The Ravenna Kibbutz

In its relatively short history, Israel hasn’t developed a melting-pot reputation akin to that of, say, the United States, but immigration is obviously a big part of what makes the country work. The phenomenon of aliyah keeps alive the dream of Israel as a place that any Jew can call home, yet inevitably Jews from different national and regional cultures, from different corners of the planet, may experience more conflict than harmony. And immigrants to Israel who aren’t Jewish, and may not even be legal, prompt similar questions to those faced by the U.S., nominally a more immigration-friendly place. Unfortunately, my knowledge of Israeli immigration law leaves a lot to be desired. I may want to put together a Kibbutz event on the subject at some point in the future.

I’m thinking of these things because of the last two films in the Kibbutz’s Jewish Film Series, Noodle—which features an illegal Chinese immigrant and her born-in-Israel son—and Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi, one of whose characters is a Jewish woman who married a philandering Moroccan Jew and thus hates Moroccans, Jewish and otherwise. While the former film makes it hard to avoid the theme of immigration (the boy’s mother is deported in a raid by immigration police), the latter deals with the subject more subtly, illustrating via a series of seriocomic scenes that Jewishness alone does not harmonious Israeli life make. I’d be interested in programming more films, Israeli or not, on the subject of immigration and the Jewish experience, so if anyone has suggestions for me, please share.