city, Bethlehem has both power and responsibility to act as a peace-builder among factions—to use its symbolic force in the international arena to promote positive change.