Film and Television Representations of Other Countries in the Middle East

Chapter 11 Film and Television Representations of Other Countries in the Middle East

WWII was felt throughout the Middle East, even though the region experi- enced neither a Holocaust nor genocide. It was a war between superpowers and European allies, consequently affecting their colonies and spheres of influence. The war stirred up hate and violence toward Jews in response to political and national changes in the region. The British dominated Iraq and Egypt, while Lebanon and Syria were under French and British rule. British control of Iraq lasted from the end of the WWI to 1932; British crowned King Faisal but retained their military presence in the area until the end of WWII. It was a period of unrest with multiple attempts at coups, the rise of Arab nation- alism side by side with political ideas such as Communism and Zionism. Jews were active participants in promoting and realizing these ideas. The government viewed these acts as ungrateful and traitorous, and Jewish activists were persecuted, imprisoned, or executed. With the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, the Jews of Iraq were deported and forbidden to take any of their pos- sessions with them. Greater Syria, which included Lebanon, was ruled by the French since 1920 under mandate of the United Nations. Syria was divided into federations, an act which induced nationalist riots and the rise of Pan-Arabism which drew as a response ruthless oppressive action by the French. The Jews, as always, were caught between the two sides. This was especially evident with Jewish settlement near the border of Syria (Tel Hai and others), the rise of Zionism and underground movements of Zionist organizations attempting to bring Jews to Israel, and finally, with the formation of the Jewish state. The condition of the Jews worsened when the existing government was replaced with Nazi collaborators, the Vichy government.

11.1 Braids: an Iraqi Prisoner of Zion

Braids (1989) is a short television film by Yitzhak Halutzi, based on the life of Herzliya (Regina) Lokai of Erbil, an autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan.1

1 Herzliya Lokai, Testimony, in WOJAC World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries. http://www.forgotten-million.co.il/eduyot/iraq/lokay_hertzliya.html.

Lokai was the youngest prisoner in Iraq during the period of the Israeli War of Independence. She was imprisoned for three years on account of Zionist activity; her braids were cut, breaking her fathers’ vow to have them cut only in the Land of Israel. The film, starring Neta Sobol and Hanna Azoulay Hasfari, was co-produced by the Center for Integration of Mizrahi Jewish Heritage and the Educational Television.2 The film is based on the events following June 1941 and the Farhud. It was a time of early Israelite Zionist action under Enzo Sereni, Ezra Kadouri and Shmaryahu Gutman (1942); the founding of the Haganah movement in 1945 and the Jewish underground, tasked with organizing the Jews, acquiring weap- ons and defending the Jewish settlements – even though until May 14, 1948, the Zionist movement was still legal.3 Members of the Haganah were carefully picked out from all social strata, valued by their abilities and skills alone.4 This caused several shifts in Jewish youth life under the Halutz movement: their self-appointed value skyrocketed, as did their appreciation by their community. They felt a sense of national pride and visualized a future in Israel, living in their own merit rather than by the grace of others. This structure stirred motivation in their hearts, disregarding families’ social or economic status. Moreover, girls and young women were finally relieved of the traditional bounds of social roles, as they joined the movement.5 One such young woman was Herzliya (Regina) Lokai. At 16, she was caught and imprisoned for two years on charges of teaching Hebrew, “conspiring with the Zionists” and receiving letters in Hebrew from Palestine. Dragged from one prison to the next, Lokai spent the first six months of her sentence in a men’s penitentiary where she was repeatedly tortured, suffering the constant threat of rape or murder. Nevertheless, she cunningly used her initiative, befriend- ing their leader and convincing him of her value of literacy.6 She was thus spared and protected by the inmates, and in return wrote letters to their families. Lokai was later transferred to a women’s prison, predominantly occupied

2 Film PR. 3 Nissim Kazzaz, The Jews in Iraq in the Twentieth Century (Jerusalem, Israel: Ben-Zvi Institute, 1991), 245–58. 4 Haim J. Hacohen, Zionist Activity in Iraq (Jerusalem: Hasifria Hatzionit, 1969), 180, 206–206. 5 Lokai, Testimony. For more information see Esther Meir, “Our Dowry: Identity and Memory among Iraqi Immigrants in Israel” In Iraq, Haim Saadoun (ed.) (Jerusalem: Ministry of Education and Culture and Ben-Zvi Institute, 2002). 6 Claude Nataf, President of the Society of History of the Jews of Tunisia (SHJT), December 11, 2011: “… if one was to say that the state of Tunisian Jews was not worse, it should be attributed to their intelligence and their community leaders. Without them, the Jews would have been given away to the murderers, but the Jewish leaders cleverly clung to them and acted in favor of their community.”