Tag: love
Noodle (2007)
Miri, thirty-seven years old, is a twice-widowed, El Al flight attendant. She has her life carefully organized and moderated, until she discovered an abandoned Chinese boy whose foreign worker mother has been deported by Israel immigration authorities. Miri decides to reunite the family, and embarks on an amusing and touching journey. A lovely window into "normal" Israel people, and slice of Israeli life that we don't often see in the world of film.
Turn Left at the End of the World (2004)
Set at the end of the 1960's, this movie, which was a great success in Israel, portrays the travails of the Northern African immigrants who were sent to dilapidated towns "at the end of the world" as Israel struggled to settled the masses arriving at its borders. Uprooted from their native lands, having lost their former social and familial structures, and struggling to raise children in a society they themselves do not understand, the characters in this gorgeous movie struggle to find love, meaning and the prospect of a better future. An honest, charming and sad look at the story of Israel's Northern African immigrants, now a defining portion of our political and social map.
The Syrian Bride (2004)
Our common perceptions notwithstanding, Israel is not only a country of Jews. There are Chritians, Moslems, and Druze, as well. Amal, a Druze woman in an Israeli village, is about to marry a Syrian man and cross the border. When she does, she will never be able to return. The movie tells a personal story of love frustrated by politics and diplomats, with charm and grace. One of the first films that exhibited the great strides recently made in the Israel film industry.
Ushpizin (2004)
Moshe and Mali Bellanga are dirt poor and childless, having joined the Breslov Hassidic community in Jerusalem as adults. Their powerful faith is tested by their childlessness, and by their poverty, as well. Their love, and their marriage, are severely tested when Moshe pays an extraordinary sum for a gorgeous etrog in preparing for the Sukkot holiday. "Friends" from his former life, now escaped convicts, soon visit, and matters get extraordinarily complicated. The Hardei community is the source of much contention in Israel, largely because Haredim do not serve in the army. But this touching film, in which the actors themselves are Hardeim and married to each other, casts an entirely different, and loving, light on this poorly understood community. A beautiful film.
Yossi and Jagger (2002)
Many movies had dealt with the Israel Defense Forces. But this is the first, to my knowledge, to address the trials and tribulations of a gay couple serving in the IDF. It's a haunting, beautiful and sad movie, and raises harrowing questions about the real costs of the "macho" environment of the IDF. A classic in Israel, and a wonderful window on yet another dimension of Israeli life that is not often part of our discourse about Israel and its challenges.
The Liberated Bride / A. B. Yehoshua (2003)
I read this book both in Hebrew and in English, and didn't love it. But I'm a minority. Most people loved it. And it clearly reveals slices of Israeli academic, judicial, Arab and romantic life. It's a good yarn, if a bit long, and gives a rich picture of dimensions of contemporary Israeli life.
Dr. Daniel Gordis is Senior Vice President of the Shalem Center, where he is also a senior fellow. The author of numerous books on Jewish thought and currents in Israel...
The Jewish State must end, say its enemies, from intellectuals like Tony Judt to hate-filled demagogues like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Even average Israelis are wondering if they wouldn't be better off somewhere else. 
