David J. Steiner

David Jay Steiner was born in Chicago, Illinois to Jewish parents, Robinn Schulman, a medical professional whose family owned a toothpaste company, and Joseph Steiner, a figurative painter and art instructor. His parents divorced when he was young, but maintained an amicable relationship. Steiner, the eldest of three children, grew up in Lincolnwood, Illinois, where he attended public schools. As a youth, he began a lifelong affiliation with Habonim Dror, the labor Zionist youth movement, and attended their summer camps in Michigan and California. This helped shape his political activism. Steiner also loved baseball, and was an avid Chicago Cubs fan. Later as an adult, he would share his love of baseball with his children and take them on overnight car trips to major and minor league baseball games throughout North America. As a young man, Steiner was drawn not only to Jewish youth activism, politics and baseball, but also to film and comedy. He was strongly influenced by the comic tradition of Jews in America -- the Marx Brothers, borscht belt stand-up comedians, Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, to name a few. He also greatly admired the African-American comedian Redd Foxx, and while in middle school he would imitate Foxx's jokes, mannerisms and timing. Of all things, Steiner was a non-conformist and an experimental visionary, like another one of his heroes, Frank Zappa. These influences would influence Steiner's later work. While in high school, Steiner left Lincolnwood, Illinois for Israel, where he continued his studies and lived on a kibbutz, Hakfar Hayarok. On the kibbutz, Steiner was assigned to the dairy, and was put in charge of the artificial insemination process for cows. For the rest of his life, Steiner would incorporate bovine imagery into his work; he really loved cows. Steiner served in the Israeli army and was sent to Lebanon, where he saw hostilities. This experience helped him reaffirm his feelings about peace, which would serve him well later in life as he became a peace educator. Steiner then attended the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC), and then the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) where he studied film, and, like his father, painting. He continued and further developed his political activism while living in Los Angeles and as a film student, made the actor Edward Asner his mentor. The two remained close friends throughout Steiner's life. Steiner returned to Chicago and then back to Israel, where married and had three children: Maya, Sahar and Itamar. He continued his creative efforts in Israel, developing CD-ROM content and teaching. Steiner strongly believed that the best way to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was to find ways to get Israeli and Palestinian youth together to create art, play sports and have a dialog. Eventually Steiner returned to Chicago, where he invested in real estate and taught Jewish studies. He attended Columbia College in Chicago for further film studies. He founded a book club for the homeless in Chicago. Steiner wrote screenplays but was most interested in becoming a documentary film maker. The handheld, in-your-face style perfected by Michael Moore influenced him greatly, and was well suited to his extroverted, anti-authoritarian style. Steiner continued to write on various issues and lecture on peace and Jewish studies, which took him to places Bosnia-Herzegovina and Cuba, among others. After a year teaching in Los Angeles, he returned to Chicago, received his doctorate in education and divorced. While in Chicago he met Diane Kliebard, an attorney and daughter of academic Herbert Kliebard, who purely coincidentally was an influence on Steiner's academic writing. Kliebard became his muse and Steiner's creative output and writings increased greatly. He undertook rabbinical studies and began a career as a mediator -- always trying to make peace, whether on the global level or just between two people. Steiner met Jonathan Speller, who invited him to a Kwanzaa celebration at the Barbara A. Sizemore Academy (BASA), an Afrocentric school in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago. Steiner was very impressed with the school, and offered to teach film to the school's middle schoolers. While he was teaching, it was learned that the Chicago Public School officials wanted to shut down BASA, and Steiner took this as an opportunity to involve the students in political activism as a part of their filmmaking process. His film, Saving Barbara Sizemore (2016), documents the school community and its struggle to keep the school open. The film was very well received and was invited to screen at numerous festivals. After the success of Saving Barbara SIzemore, Steiner decided to turn his attention to a new project. He remembered that while living in Israel his son Itamar had befriended two South Sudanese boys who were living as refugees in Tel Aviv. However, the Netanyahu government had decided to expel the South Sudanese refugees and some of them were able to make it to Uganda. Like many, Steiner opposed this decision and decided to make a film about it. He invited Terrance Dantzler and Hayah Rasul, two BASA students, to join him in Africa -- with the intention that they would screen Saving Barbara Sizemore at a festival as well as make a new film documenting the plight of the refugees. Steiner was joined by his UCLA film school friend, David Bret Egen, to co-direct and co-produce the film. In addition, Sarah Giroux was added to the crew to operate cameras, and Steiner's son Itamar joined the crew as well. On December 26, 2016, after leaving a holiday party and en route to another, the bus carrying the crew was hit head-on by a reckless driver. Only Steiner was killed, and the others received non-life threatening injuries. Steiner's death received much attention in the Chicago news media. His memorial service was attended by hundreds of family, friends and others touched by him. In November, 2017, he was posthumously ordained as a rabbi. Egen, Steiner's sister Lisa and others have resolved to complete the unfinished Uganda documentary, and have taken this task upon themselves with much love and devotion to Steiner's legacy and memory.