It didn’t used to feel complicated to be Jewish before October 7th, 2023, and the Israeli-Gaza Conflict began. Having grown up in a Reform Jewish household, I believed in the existence of and even the right of a Jewish state and, frankly, living in the U.S., I had the privilege to not have to worry so much about escalating conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. More than anything, though, I never understood how the conflict could grow to the heights that it has wherein I would find myself distant from my own relatives because I had the audacity to remember what “Never Again” means. That even in the face of a horrible terrorist action with too many hurt or killed and others taken hostage, that the country I’d been raised to believe was above such violence would, it seems, willingly engage in a genocide of a people, almost gleefully so. That now, as if a taboo had been lifted or a prior social convention was torn asunder, folks could openly devise violence upon an entire people for the outrageous actions of few as, to borrow a phrase from the Bard, old grudges made civil hands unclean. History, as always, never forgets what people do, as evident by the documentary Who Killed Alex Odeh?, premiering at Sundance Film Festival 2026 in the U.S. Documentary Competition section. Co-directed by Jason Osder (Let the Fire Burn) and first-time filmmaker William Lafi Youmans, Who Killed Alex Odeh? explores the unsolved murder of American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) member Alex Odeh by suspected Jewish Defense League (JDL) members, drawing a line from this event and these people to the Israeli government as it exists now. These are the seeds of hatred and their fruits are flourishing, which should enrage anyone who comes to realize it.
Helena Odeh appears in WHO KILLED ALEX ODEH? by Jason Osder and William Lafi Youmans, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Photo Credit: Therese Tran. Photo courtesy of Sundance Institute.
October 11th, 1983: Alexander Odeh walked into the office of the ADC in Santa Ana, California, and was killed by a bomb planted at the door. Odeh was the Western Regional Director of the ADC and his case remains, to this day, unsolved with the perpetrators still wanted by the FBI. Using a combination of archived news footage, current interviews from Odeh’s widow and one of his daughters, and the investigation byIsraeli journalist with a background in racist organizations within Israel, a question forms not of who killed Alex Odeh, but why haven’t they been caught.
The first thing one notices with Who Killed Alex Odeh? is the use of news footage. This is generally available to those who request it, accessible from an archive of events meant to catalog and preserve moments in history. By laying the groundwork with news footage, Osder and Youmans subconsciously inform the audience that their perspective, their argument, isn’t going to be founded on the emotions of those who mourned or even hated Odeh, but the concept of facts. It’s within this realm that the filmmakers construct their very detailed presentation that doesn’t deal in emotional manipulation (as one might expect) to lure an audience to care; rather, the use of news footage is to bolster what comes later in a sense of “what is known” versus “what is suspected and on the cusp of verifiable.” Doing so helps secure the information that’s presented from jumping from mere conspiracy — and there is clearly one going on — into the realm of logical possibility. Once that jump is made, the dispersions it casts are quite chilling and maddening.
David Sheen appears in WHO KILLED ALEX ODEH? by Jason Osder and William Lafi Youmans, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Photo Credit: Keren Manor. Photo courtesy of Sundance Institute.
A great deal of this is because of how the documentary presents Odeh versus the suspected perpetrators and the way it highlights discrimination turned violent. Where the ‘90s and ‘00s had politically correct culture and the ‘10s brought about “woke,” in the times before, what was accepted socially could be identified as discrimination because of harmful stereotypes. In the same way that minstrel shows and Blackface in entertainment supported negative beliefs about the Black community, so are there many in storytelling regarding the Arab community. By all accounts, the ADC didn’t seek to destroy or reduce other communities, only to raise up its members so that they might be seen as people, not the terrorists that media make the entire race out to be. By contrast, there’s the Jewish Defense League, founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose intention was to combat antisemitism (honorable), but then transitioned to a more proactive and violent stance involving the eradication of Arabs from Israel (and everywhere else). This is not the belief system that prides itself on performing mitzvahs, on education, on protecting one’s neighbor, and other elements of the faith that, again, I was raised in. Perhaps it’s because of my grandfathers’ and great-uncles’ involvement in World War II or meeting, as a child, actual Holocaust survivors living in my area, but I believed that Jews were to be the protectors, to jump in to prevent what happened to them and to the Armenians from happening to others. Through the use of news footage of both Odeh and Kahane, it’s quite easy to see which individual stood for peace and inclusion and which for hatred. But these polar opposite individuals aren’t from where the surprises come, even if the details are foreign to you, it’s what’s revealed through the investigation and the realization that comes along side it.
If all Odser and Youmans did was utilize news footage of Odeh and Kahane mixed with present-day moments with Odeh’s family and friends, this documentary would be entirely rote in its efforts. However, through the inclusion of David Sheen, Alex Odeh? takes on an urgency as the theories of 1983 start to grow firmer and the threads of ideas from the past can be seen woven into the present. It’s not only horrifying to see how Sheen is able to gather information and confirm its validity, all with us either over his shoulder or listening as a fly on the wall as he discusses it, but to also realize that — through his information gathering — that question of culpability may never be confirmed due to the tendrils of the JDL in present-day governments. This raises a new question regarding the value of a life and how discrimination and bigotry will tell you that one’s place of birth absolutely prescribes a disproportionate value when, in truth, by being born on Earth, we all share the same basic DNA and, certainly, the same fate. Unfortunately, what Odser and Youmans reveal to us is that hatred has a way of persevering the same way positivity does.
Alex Odeh, Norma Odeh and Helena Odeh appear in WHO KILLED ALEX ODEH? by Jason Osder and William Lafi Youmans, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Photo Credit: Helki Frantzen. Photo courtesy of Sundance Institute.
In 2026, it’s difficult to be proud of being Jewish. Stories like Who Killed Alex Odeh? only make the identity difficult to wrestle with as the reality of the complexity of Judaism as it correlates to the diaspora shatters the notion that we’re one people with different approaches to faith instead of the harsh truth which is that we’re just as capable of seeking genocide as any other faith, despite the ways in which genocide has touched us in the modern era. Through their film, Odser and Youmans not only inform unaware viewers of an unsolved crime clearly motivated by race-based hatred, they confirm that time doesn’t heal all wounds — it merely allows more time for the infection to spread, grow stronger, and do more damage. Justice for Alex Odeh. Justice for Palestine. And justice for all those harmed by individuals who cannot see just how much we hurt ourselves when we act to harm another.
Screening during Sundance Film Festival 2026.
For more information, head to the official Sundance Film Festival Who Killed Alex Odeh? webpage.
Final Score: 4 out of 5.
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Categories: Films To Watch, In Theaters, Recommendation, Reviews
I thought the film was an unfinished brain dump of information. A mash-up of styles and a mess of ideas. Surprised that this got into Sundance. It’s an important subject to be sure, but the film doesn’t come close to doing the subject justice.