2026 Headliner
We’ve Been Here Before: Insights from Punk Culture for Confronting Antisemitism and Racism
Film screening and conversation with director Jacob Kornbluth, civil rights strategist Eric K. Ward, and activist Dion Garcia
Jewish Arts and Bookfest
Sunday, May 3, 2026
at UC Berkeley’s Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA
We’ve Been Here Before is a provocative documentary short by Emmy-winning filmmaker Jacob Kornbluth that uncovers how the 1980s and 1990s punk subculture became an unlikely front line in the fight against neo-Nazi extremism. Through a powerful dialogue between Kornbluth and anti-racist activists Eric K. Ward and Dion Garcia, the program explores how antisemitism and white supremacy migrated from a fringe music scene into the modern mainstream. By examining these historical flashpoints of resistance and “radical solidarity,” the film and subsequent panel discussion offer urgent, lived-experience insights into confronting the rise of antisemitism and hate in society today.
About Jacob Kornbluth
Jacob Kornbluth is an Emmy award-winning filmmaker who has directed 5 theatrically released feature films and over 200 shorts. Of his 5 films, 3 have premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, one was a Netflix Original Film, and the other has a 100% “fresh” score on Rotten Tomatoes. Jacob was awarded a Special Jury Prize for excellence in Filmmaking from the Sundance Film Festival for his feature documentary Inequality For All. Jacob founded Inequality Media, with Robert Reich, which has been a “light house” brand for economic storytelling and played a crucial role in framing an economic case for policies in ways everyone can understand. His videos have been viewed over a billion times on social media.
About Eric K. Ward
Eric K. Ward is one of a small group of leaders of color who have been working to counter organized hate since the 1980s. During his career, Ward traveled by bus across thousands of miles of predominantly white, rural areas to support and establish hundreds of anti-hate task forces. Among Ward’s concerns are the backlash against Black America, anti-LGBTQ violence, the growing influence of xenophobia on public policy, and antisemitism across the political spectrum and the impact these issues have on the gains of the 1960s Civil Rights movement.
A performer, Ward has a special interest in the use of music and culture to advance inclusive democracy. He works with musicians and artists to create new narratives that lift-up anti-bigotry and inclusion and puncture the myths driving American political and social divisions.
Ward is Executive Vice President of Race Forward, former Executive Director of the influential Western States Center, and Senior Fellow at Southern Poverty Law Center. He is the first U.S. recipient of the Civil Courage Prize, an acknowledgment that, as Ward says, “America’s dream of achieving a multiracial and inclusive democracy is in danger.” He is a member of the Pop Culture Collaborative’s Pluralist Visionaries Program and the recipient of the Peabody-Facebook Futures Media Award. Eric is the author of multiple written works credited with key narrative shifts, including Skin in the Game: How Antisemitism Animates White Nationalism. He has been quoted in The New Yorker, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, ESPN, CNN, MSNBC, Black News Channel, NPR, BBC, Rolling Stone and numerous other media outlets.
About Dion Garcia
Dion Garcia was born in Fresno, California, in 1968. The son of a working-class white mother and a Mexican-American father whose relationship faced racism and violence, he found early refuge in music, especially the Low Rider Oldies and Latin Rock that shaped his home and neighborhood.
Coming of age in the early 1980s, Dion witnessed how music scenes could become battlegrounds. In San Francisco and Southern California, neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups targeted punk, mod, and anti-racist skinhead communities, showing up at shows and attempting to recruit disaffected youth.
Later, while tour managing bands across Europe, he encountered both extremist networks and the movements that resisted them.
Today, Dion lives in the Bay Area and remains active in music as a Music Director. His perspective reflects lived experience and a belief that scenes can be powerful spaces of resistance when communities actively defend them.
Photo by Michele Lee Willson
About the Film: We’ve Been Here Before
We’ve Been Here Before is an intimate look at the non-conformists in punk subculture that fought back against white nationalists and neo-Nazis in the 1980s and 1990s. The film shares lessons and connects the dots to the rise in antisemitism and hate that threatens democracy today.
A Reboot Studios project.