“Out of Cordoba” is a masterpiece.
Hossam AlJabri
Executive Director, Muslim American Society
“Out of Cordoba” updates us on the thought of Averroes and Maimonides and encourages us to reflect on the past with the goal of broadening our respect and tolerance as we face the challenges of the 21st Century.
Miguel Angel Moratinos, Foreign Minister of Spain
“Out of Cordoba” will help Americans think of their religious traditions as consistent with democratic values, science, tolerance, and human rights. We urge you to support this crucially important film project. For our part, we commit to helping to distribute “Out of Cordoba” to our member communities throughout North America.
National Council of Churches of Christ USA; United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism; Islamic Society of North America
“Out of Cordoba” sets out to examine two great lights of the past and place their extraordinary lives and contribution in relation to contemporary history. A veritable tour de force, this film by Jacob Bender documents the lives of the great Muslim and Jewish philosophers, Averroes and Moses Maimonides in their resolve to speak the truth when power found truth threatening. Born only a few years apart in the city of Cordoba, they did not know one another personally. Yet they shared common experience as brilliant thinkers who pursued the truth and justice at all costs, for which they were harassed and exiled by the regent power and continued to suffer from the small-mindedness of their own religious communities. This film is more than a standard documentary because it builds from the past to draw lessons for the present and future. Like a Midrash or Jewish interpretive discourse, Bender reads the past mindful of George Santayana as he critiques those in the Muslim and Jewish communities today who ignore and discount their own sins and violent excesses. This is a must-see, a rich prophetic voice in a noisy world.
Reuven Firestone, Professor of Medieval Judaism and Islam at Hebrew Union College and Co-Director of the Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement at the University of Southern California
“Out of Cordoba” is a very useful and powerful means of conveying the message of understanding, love and peace among different cultures, religions, and nations. The film will contribute to solving the problem of misunderstanding between the Islamic world and the West.
Dr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary General, Organization of the Islamic Conference
“Out of Cordoba” has the power to recreate a world and bring it to the present. It will not only offer a fresh perspective on the medieval period, but could by that very fact awaken us to the potential of greater interfaith understanding in our world today, which we so desperately need.
Rev. David Burrell, C.S.C., Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame
Bender’s film has the potential to educate Americans about this extremely important subject, thereby greatly contributing to interfaith understanding.
Steve Riskin, Program Officer, United States Institute of Peace, Washington DC
