“A Small Act,” an award-winning documentary about a Holocaust survivor’s $15 a month contribution to educate a child in Kenya, will be screened Sunday, April 10 at 2 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center.
In the 1930s, Hilde Back’s parents sent her from Germany to Sweden to escape the Nazis. She never saw her parents again and stayed in Sweden, becoming a teacher. In the 1970s, she began sending a monthly check to cover the school fees for Chris Mburu, a young boy in rural Kenya. She believed it was a small thing and never kept track of what happened to Mburu. Decades later, Mburu, now a Harvard Law School graduate and a top human rights official for the United Nations, journeys to find his benefactor and launches his own act of benevolence: the Hilde Back Education Fund for the children of his village.
The film is cosponsored by the JCC’s Arts & Culture program, the B’nai Tzedek teen philanthropy program and the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona.
The subjects of “A Small Act” exemplify the mottos of B’nai Tzedek, “Give a little, change a lot,” and JCRC, “We educate. We advocate. We make a difference,” notes Bryan Davis, JFSA youth and Holocaust education coordinator.
Tickets for the film are $7 for seniors/students/members; $8 for nonmembers. The winter retreat for B’nai Tzedek, which partners the JFSA Coalition for Jewish Education and the Jewish Community Foundation, will take place along with the screening. For more information, call Davis at 577-9393 or the JCC at 299-3000.
