All God’s Children
(USA, 100 min.)
Dir. Ondi Timoner
Section: U.S. Competition – Centrepiece Selection (World premiere)
Rabbi Rachel Timoner and Reverend Dr. Robert Waterman undergo a true test of faith in All God’s Children. The former leads Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope, Brooklyn, while the latter preaches at Antioch Baptist Church in Bed-Stuy. These religious leaders bring factions of New Yorkers together in an effort to repair their community. But their ambitious partnership also means navigating seemingly irreconcilable differences between their faiths. The latest documentary from director Ondi Timoner (Last Flight Home, Dig!) doesn’t offer easy answers but finds a productive roadmap for healing deep-rooted divides. All God’s Children is a tough film that may have audiences of all faiths squirming in their seats. However, viewers should emerge enlightened and ready to listen.
“Listen” is a key word in the exercises that Rabbi Timoner (Ondi’s sister) and Reverend Waterman undertake. Tensions arise when “deed thefts” displace Black residents from their Bed-Stuy homes with some Jewish landlords or property grabbers getting the blame. These thefts are peculiar incidents. The practice exists in a grey area of legality as predatory investors essentially snap up the properties of people who’ve fallen behind on something as simple as an unpaid bill. Members of Reverend Waterman’s community find themselves displaced and angry. Members of Rabbi Timoner’s community, meanwhile, find themselves victims of random assaults and harassment. The events explode rifts percolating between these groups of New Yorkers and their religious leaders recognize the urgency in facilitating communication to de-escalate the situation.
Rabbi Timoner and Reverend Waterman come together to create a working group between their congregations. They start small with a handful of the faithful from each community. Their meetings, essentially roundtables, invite Jews and Christians to speak openly. Their sessions are acts of active listening as people hear out their differences with an ear for recognizing that there’s more that unites them than divides them.
Early talks go relatively well. Rabbi Timoner and Reverend Waterman recognize the historical significance of each minority group—Jews and Black Baptists—that they represent. From the outset, though, there are some “hold up!” moments as ground rules are laid. Rabbi Timoner, for one, says it’s not the same to determine if someone’s “Jewish” or “Black.” To her, it’s upon the respective community leader to make that call. Reverend Waterman, on the other hand, thinks it’s all the same and doesn’t want to worry about definitions. But understanding the cultural, historical, racial differences is key, as audiences find out later.
The conversations oscillate between friendly and tense as the partnership develops. They invite more people into the circle by staging a Baptist-infused Seder. Rabbi Timoner explains the act of mixing the bitter with the sweet, but members from both congregations blend the two tastes using collard greens and sweet potatoes—dishes rooted in America’s history of slavery. People seem to like the religious gumbo.
But when time comes to do the Easter Resurrection in the Baptist Church, things get bumpy. Difficult conversations frame the ceremony as the Jewish participants express concern over celebrating the resurrection of a saviour they don’t recognize. They’re also concerned about doing so when Jews frequently receive blame for Christ’s brutal death. At the same time, Waterman’s church argues that Christ is the key to their beliefs, so asking them tone down Jesus is to ask them to deny their faith.
Reverend Waterman’s church stages a full-fledged passion play complete with whipping and suffering. Rabbi Timoner and one of her colleagues, mortified, debate walking out. But they recognize that showing the same tolerance their peers afforded them could risk dissolving the strides they’ve made. Later, while processing the trauma and trying to have a conversation about the pain they experienced as Jews, members of Reverend Waterman’s church see Rabbi Timoner’s stern explanation as akin to a white woman putting a Black man in his place. This time, she isn’t listening. These scenes are complicated reminders of the importance of nuance, empathy, curiosity, and keeping your ears and heart open. It’s a productive reminder that people can work through their misunderstandings with respect and a willingness to grow from their mistakes.
Timoner’s fly-on-the-wall approach invites a viewer to be an active listener in these conversations. The perspectives she finds may provoke and frustrate—especially as tensions run even higher following the events of October 7 with Israel-Palestine relations echoing the divide between the Jewish and Black groups. But All God’s Children offers an important tool for community building, especially with four more years of Trump ahead. It echoes the sentiment that struck many viewers in Vice President Harris’s eloquent concession speech: it’s only when it’s darkest that one sees the stars. All God’s Children is a portrait of what it means to reach for the stars—and remember that the multitude of stars shining ultimately brightens the sky.
