Rudy Rochman, a famous pro-Israel activist, offered an alternative approach to the Israel/Palestine discussion and altered this man’s perspective on the entire debate.

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Whether on the left or the right, blacks or whites, the extremists agree that the Jews are the problem, and the Jewish community has to make changes to combat this reality, says Jewish-Israel rights activist Rudy Rochman.

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Three Israeli filmmakers are back in Tel Aviv after a harrowing 20 days of detention in Nigeria.

Rudy Rochman, a prominent pro-Israel social media influencer, filmmaker Andrew (Noam) Leibman, and reporter Edouard David Benaym were working on a documentary when Nigeria’s secret police arrested them in a synagogue.

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After visiting Jewish Igbo community, the three were detained for nearly three weeks for allegedly supporting a general Igbo separatist movement.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A Jewish documentary team landed back in Israel Thursday morning after being released by the Nigerian government, which held them for nearly three weeks for allegedly supporting a violent rebel group in the country.

Upon gaining their freedom Wednesday, Rudy Rochman, a prominent pro-Israel social media influencer, filmmaker Andrew (Noam) Leibman, and reporter Edouard David Benaym described their ordeal in a press statement.

They had been “wrongfully taken” early in the morning on July 9th by “over a dozen” agents of the Nigerian internal security service “with black ski mask at gun point,” they said.

They were then “caged and held for 20 days in horrendous conditions, locked into a small cell, sleeping on the floor with no access to showers or clean clothes. They were interrogated and mistreated without ever officially being arrested or accused of anything.”

The Nigerian authorities allowed the men to receive kosher food through the local Chabad center and took Benaym to the French embassy at one point to receive some medical treatment.

The trio had traveled to the western African state in early July as part of their documentary series on emerging Jewish communities on the continent. The Igbo tribe in Nigeria claim to be descendants of one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel who were exiled by the Assyrian Empire years before the First Temple was destroyed.

Although they have taken on many Jewish practices over recent years and have the support of the Shavei Israel organization that reaches out to “lost” or “hidden” Jews throughout the world, the Israeli Chief Rabbinate has yet to recognize their claim to be Jewish and they cannot immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return.

Rochman and his crew brought a Torah scroll among other Judaica items to the community in the Biafran region when they arrived to record their religious and cultural Jewish way of life. After two days of filming, the statement said, “Nigerian bloggers started hijacking images” from the documentary’s website “and fabricated an association between the Israeli crew to separatist movements in Southern Nigeria, likely in order to gain more publicity.”

After the team’s arrest, the men’s families charged that “members of non-state political groups” were trying to twist the gift-giving into being a sign of support for the region’s long-standing separatist movement.

“There are no political overtones” to their trip, the families said, and hoped that the Nigerian authorities would soon be convinced of their innocence.

As Rochman and Leibman are Israeli-American and Benaym is French-Israeli, all three embassies worked on their case, ultimately succeeding in obtaining the documentary team’s release. The trio’s statement thanked the diplomats “and many caring individuals who helped in the process” of clearing the men “of any and all suspicion.”

After breaking diplomatic relations with Israel following the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Abuja renewed its ties with Jerusalem in 1992. The two countries cooperate in the fight against Islamic terrorism, which in Nigeria manifests itself in the Boko Haram radical group. Israel also helps Nigeria in the fields of agriculture, technological innovation and medicine, among others.

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It’s been nine days since Israel activist Rudy Rochman and his two colleagues, filmmaker Noam Leibman and journalist E. David Benaym, were detained by the Department of State Services in Nigeria. The trio have neither been allowed legal representation nor officially been charged with a reason for their arrest, ILTV reports.

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The families said that they were in contact with the French, American, and Israeli embassies in an effort to secure the men’s release.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

The families of three Jewish filmmakers who are currently detained in Nigeria by the country’s security agency released a statement last week, clarifying that the men are still being held in custody.

Rudy Rochman, a prominent pro-Israel social media influencer, Andrew (Noam) Leibman, and Edouard David Benaym had traveled to Nigeria in early July as part of a documentary series on emerging Jewish communities in Africa.

Rochman, Leibman, and Benaym were hosted by an Igbo community in Nigeria who claim to be descended from Jews. They met the group’s leaders and gifted the community with a Torah, with their trip heavily documented on social media and going viral in Nigeria.

But unbeknownst to the men, due to long-simmering tensions between Igbo separatists and the Nigerian government, they appeared to be endorsing an Igbo independence movement, the statement from the men’s families explained.

They were arrested last week by Nigerian secret police and remain in custody. All three men hold Israeli citizenship. One is a dual American-Israeli national and the others are two dual French-Israeli nationals.

The families said that they were in contact with the French, American, and Israeli embassies in an effort to secure the men’s release.

“This documentary is not intended to make any political statements…nor does the filmmaking team endorse any political movements. The team is simply there to observe the communities, learn about their experiences with Judaism…the filmmaking crew acts as a guest visiting the country…there are no political overtones,” read a statement from the families.

“Unfortunately, members of non-state political groups have hijacked for their own purposes images of the filmmakers gifting a Torah to the local community. These individuals are distorting the intentions of the filmmakers in an effort to manufacture a connection to local political matters when no such connection exists.

“These politically motivated actors have taken a simple gesture of kindness and twisted it in an attempt to create an alternate meaning.”

The statement said that in a gesture of goodwill, the Nigerian authorities recently allowed Benaym to receive medical treatment at the French embassy. He was subsequently detained again. The men are also receiving kosher meals delivered by the local Chabad.

“We hope that the [Nigerian authorities] will quickly conclude what the facts support – that the filmmaking team has no political motives and that the team should be released from custody as soon as possible,” the statement concluded.

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