Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Like many of their contemporary counterparts in literature, poetry, and theater, the Israeli
modernist fi lmmakers avoided national ideologies (themes of war and building the land) in
favor of more universal and intellectual themes, as well as demythologization of the Sabra.
Bourekas Films
The second type of fi lm to emerge in the mid-1960s was a popular comedy genre. Bourekas
fi lms, as they were called, dealt with ethnic tensions between Mizrahi and Ashkenazic Jews.
Their heroes were poor but sly Mizrahim who usually fell in love with a rich Ashkenazic coun-
terpart. Although the woman and man come from different social strata, love overcomes all
obstacles (mainly the Ashkenazic parents' prejudices). Confl ict is usually resolved by marriage
between the sons and daughters of rival families, thus establishing the idea of Israeli society as
a melting pot for Jews migrating from different parts of the world.
The pioneer in this genre of satirical comedies was Ephraim Kishon, Israel's greatest comic
writer, whose Sallah (1964) is about a Mizrahi immigrant, played by the Israeli star Haim
Topol, and his clashes with the Ashkenazic establishment. Sallah was the fi rst Israeli fi lm to be
nominated for an Oscar, and it is one of the most popular and successful ever made.
When Sallah and his large family arrive in Israel in the 1950s, they are sent to a transit camp
(ma'abara). Sallah is not pleased to live in a ramshackle shack and is determined to move his
family to a nearby housing complex. Meanwhile, he passes his time playing backgammon with
his idle neighbor and tries his luck at occasional jobs. Sallah satirizes the Israeli establishment
by depicting the arrogance of members of a nearby kibbutz (who are not enthusiastic in their
support of the new immigrants) and governmental authorities indifferent to the immigrants'
distress.
The fi lm's ridicule of such icons as the kibbutz and the Sabra was a daring act. Golda Meir,
former foreign minister and prime minister, objected to the fi lm because of a scene portraying
a Jewish National Fund offi cial changing signs with the names of donors each time a different
donor arrived to see the forest planted with his money.
Bourekas fi lms were made by Ashkenazic producers, directors, and screenwriters — among
them Boaz Davidson, Menahem Golan, and Eli Tavor — and some of the Mizrahi protagonists
were played by Ashkenazic stars as well. Yehuda Barkan, for one, played the leading role in
Davidson's Charlie and a Half (1974), as Topol did in Sallah .
Sallah is noted for being the fi rst fi lm to present a Mizrahi protagonist and deal with is-
sues of ethnic discrimination as well as for being the prototype for the bourekas fi lms that
fl ourished during the 1970s. The fi lms were seen as vulgar and “low” cinema by critics and by
modernist fi lmmakers, who pointed to their stereotypical characters, predictable plots, super-
fi ciality, and popularity.
Politically Critical Cinema
The turbulent events of the 1970s and early 1980s led to a wave of politically critical fi lms.
Uri Barbash's Beyond the Walls (1984), for example, takes place in an Israeli prison where
Jewish and Palestinian convicts are locked up together. The story revolves around Mizrahi
and Palestinian prisoners who join forces in a struggle against the oppressive Ashkenazic
management in what can be seen as an allegory of the Israel-Palestinian confl ict and of the
 
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