Each year at Hanukkah, Not In Our Town remembers its beginnings. More than 15 years ago, a year of racist violence came to a head one bitterly cold night when a brick was thrown through a six-year-old Jewish boy's bedroom window, where he had placed the family's Hanukkah menorah. The town rose as one to say, Not in Our Town, and a national movement was born.

That story was  told in our first PBS film, Not In Our Town. Dozens followed, as our team traveled the country documenting the stories of community after community rising up against hate and prejudice with courage and persistence.

Many years later, our next PBS film, Not In Our Town: Class Actions, will feature another Hanukkah story. As Indiana University students celebrated the holiday season in 2010, the sense of calm was shattered by a series of attacks against Jewish institutions [1]. Bloomington United, a community group created in 1998 after a white supremacist spread hate and murder on campus, reached out to IU students to helps heal new wounds. Not In Our Town: Class Actions premieres on PBS on Feb. 13. Read more about it here. [2]

Photo credit: Aut Phanthavong