Black Forest Documentary Premieres in Atlanta January 31, 2019

Kay Wilson was certain she was going to die.

The extraordinary story of how Wilson survived a brutal 2010 attack in which her friend was murdered is the subject of the Israeli television documentary “Black Forest.”

The Atlanta Israel Coalition and Congregation Beth Jacob will host the documentary premiere of “Black Forest” on Thursday, January 31, 2019 at 7:30 pm. Following the screening, Wilson will share her experiences and answer questions.

‘I believed him’

“Bound, gagged and barefoot, with machetes at our throats, we were pushed through the trees to the site of our execution,” Wilson recalls in a blog post for The Times of Israel. “I whimpered, ‘Please don’t kill us.’ One of the terrorists looked me in the eye, put his hand on his heart and declared, ‘I am good, I not kill.’”

“I believed him,” she says.

But she was wrong.

It was December 2010. Wilson and her friend Kristine Luken were walking through a picturesque forest southwest of Jerusalem, a popular site for hikes and picnics, when they were attacked by two men from a West Bank village near Hebron.

Within minutes Luken lay dead, hacked to pieces in a killing frenzy. Wilson should have died, too.

“I lay bound and gagged, staring at the autumn skies. In those moments, which I believed were to be my last, I looked at the sun obscured by a man’s hand wielding a machete,” she says. “Thirteen times they plunged their machetes into us to the blood-curdling crescendo of ‘Allahu Akbar,’ Kristine screaming ‘Jesus’ and my own whimpering of ‘Shema Israel.’”

“I had never contemplated being brutally murdered,” Wilson says. “Who does? At only 46 years old even death had barely crossed my mind. It was half an hour of madness so debilitating that even the moments necessary for preparing myself for death were strangled by the dread of the manner of my imminent execution.

“I recall looking to heaven and begging the sun not to set, and seconds later witnessing the unthinkable: A human being hacked to death before my very eyes,” she says.

After being left for dead next to the shattered body of her friend, Wilson realized she wasn’t done yet.

“I was no longer afraid to die, but I was terrified of giving up,” she says. “I wanted the police to find my body so that the sons of evil would be caught. I wanted to choose my own grave, I wanted that last autonomy. Somehow, gagged, bound, barefoot and bleeding to death, I managed to get up and walk a mile through the forest.”

“I sustained 13 machete wounds in my lungs and diaphragm, six compound fractures in my ribs, 30 additional fractures, a dislocated shoulder, a crushed sternum and a broken shoulder blade,” Wilson said.

Somehow, she survived what she calls her personal “death march.” She reached the car park of the picnic site and summoned help before collapsing.

Enduring pain

Years later, Wilson still suffers from the physical and emotional damage she endured that day. Robbed of her health, her livelihood and her anonymity, Wilson has become a prominent campaigner against terrorism and the "terror payments" made to convicted Palestinian murderers and the families of the murderers.

“Terrorists are entitled to a Palestinian Authority monthly murder stipend 10 times what the Israeli National Insurance awards me as a disability allowance,” she says.

The Manhunt

The story of the massive manhunt for Luken’s killers is told in “Black Forest,” directed by Hadar Kleinman Zadok and Timna Goldstein Hattab. The documentary manages for the first time to go behind the scenes in a major Israeli police investigation.

“We were interested in how the police were able to investigate these crimes using DNA evidence,” Goldstein Hattab tells The Times of Israel. “We also wanted to show the emotional side of the investigation and how much it touched them.”

At Wilson’s suggestion, the directors took her back to the forest so the crime scene could be reconstructed and she could take viewers through her experience firsthand.

“To go through all this trauma wasn’t easy for her, but it was her idea to do it,” Goldstein Hattab says. “I come also from therapy work and I definitely believe that however difficult it was, it also had a side that was very therapeutic for her and for others. They came back, but this time they were in control.”

Cheryl Dorchinsky, organizer of the newly formed Atlanta Israel Coalition acknowledges that "Black Forest" is not an easy film to watch, but it is an important one. Kay's story is not just one of courage in the face of death, but of fortitude in facing a life never to be lived the same since. Kay tells us that she never cried over her narrow escape from death—refusing to grant her would-be killers that satisfaction. "Malice doesn't make me cry. Kindness makes me weep."

And so too will Black Forest make you weep. Watch it.

"Black Forest" Documentary Atlanta Premiere with Terror Survivor Kay Wilson

Presented by the Atlanta Israel Coalition and Congregation Beth Jacob
Thursday, January 31, 2019, 7:30 p.m.
Congregation Beth Jacob, 1855 Lavista Road, Atlanta 30329

Purchase your tickets TODAY on Eventbrite.

Listen to Kay Wilson’s Ted Talk and learn more.

Watch chilling real footage from "The Black Forest” .

We invite Atlanta's pro-Israel organizations to unite against hate and help combat bigotry, anti-Semitism and terrorism. Become a COMMUNITY SPONSOR.

Questions, contact Cheryl Dorchinsky at AtlIsraelco@gmail.com.

Article adapted from The Times of Israel with permission- https://www.timesofisrael.com/....