Image by Keren Benbenisty
EFA Studio Member Keren Benbenisty has been awarded the 2026 NYSCA Support for Organizations award via EFA for her ongoing project “The Blackheads (Les Points Noirs)”.
The project excavates a buried history of Jewish-Arab coexistence through Morocco's sacred citron (Etrog) trade. Returning to her mother's homeland, this work confronts personal and collective trauma by documenting an ancient agricultural collaboration that challenges dominant Western narratives about Jewish and Arab identities.
The film traces her investigation of this forgotten symbiosis, where Jewish religious needs and Arab agricultural expertise created centuries of interdependence.