Israel - An Immigration Country

Although much has been writ­ten and shown about Pales­tini­ans and Israelis, one aspect has gen­er­al­ly been left out: the Pales­tin­ian minor­i­ty in Israel. More than 900 000 Pales­tin­ian-Arab cit­i­zens live … read more

»Ten years ago, I went to Ethiopia to film the people known as ‘Falashas’ or black Jews, who were mal­treat­ed for their strict obser­vance of the Jewish reli­gion and who … read more

In the val­leys on the high­lands of Siemen in the North of Gondar (Ethiopia) 1983 had lived more than 30.000 Falashas, which means in col­lo­qui­al Amhar­ish »stranger«. In the occi­den­tal world, their exis­tance was nearly unknown. Most of the Falashas thought, they were the only Jews of the world, until Joseph Halevy »dis­coverd« them 1867. The Falashas con­sid­er them­selves as descen­dants of the Queen of Saba and King Salomon.Under the dic­ta­tor­ship of Mengis­tu they were vic­tims of gov­ern­men­tal pogroms.

»We had to work at places hard to find, in ter­ri­to­ries, were the Ethio­pean gov­ern­ment tried to iso­late them. We filmed the every day life of the Ethio­pean black Jews, their rit­u­als, cer­e­monies and at least the wit­ness­es of their (bad) con­di­tions of life.« By the time the film had been fin­ished 1985, in Ethio­pea no Falashas lived there any­more. The Israelian gov­ern­ment had orga­nized a huge air­lift to bring them out of the coun­try to Israel.

A car­a­van camp in a desert­ed mil­i­tary base is the first home in Israel for immi­grants arriv­ing from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia. Peter from the Ukraine and Chan­nan … read more

Mosa­hav Shekef is an agri­cul­tur­al coop­er­a­tive in the Lachish region. It is inhab­it­ed by Israelis – some are sabras, some were born in Maroc­co, Argenti­na or Iraq. Today there are … read more

Pinkas, a 75-years old agri­cul­tur­al worker from Moshav Rehov in the Beit Sh’an Valley, wakes up one morn­ing trou­bled by a dream in which his sister Simha has appeared. When … read more

The film focus­es the prob­lems of sephardic Jews in Israel. Three women, three gen­er­a­tions who strug­gle to sur­vive, to have a mean­ing­ful life and to express their voice in the … read more