The festival was founded by Deborah Kaufman in 1980, Kaufman told
The New York Times in a later interview that: "I wanted to express my Jewishness and my progressive politics and my cultural hipness at the same time. The festival was first held at the
Roxie Theater in San Francisco in 1981. The festival faced issues with Moscow city official refusing to rent out movie theaters for the festival, citing fear of demonstrations from ultra-right nationalists. The team sought to underline Jewish-Arab cooperation during the medieval period in Spain and to highlight the marginalized cultures of
Sephardic and
Mizrahi jews. In 2009, the festival was subject to criticism for the decision to screen a film about
International Solidarity Movement activist
Rachel Corrie who was killed by an Israeli armoured bulldozer in Gaza in 2003 while protesting the demolition of Palestinian homes. Writing in the
N. California JWeekly, Dan Pine noted "If the Academy handed out an Oscar for community turmoil, the Rachel Corrie flap at this year’s San Francisco Jewish Film Festival would win handily." Pine reported that some Jewish community members said that festival organizers "crossed a line into overtly anti-Israel propaganda" and that "Corrie, and now her parents, have worked to ostracize and delegitimize Israel." ==References==