‘How To Get On With Everybody’ – Inspiring documentary about beloved Hackney rabbi to show at the Rio Cinema

The film documents the life and work of Rabbi Herschel Gluck. Photograph: Winstan Whitter / Elin Moe

A documentary about the life and work of a beloved Hackney rabbi is receiving a special screening six months after it was first released.

How To Get On With Everybody, by award-winning filmmakers Elin Moe and Winstan Whitter, will be shown at Dalston’s Rio Cinema at 2.15pm on Sunday, 23 November.

Rabbi Herschel Gluck OBE has become a renowned figure in the borough and beyond.

Described as ‘one of life’s true optimists’, Gluck has devoted his life to building bridges between communities at a time when division is rife.

The documentary follows Gluck’s work as the president of Shomrim, a Jewish neighbourhood watch group, and highlights his friendships with members of the Muslim community.

“We continue to work together to ensure that Hackney, that London, remains a harmonious place where people of all backgrounds can not only live together, but can have good, constructive, neighbourly interactions,” he said.

“That, we see constantly. Anyone who’s visited this part of the world can see that Jews and Muslims not only get on well, but they don’t even realise that others might find it strange that we are getting on well!

“We live side by side, and we live together, and we laugh together.”

The film also shines a light on Gluck’s childhood spent surrounded by Holocaust survivors and how this shaped his commitment to creating dialogue and understanding – something he applies in his work mediating in conflict zones around the world.

Gluck set up the Muslim-Jewish Forum in London 25 years ago and in 2013 received an OBE from the late Queen Elizabeth II for his services to intercommunal understanding.

“The Muslim-Jewish Forum helps the Muslim community and the Jewish community to work together for the mutual benefit, as British citizens, for both communities,” he said.

The documentary, released earlier this year, is one of a string of Hackney-focused films by Whitter, a former professional skateboarder raised in Stamford Hill.

Back in 2011, he told the Citizen about his mission to tell good stories and “learn more about where I live.”

“I try to be as diverse as I can in terms of the types of projects and films I work on,” he said at the time.

“I’m interested in all types of stories. It’s all about the story. If it’s a good story, it’s all about honouring that story and making it into a good film.”

“It’s a very nice film,” Gluck added, joking: “In the end, [the filmmakers] managed to overcome my opposition [to being involved].

“In the end, they produced a very beautiful film.”

How To Get On With Everybody was shown for the first time at the Rio on 25 May 2025.

This time, the screening will be followed by a conversation between Rabbi Gluck OBE, Hackney’s mayor Caroline Woodley and the filmmakers, Elin Moe and Winstan Whitter.

You can purchase tickets here.