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 … read more

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 he immi­grat­ed to Israel 50 years ago, she remained in Kur­dis­tan and he hasn’t seen her since. His dream leaves him no peace and so Pinkas sets out on a long jour­ney to the place of his birth. In a remote vil­lage in the moun­tains of Kur­dis­tan he does find his long-lost sister and her Muslim husband. 

On the spot, Pinkas decides to bring the extend­ed family to Israel. And so begins an ‘aliyah’ and absorp­tion process orga­nized by one man. Pinkas finds new pur­pose in life and he mobi­lizes all his ener­gies on behalf of his newly dis­cov­ered family. He some­how man­ages to bring fifty mem­bers of his family to Israel, and to house them in var­i­ous vil­lages in the area. Each day he takes his trac­tor to check on every­one. As time passes, the harsh real­i­ty of the dif­fi­cul­ties of adapt­ing, of being Mus­lims in a Jewish coun­try, of their long­ings for their remote vil­lage in Kur­dis­tan, become apparent.

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