Ashkenaz

An eye opening saga about Israel’s ethnic economy, this is a fascinating study of Ashkenazi culture and people.

What happened to the Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe when they came to settle in the Middle East and what happened to Middle Eastern and North African Jews as a result of the encounter? How did the ‘others’ of Europe become the Europe of ‘the others’? And how are the Palestinians related to all this?

Filmmaker Rachel Leah Jones sets out to reveal the bubbling layers of the Israeli ‘melting pot’ and there is hardly a stone she leaves unturned: Pale skinned and dark skinned; young and old; Holocaust survivors and Holocaust experts; Moroccan poets pondering their Arab-Jewish identity and Yiddish lovers lamenting the loss of their mama loshen (mother tongue); native dwellers whose existence has been threatened by the new European comers and intellectual youngsters composing the manifesto of a new movement for the protection of Ashkenazi culture. This cacophony is weaved together
with the subversive lyrics of one of Israel’s most intriguing Rock ensembles ‘HaBiluim’ creating a cutting edge investigation that goes under and beyond Israel’s ‘black and white’ politics. GG

Noam Inbar, founder and lead singer of ‘HaBiluim’ will attend the screening which will be followed by a Q&A.