New Immigrant, Old Story: Framing Russians on the Israeli Screen olga gershenson and dale hudson

following the collapse of the soviet in the Israeli context, as well as sites of larger union, nearly two million people escaped the debates over accommodations and adjust- former empire to pursue new lives in Israel, ments necessary for participation within the the United States, Germany, and other coun- international community, particularly the inter- tries. By the mid-1990s, the “new Russian im- national art-house film market. migrant” had begun to emerge as a character The new Russian immigrant character in both commercial and art-house cinema in marked an important departure from rep- these countries.1 Because cinematic repre- resentations of Russian characters outside sentations of immigrants often reveal more Soviet-bloc cinemas prior to the collapse of about the cultures producing and consuming the USSR. Previously, spies and defectors had such images and narratives than they do about embodied the majority of representations of actual immigrant experiences, the Russian im- Soviet citizens, particularly in Hollywood Cold migrant character points to particular national War action-adventure films and spy thrillers. responses to new waves of immigration at the Since the fall of Soviet communism, Russian onset of post–Cold War globalization, reflecting immigrants have appeared most visibly in films gendered, ethnic, and religious contradictions that, either directly or indirectly, are concerned and inconsistencies within popular conceptions with the Russian Mafia. These new Russian im- of national identity. In this article, we examine migrant characters are typically male, such as films about female Russian immigrants to Israel the Russian mafiosi in Karma Local (US 1998; as sites of debates over nation and integration dir. Darshan Bhagat) and The Quickie (France/ UK/Germany 2001; dir. Sergei Bodrov), as well as in the acclaimed television series The So- olga gershenson is an assistant professor of Judaic and Near Eastern studies at the University pranos (US 1999–2006; prod. David Chase). of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Although a female counterpart to the Russian Gesher: Russian Theatre in Israel; A Study of Cul- mafiosi also appears in thrillers and action- tural Colonization (Peter Lang, 2005) and coeditor adventure films, such as Birthday Girl (UK/US of Ladies and Gents: Public Toilets and Gender 2001; dir. Jez Butterworth), the figure of the (Temple University Press, forthcoming). Russian woman generally holds a different sig- dale hudson is a visiting assistant professor nificance. Russian males are confined largely of film studies in the Department of English to the self-contained, predominantly homoso- at Amherst College. His work on cinema and cial, diasporic world of the Russian Mafia that new media appears in the journals Afterim- evades assimilation into its host country. By age, Studies in Documentary Film, and Screen, contrast, Russian women more often assimilate as well as in the anthology The Persistence of into their host countries through heterosexual Whiteness: Race and Contemporary Hollywood coupling, whether via prostitution, romance, Cinema (Routledge, 2007). or marriage. Recent international art films

journal of film and video 60.3–4 / fall/winter 2008 25 ©2008 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois featuring such characters include Black and Politics of Immigration White (US/Russia 1992; dir. Boris Frumin), and Representation Postmark Paradise (US 2000; dir. Thompson E. Clay), Russian Doll (Australia 2001; dir. ­Stavros Historically, cinematic representations of im- ­Kazantzidis), and Balalaika (Turkey 2001; dir. migrants have expressed the politics of im- Ali Özgentürk). Israeli cinema has also pro- migration in Israel, where the Law of Return, duced several similar films, including the tele- conferring citizenship on any Diaspora Jew, vision film Kalinka Maya (Israel 1997; dir. Eitan is raison d’être of the state. This law codifies Londner), the absurdist satire Circus Palestina aliyah ( Jewish immigration to Israel, literally (Israel 1998; dir. Eyal Halfon), the sensation- “ascent”) as a top national priority and affirms alist drama The Holy Land (Israel 2001; dir. Israel’s status as a Jewish state. The ideology Eitan Gorlin), the postmodern pastiche What of Zionism and the politics of immigration re- a Wonderful Place (Israel 2005; dir. Eyal Hal- flexively reproduce and justify each other, as fon), and two romantic comedies: Saint Clara a brief history of immigration to Palestine and (Israel 1995; dir. Ari Folman and Ori Sivan) and Israel makes evident. This history is relevant to Yana’s Friends (Israel 1999; dir. Arik Kaplun). a study of cinematic representations of the new We choose to focus our analysis on Saint Clara Russian immigrant because it establishes the and Yana’s Friends because both films address historical context against which these newcom- questions about Israeli immigration, particu- ers are evaluated. larly shifts in immigration policy in response to The first waves of politically Zionist immigra- national identity, and both enjoyed consider- tion came to Palestine from eastern, central, able visibility on the national and international and western Europe in the first half of the twen- film circuits. tieth century. These immigrants, mainly Euro- We read Saint Clara and Yana’s Friends as pean (Ashkenazi) Jews, formed the cultural, po- immigration narratives that posit assimilation litical, and economic elite of Israeli society. The of female immigrants into Israeli society as next major waves of immigrants came in the amenable, indeed possible, only through ro- late 1940s and 1950s, mainly from the Middle mance with a sabra (native-born Israeli) man. East and North Africa (Mizrahi Jews).2 Many of Alone, Clara and Yana represent inassimilable them were forced to migrate because of hostili- immigrants, ones whose very identities em- ties against Jews in primarily Islamic countries, body indifference to, or disengagement from, incited by the founding of Israel. Zionist emis- Israeli-Zionist ideologies. Because these immi- saries actively recruited Mizrahi Jews, but once gration narratives are told through the generic in Israel, these immigrants were subjected formulas of romantic comedy, they feature to the ethnocentric and colonial attitudes of representations of women, who, invariably, the Ashkenazi minority. Conflict between the mobilize their youth, beauty, and sexuality for Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Israelis remains unre- survival within narrative structures of the rela- solved; it constitutes an entrenched source of tive powerlessness of immigrants. Saint Clara simmering discontent that routinely surfaces and Yana’s Friends thus converge and depart in national politics (Dahan-Kalev; Kimmerling; from stereotypes of Russian women as femmes Swirski). In the 1990s, immigrants from the for- fatales, mail-order brides, or prostitutes on the mer Soviet Union arrived in the middle of these international film circuit. By exploring the new ethnic and political tensions, forming the first character of the Russian immigrant woman massive wave of immigration (about 900,000 within the specific context of Israeli cinema, we people) since the 1950s. Together with the im- contribute to the study of the politics of Israeli migrants from the USSR who came to Israel in cinematic representations of ethnicity, pio- the 1960s–80s (about 140,000), Russian immi- neered by Ella Shohat and continued by Yosefa grants today constitute one of the largest ethnic Loshitzky and Nurith Gertz. groups.

26 journal of film and video 60.3–4 / fall/winter 2008 ©2008 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois Tensions quickly developed between the Immigrants, Zionism, and Israeli Cinema new Russian immigrants and local Israeli Jews, Ashkenazi and Mizrahi alike. The Mizrahi com- The position of Russian immigrants in con- munity saw the large surge in Russian immi- temporary Israeli cinema emerges within the gration as reinforcing Ashkenazi dominance historical interplay of nation formation and in Israeli society; the Ashkenazi community state cultural institutions. Historically, Zionism disapproved of the immigrants’ lack of Zionist appropriated cinema as a significant means of commitment, knowledge of Israeli Jewish cus- generating national consciousness. In the local toms, and desire to assimilate. Both Mizrahi context, however, it is complicated by the over- and Ashkenazi communities were concerned lapping of ethnic and religious identity, implied with the unusually large proportion of non- in Israel’s status as the “Jewish state” and by Jews among the new Russian immigrants.3 the right to citizenship, conferred by the Law These tensions found expression in media of Return. In this section, we trace some of the stereotypes of Russian immigrants as desta- moments, pertinent to our arguments, in Israeli bilizing, if not outright threatening, to Israeli cinema, its representations of immigrants, and national identity. The Israeli media propagated its immigration narratives. this stereotype, depicting Russian immigrants From the 1920s through the 1950s, cinema as alcoholics, child abusers, and wife beaters was “widely used as propaganda promot- and as a community of criminals, drug deal- ing Jewish immigration to Palestine, for ers, and prostitutes. fund-raising among Jewish communities and With rare exception, Russian immigrants for political lobbying in Europe and [North] were excluded from Israeli public cultural America” (Ne’eman, “Israeli Cinema” 223). production during the 1990s.4 Israeli radio Retrospectively labeled “Zionist realism,” seldom included their “diasporic” Russian- these films affirmed national identity based on accented voices, and Russian immigrant agriculture, self-defense, and a return to the characters rarely appeared on television or Hebrew language. In so doing, the films helped film. Unflattering or distorted media coverage to shape and define expectations placed on of immigration was framed invariably from new immigrants. In Dorit Naaman’s analysis, the vantage point of the Israeli old-timers. A “early Israeli cinema was strongly dependent, thriving industry of Russian-language media both ideologically and financially, on the coun- and culture existed separately from the main- try’s political system,” thus reproducing the stream Hebrew-language media, rendered Ashkenazi dominance and casting Mizrahi Jews invisible to most Israeli audiences. Only in the and Palestinians as internal and external others late 1990s did this situation begin to change. (37). An alternative to cinematic representa- Russian subtitles were introduced on some tions of Zionist ideology began only during the cable channels in 1998 and in some movie 1960s with the leftist realism of the Israeli new theaters in 2001; a Russian-language cable wave, though it too represented an almost ex- television channel was launched in 2002. clusively Ashkenazi perspective. These steps toward recognition of the Russian- Alongside new wave films, popular Israeli speaking audience in Israel, however, have cinema produced commercially viable com- not resolved the problem of underrepresenta- edies and melodramas that have been loosely tion and misrepresentation of immigrants grouped into what is considered the local Is- in mainstream Israeli cultural production. raeli genre of bourekas films (labeled after a Even though Russian immigrants increasingly Middle Eastern pastry). Comparable to Holly- receive cinematic representations, they still wood’s blaxploitation cycle in terms of their rarely find themselves in the position to con- response, however ambivalent and ultimately trol, or even contribute to, the production and exploitative, to a paucity of cinematic represen- circulation of such representations. tations of a minoritized group, bourekas were a

journal of film and video 60.3–4 / fall/winter 2008 27 ©2008 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois distinct group of low-budget films produced ductions and participating in international film with indirect state funding (rather than direct festivals. state subsidies for “quality” films) by Ash­ Saint Clara and Yana’s Friends are typical of kenazi filmmakers for a largely Mizrahi audi- a 1990s Israeli filmmaking that avoids a direct ence. Recognizable Ashkenazi actors often address of social and political problems. The played Mizrahi roles, with Mizrahi actors often release of Saint Clara, along with several other portraying Palestinian and other “foreign” char- films, marked a new era of commercially viable acters (Naaman 37). The unprecedented suc- local production, with the major daily news- cess of Sallah Shabati (Israel 1964; dir. Ephraim paper reporting that Saint Clara, together with Kishon), with its lazy, illiterate, and chauvinistic another film, garnered an audience of 70,000 yet lovable and wise Mizrahi immigrant pro- during the first weeks of release in Israeli the- tagonist, became a prototype for the bourekas. aters (Zimmerman 115–24). In terms of funding, In this and other films, the Mizrahim are repre- exhibition, and critical reception, Saint Clara sented as exotic, premodern, despotic, and and Yana’s Friends are strikingly similar. Both antagonistic to Palestinians, consistent with films were produced with a combination of pub- racist political discourse concerning Mizrahi lic and private funding, and both films received Jews, which recognized their difference as a critical praise in Israel and abroad during their matter of culture more than as one of class exhibition in international film festivals and (Shohat). Sallah and subsequent bourekas at commercial theaters.5 There is even overlap films, such as Katz and Carasso (Israel 1971; dir. in the on- and off-screen talent involved in Menachem Golan) and Kazablan (Israel 1974; the production of the two films. Russian-born dir. Menachem Golan), employed interethnic cinematographer Valentin Belonogov shot both marriage and social mobility (often via ethnic Saint Clara and Yana’s Friends, and Israel Demi- “passing”) as narrative resolutions to ethnic dov and Lucy Dubinchik appear in both films. tensions. Engendering a “mixed-marriage for- The films’ popularity and acclaim suggest that mula” that celebrated “the victory of love over both resonate with mainstream contemporary social and ethnic differences,” bourekas films notions of gender, immigration, and nation in became cult movies for young audiences during the Israeli popular imagination. the 1990s (Ne’eman, “Israeli Cinema” 228). Saint Clara and Yana’s Friends address The “post-political” filmmaking of the 1990s interethnic tensions between Russian immi- drew upon the conventions of romantic comedy grants and sabras (both Ashkenazi or Mizrahi), from the bourekas films, returning almost to an drawing loosely upon the bourekas formula, emulation of Hollywood and European cinema. avoiding the lived realities of sociopolitical The films from this period are symptomatic problems. Both films replace Israeli–Palestin- of political ambivalence, evidencing a disen- ian conflicts and Ashkenazi–Mizrahi tensions gagement from political issues, in particular with apocalyptic scenarios: earthquakes and conflicts with Palestinians, and an emphasis nuclear contamination in Saint Clara and Iraqi on personal expression and individual experi- missiles during the first Gulf War in Yana’s ence. The filmmaking of the 1990s is “rooted in Friends. Both films adopt strategies of romantic a sense of ‘homelessness’,” expressing “a new comedy, a genre that often gives expression form of identity—neither here nor there, associ- to repressed social issues and personal com- ated with both the difficulties of immigration promise, with aspects of melodrama, which and a sense of inner exile” (Ne’eman, “Israeli conventionally serves “as a safety-valve for Cinema” 227–28). These post-political Israeli ideological contradictions” (Mulvey 39). Yet films coincide with a broader tendency among the films differ in the identity politics of the Israelis to embrace global capitalism through filmmakers and their cast: Saint Clara was living and studying abroad, through travel and produced by Israeli directors and crew. Yana’s tourism, and, for filmmakers, through copro- Friends is primarily the work of Russian immi-

28 journal of film and video 60.3–4 / fall/winter 2008 ©2008 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois grant filmmakers and crew. Saint Clara is based a sabra, when “ethnic/class tensions and con- on the novel by the Czech writer Pavel Cohout, flicts are solved by a happy ending in which adapted for the screen and transplanted onto equality and unity are achieved by means Israeli soil by screenwriters Ori Sivan and Ari of the unification of the mixed couple,” and Folman.6 Yana’s Friends is based on the origi- hence “social integration is being dreamed via nal script by Arik Kaplun and Semion Vinokur, eroticism” (Shohat 134). Like earlier bourekas, which, they reported in an interview, includes pierogi films feature “stereotypical characters autobiographical details from their own im- with whom it is easy to identify, the divided migration to Israel, as well as details from reality in which everything exotic or sentimental other true immigration stories. In Saint Clara is emphasized” (Ne’eman “Cinema Zero” p. 21). immigrants are represented from the perspec- So, how do Saint Clara and Yana’s Friends de- tive of local Israelis; in Yana’s Friends, from the fine the pierogi film, and what is the meaning perspective of Russian immigrants. of all the differences between the two films? This difference, we argue, defines other important distinctions between the two films: Cinematic Style: between their cinematic styles and modes Theatricality and Realism of representation and between the political ramifications of language use. As a result of Saint Clara and Yana’s Friends convey similar these differences, Yana’s Friends emerges as stories of difficulties faced by female Russian an “accented film.” According to Hamid Naficy, immigrants to Israel. Both films resolve their accented films, in contrast to “universal” domi- narrative conflicts through assimilation of the nant cinema, are made by “diasporic and exilic immigrant via romance with a sabra. The two subjects” (4). Their accent, he explains, “ema- films, however, adopt different cinematic and nates not so much from the accented speech of representational strategies, which change the the diegetic characters as from displacement meaning of the films’ narrative strategy. of the filmmakers and their artisanal produc- Yana’s Friends deploys the mobile framing tion modes” (4) and from visual style, which and on-location shooting that is familiar as a often make accented films critical. Indeed, our mode of cinematic realism, particularly in Euro- analysis shows that in comparison with Saint pean art cinema. Drawing upon the innovations Clara, Yana’s Friends poses a greater challenge of French Poetic Realism during the 1930s and to the Israeli–Zionist discourse of immigration, Italian Neorealism during the 1940s and 1950s, by representing immigrants from an insider’s contemporary European art films convention- perspective and by including diasporic lan- ally structure their narratives around ordinary guages and accents. However, Naficy reminds moments in the lives of ostensibly unexcep- us, accented cinema is not always oppositional tional humans. As a visual strategy, these art (26). We argue that despite its “accent,” Yana’s films make use of long takes, natural lighting, Friends produces only a partially resistant location shooting, direct sound, minimal use of reading of the Israeli–Zionist discourse of im- non-diegetic music, narrative editing, and natu- migration. Both Saint Clara and Yana’s Friends ral acting styles. equally insist on the assimilation of immigrants Although Saint Clara also adopts many of into Israeli-Jewish nation. these characteristics and cannot be separated We argue that despite these differences, entirely from European art cinema, the film taken together, the two films are indicative of features a self-consciousness that draws more the emergence of a new cycle, parallel to boure- readily from analytical modes of narrative film- kas genre, that we are calling the pierogi film making, such as Soviet montage during the (after a Russian pastry). Like earlier bourekas 1920s and the postwar European “New Wave” depicting Ashkenazi–Mizrahi romance, pierogi movements. Sound is often used counter-punc- films bring together a Russian immigrant and tually, and framing and editing violate classical

journal of film and video 60.3–4 / fall/winter 2008 29 ©2008 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois cinema’s rules of apparatic invisibility, so that Russian immigrants, fusing the two coinciding the mediation of the filmic medium is rendered events into a more generalized threat to Israel. highly visible. Moreover, the two films play with Historically, both television news and home the possibilities of photographic representa- movies garner the conceit of a more direct re- tion. Yana’s Friends depends on the reality lationship with reality than does fictional film. effect of photography’s iconic properties, And this is exactly how Yana’s Friends achieves whereas Saint Clara exploits its indexical and its credibility. To borrow Loshitzky’s phrase, symbolic properties. Whereas Yana’s Friends this film “without being a documentary in the may seem at times like a docudrama, if not an traditional sense” nevertheless “constitutes a observational documentary, Saint Clara may form of social document” (83). seem at times like filmed theater. The two films also diverge in their represen- The film’s divergent representations of tation of the Russian immigrants. Although contemporary Israel are striking in this regard. the Israeli education system’s concern with Saint Clara locates the assimilation story of Russian immigrants is real, Saint Clara depicts its thirteen-year-old Russian immigrant pro- this concern as surreal, particularly in its visual tagonist, Clara (Lucy Dubinchik), in a fictional representation of Clara. Unlike her ever-excit- remote town that is surrounded by a swamp in able Israeli classmates, Clara’s often-detached constant danger of devastation by earthquake. demeanor radiates otherworldliness. Visually, Drawing upon anxieties about the end of the she is often shot frontally in close-up, disas- millennium and prejudices against provincial sociated from her surroundings, directly ad- hinterlands, the film’s style underscores the dressing the camera, even in shots that are not caricatured and performative qualities of its structured into the film’s narrative as reaction representation of Israel through highly stylized shots or eyeline matches (see Photo 1). She and often contrived use of color, sets, cos- appears static, outside of time and place, so tumes, and acting. The imagery is permeated that her image evokes the visual devices in Rus- by irony and ambivalence toward Israeli sym- sian Orthodox icons. In fact, the film’s Hebrew bols and myths. Characters stand as character title, Clara Hakdosha (“Saint Clara”), alludes types, grouped by generation: adult and ado- to Christianity, a serious taboo in the Israeli lescent, new immigrant and old-timer. ethos centered on Judaism. As a modifier to the In contrast, Yana’s Friends constructs its first name of a Russian immigrant, Hakdosha representation of Israel through a surfeit of (“saint”) alludes to fear of gentrification and to visual images, spoken words, and audible a concern over high proportion of non-Jews or sounds that are characteristic of the Israeli even Christians among Russian immigrants—an reality of 1990–91, with the massive wave of Israeli “apocalypse” according to the film’s Russian immigration coinciding with the first thematic logic. Gulf War. Its historical and cultural specificity, The mobile camerawork in Yana’s Friends despite the comedic overboard, makes the contrasts with the fixed camera positions in film credible. Its narrative is intercut not only Saint Clara. The camera follows the movement with home-movie footage shot by the aspir- of characters through interior spaces, adopting ing filmmaker Eli (played by Nir Levy), who is the aesthetics of observational documentary. obsessed with documenting his various lovers, Yana’s (Evelyn Kaplun) reactions and expres- but also with television footage, often as a sions also are captured in close-up often, but transitional device between scenes. Similarly, they are not framed frontally. She does not di- the film’s soundtrack is punctuated with sirens, rectly address the camera’s gaze as Clara does announcements of possible Scud missile at- (with the exception of some shots seen through tacks from Iraq, and English-language televi- the lens of Eli’s camcorder). Unlike Clara, who sion news reports on the Gulf War intermixed is imbued with mysterious and otherworldly with Hebrew-language reports on newly arrived qualities, Yana is largely confined to the banal

30 journal of film and video 60.3–4 / fall/winter 2008 ©2008 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois Photo 1: Clara (Lucy Dubinchik) as seen through the peephole of the sabra flat. Courtesy of Kino International. predicament of actual immigrants. Yana’s char- camera often loses its subject, and the image acter is developed through depictions of her is reduced to a blur in the camera’s rapid move- routine behavior: sleeping, showering, experi- ment from its subject to some inconsequential encing morning sickness, brushing her teeth, details of the surrounding; at other times, the getting drunk, learning Hebrew—behaviors that camera’s focus readjusts in the middle of a are often re-depicted through the camcorder take. These imperfections contrast with the operated by Eli, whose movements and focus professional camerawork of the film’s color se- are erratic and unstable (see Photo 2). As Naficy quences, observed by an invisible camera. comments in his discussion of accented films, Yana’s Friends announces this aesthetics the depiction of exiles’ daily routines serves as even before the narrative begins. An ostensi- “a countermeasure to the official pedagogical bly non-diegetic musical score begins as the representation of them, which tends to abstract opening title credits appear against a black them by stereotyping, exoticizing, and other- background and continues over a montage of ing” (117). Indeed, the depiction of Yana’s daily black-and-white images depicting the street activities—and their reproduction as audiovi- musicians and other future characters in the sual images in Eli’s home movies—works as a film. The music serves the conventional pur- significant countermeasure to the media stereo- pose of concealing abrupt cuts between images types of Russian immigrants. In these parts, the of different locations along the Tel Aviv street,

Photo 2: Yana (Evelyn Ka- plun) as seen through the viewfinder of the sabra’s camcorder. Courtesy of First Run Features.

journal of film and video 60.3–4 / fall/winter 2008 31 ©2008 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois but the rhythms from the musical score are and Clara’s uncle Elvis (Israel Demidov), who synchronized with movements in the visual lost these powers after falling in love. Once images, so that street musicians appear to play Clara’s powers are known by the local towns- violins and trumpets in time with the musical people, they attempt to exploit them for their score. In these moments, the musical score own benefit—by asking Clara to predict exam appears diegetic. Moreover, the camera tilts questions and winning lottery numbers. In both downward to reveal a jar placed by the street instances, the harnessing of Clara’s powers musicians to collect change from passersby, results in social turmoil, figuratively express- which situates the musicians within the narra- ing possible ramifications from the everyday tive rather than outside it. Indeed, one of the practice of exploiting immigrant labor. In the passersby is Yana, sparing a few coins for them. first instance, the students get into trouble and The music carries over into the film’s first color are accused by school administrators of staging footage, images of the very room where Yana’s a “revolt.” In the second instance, after Clara amorous assimilation into Israel will take place. envisions the winning lottery ticket as 6–6–6 The interplay between the professional color (the biblical “Number of the Beast”), a different and amateur black-and-white footage is self- catastrophe ensues. Her uncle Elvis attempts referential. Already the film’s first color shot to redistribute the lottery jackpot to the entire indicates self-referentiality: the flat’s interior community by giving the winning numbers to is shown in one take, with the camera panning everyone. As a result, hundreds of lottery win- slowly from a window through the interior of ners vie for the prize, and two of them commit one room, pausing to reveal several television suicide. Clara’s other premonitions are also monitors and stacks of videocassettes, and associated with apocalypses: she predicts a then continuing into the bedroom, pausing to demise of the town and a devastating earth- reveal another television and another stack of quake. Despite lack of scientific evidence, the videocassettes, before stopping on an image townsfolk take Clara’s premonition seriously, of Eli holding a camcorder. Eli’s observational, and a mass exodus from the town ensues. Clara and voyeuristic, camera is mirrored by the loses her power only when she falls in love with film’s observational camera whose aesthetics Tikel (Halil Elohev), her sabra boyfriend. include the practice of not using a corrective Unlike Clara, Yana has no supernatural powers filter during on-location shooting to avoid the that distinguish her from the other immigrants “blowout” when filming windows that open to or help her escape from her mundane problems. the exterior. The diegetic world of the film is She is constrained by institutional structures constantly subjected to documentation by Eli’s and gendered power relations. Her husband, camera, potentially showing identification of Fima (Israel Demidov), has absconded to Mos- the filmmaker with the character. cow with an Israeli government loan to new With varying degrees of irony, both films immigrants, thereby endangering her status. also reflect xenophobic prejudices against Yana is left pregnant and penniless in a foreign immigrants and establish metonymic connec- country and easily falls victim to exploitation and tions between immigration and catastrophic misrecognition. Her only savior is her woman- events. Thus, the cultural difference that marks izing flatmate Eli, a sabra. As in Saint Clara, the Clara’s teenage sexuality is equated with witch- romantic coupling of a Russian immigrant and craft and promiscuity. She is eroticized and a sabra unfolds within the context of the ever- exoticized through constant reference to her present possibility of national annihilation. But physical appearance, mysterious powers, and instead of imaginary catastrophes such as those foreign origin. Clara’s powers to foresee the in Saint Clara, the threat of annihilation is linked future are represented in the film as a familial to an actual historical event, the Gulf War. The characteristic, a trait brought to Israel from Rus- sexual intimacy between Yana and Eli explodes sia by both Clara’s mother (Yevgenya Dodina) in the moments defined not only by Yana’s

32 journal of film and video 60.3–4 / fall/winter 2008 ©2008 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois personal fears and insecurities but also by the (and other Russian immigrants’) morality in highest national fears and insecurities. The question, suggesting that she lacks the propri- intimacy emerges in a sealed room, during the ety of Israeli women. Although the films deploy missile attacks, accompanied by the sounds of different visual and narrative strategies to rep- sirens, as both she and Eli wear gas masks.7 The resent Russian immigrants and local Israelis, missile threats and the gas masks gain an erotic the Hebrew-language titles to both films mark charge in Eli’s seduction of Yana. In one shot, the Russian immigrant women as somehow the white flesh of her nude torso and bosom deficient in terms of their potential for complete come into sharp contrast with her black gas entrance into Israeli society—an entrance that mask, as Eli strokes her skin. In another scene, only the romance with sabra can facilitate. the nozzles of the gas masks click against one The immigration-assimilation narratives another as a substitute for exploring kisses (see of both films then situate Russian immigrant Photo 3). The gas masks make their faces look women as potential threats to Israel. What is the same and render both Yana and Eli mute, intriguing is that the threat of these immigrants eliminating linguistic gaps and accents. The gas is offset by the more pressing threat, which Nit- masks become necessary prosthetics on which zan Ben-Shaul describes as a paranoid sense their physical connection depends. In fact, once of permanent threat to Israel’s very existence. the threat of war has passed, Eli succeeds in his Indeed, the films depict Israel as vulnerable seduction of Yana only when missile attacks are to contamination or annihilation and as alien- simulated through his use of recorded sounds ated from the heroic Zionist past. This motif of and images of past attacks—metaphorically, the threat, both internal and external, is also ex- immigrant and the sabra can unite only in the pressed in the two films through depictions of context of national emergency. space and spatial relations. Like Saint Clara, the Hebrew title to Yana’s Friends is suggestive of Israeli prejudices Modes of Representation: against Russian immigrants. The title, Ha- Spaces of Estrangement, Confinement, haverim shel Yana, innocuously translated into and Transition English as Yana’s Friends, in Hebrew can mean either “Yana’s friends” or “Yana’s boyfriends.” Naficy argues that in accented films, the bur- (Ironically, Yana has very few friends in this den of narrative is carried primarily through film.) In the latter case, the title places Yana’s mise-en-scène, rather than editing (154). Such

Photo 3: Wearing gas masks, Yana (Evelyn Kaplun) and Eli (Nir Levy) find love in a sealed room during a missile attack. Courtesy of First Run Features.

journal of film and video 60.3–4 / fall/winter 2008 33 ©2008 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois films mobilize both “open” and “closed” cin- nationalist projects, signifying spaces that can- ematic forms, often in a single film, to convey not be claimed by settlement—or perhaps it is narrative. Open forms favor mobile framing in a harbinger of land that cannot be reclaimed external settings under natural lighting, appear- after nuclear contamination. A solitary seismo- ing spontaneous and accidental. In contrast, graphic watchtower that marks the swamp’s closed forms appear self-conscious and delib- skyline further suggests the fragility of the erate, favoring claustrophobic interior settings, town’s very existence. Saint Clara thus sets into such as cramped living quarters, and often are play numerous apocalyptic motifs, expressing shot with tight, static framing and “driven by the quotidian Israeli “siege mentality.” This panic and fear” (153–54). phantasmagoric and decidedly un-Israeli set- Space is represented as psychologically ting parodies the celebratory man-over-nature threatening from the very beginning of Saint discourse and the “optimistic geography” of Clara. The film opens with a slow tracking shot earlier Israeli films (Gertz, “From Jew” 175– down a long empty corridor in the school, 200). which eventually fills with a mass of students The film’s interior spaces are also a site yelling and running wildly through its sterile of parody. The film’s opening scene offers space. Combined with heavy metal guitar on a depiction of students’ protest against the the soundtrack, the opening shot suggests the unfair punishment by their teachers. The irony students’ alienation from the heroic symbols is made evident by the students’ tactics (e.g., of a nationalist past. It is particularly evident tying traitors to the classroom chalkboard and in the shot’s central visual focus on a statue of threatening to immolate them), borrowed from the school’s namesake, Golda Meir. The fourth French New Wave representations of the Mai Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir remains a 68 protests and strike, such as Weekend (Italy/ part of Zionist pantheon, but her position was France 1967; dir. Jean-Luc Godard) and Tout va compromised by her failure to prepare for Yom bien (France/Italy 1972; dir. Jean-Luc Godard Kippur War. The choice to use such an ambiva- and Jean-Pierre Gorin). The headmaster, Tis- lent figure as a Zionist icon is clearly ironic. sona (Yigal Naor), interrogates his students Much like the school, the town is spatially about their “revolt” while separated from them defined in long tracking shots down empty by a vast conference table. In front of him is a streets, placed in contrast with fixed shots of container of highly organized and uniform pen- an ambiguous and ominous swamp, establish- cils, which evoke the conformity and uniformity ing the geography of the region. The town’s that he (and, by extension, Golda Meir—Israel, wide roads separate impersonal buildings, even) expects of students. Tissona’s expec- which dwarf human figures next to them. Inte- tation is laughable in Israeli culture, where rior spaces are concealed behind drawn blinds, improvisation and inventiveness are valued. perhaps signaling their vulnerability or danger. Clara and her wayward classmates will never These spaces are open yet poisoned: empty be assimilated into the rigid organizational railways cross abandoned and decayed indus- structure. Tissona’s expectations more closely trial zones. Fires emanate from the smoke tow- resemble a French model of education, and he ers of refineries, visible between the stacks of is an unabashed Francophile, who lapses into industrial rubbish. At one point, an explosion French as though Hebrew were somehow insuf- occurs, and a massive dead bird sails through ficient to express his idées reçues about edu- the window of the school, landing on the stu- cational reform. He claims the clichéd wartime dent’s desk. (Clara is suspected of causing the fantasy of a one-night romance with Edith Piaf event.) Like the streets, these industrial spaces and names his dog after Jean Gabin, the manly are often unpopulated, as though they are no film star and populist icon of French poetic real- longer in use. The swamp suggests the limit to ism. Invariably wearing a red suit, he imagines Israeli appropriation of land under the Zionist himself as Danton during a French revolution

34 journal of film and video 60.3–4 / fall/winter 2008 ©2008 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois that he would like to stage with Clara as his Israeli nativist suspicion of new immigrants, guiding Marianne (as in Eugène Delacroix’s echoed throughout the film. From the very iconic painting), and with Tikel as his means to beginning of the film, immigrants are confined conquer “the Bastille” of the students. In Israeli to hostile, cramped spaces. This confinement context, Tissona’s use of French expressions is particularly vivid in the scene where the and references to France’s cultural history point stairwell is blocked with a bed that Yana and to his Mizrahi identity because Maghrebi immi- Fima’s neighbors are moving into their flat. The grants were often French speakers—an audible bed extends the full length of the stairwell’s trace of the “civilizing mission” under French landing, so that Fima, who is trying to get out, colonial rule. The character of Tissona and the must press against the walls to circumvent the spaces of the school over which he reigns also obstruction. Cursing him in Russian, his neigh- function as parodies of Israeli educational bors either do not recognize him or do not want norms and values. to recognize him as a fellow immigrant. They Domestic spaces of sabra and immigrant only conclude their insults when Yana arrives families reveal further caricatures of Israeli and addresses Fima in Russian. Cavernous society. Tikel’s flat, controlled by the whims of interior places, such as stairwells, signal claus- his self-absorbed parents, is well illuminated, trophobia and entrapment of exile. Indeed, in modern, and sparsely furnished. The spaces this scene, the immigrants are stuck (literally suggest the emotional detachment within the and metaphorically) in the unwanted proximity nuclear family, particularly in a scene in which of the stairwell. Much like they try to fit an old Tikel lackadaisically throws darts across the bed through the narrow stairs, they struggle to room during a serious discussion with his par- fit their previous life experiences into the alien ents. By contrast, Clara’s family inhabits space spaces of their adoptive country. overwhelmed by mismatched, vibrantly colored However, the interior spaces also serve to re- furnishings and flooded with warm lighting. veal something hidden and intimate about the Their flat is overpopulated not only by the ex- characters: Rosa and Yitzhak (Mosko Alkalai) tended family but also by a stuffed macaw, lion, are revealed as lovers who were separated dur- deer, and other wild animals and, of course, a ing World War II when both fought on the side few Russian dolls. Their home is located “in the of the Soviet Army. After the war, Rosa went to woods,” suggesting its physical distance from Israel and gave birth to Yitzhak’s son, who later the Israeli mainstream. Through these spatial died in the Six-Day War. Rosa’s unposted letters distinctions Clara’s family is designated as an to Yitzhak, about her love for him and about exotic other to the sabra norm. Their exoticism the death of their son, are hidden in the attic. is further conveyed by characteristics of the They cascade and flutter from there when Yana family members that both parody and reinforce charges the door, over which Eli hangs, video- Israeli stereotypes of Russian immigrants—the taping her. An image of papers dropping from mother is a “slut,” and the gun-toting uncle is above in this scene echoes a recurring motif of a “bear-hunter.” Were it not for the irony of set- accented cinema, representing exilic epistolar- ting and performance, the film might seem to ity and provisionality (Naficy 109). In Naficy’s reproduce comparable juxtapositions between observations, the flying papers are often sym- Ashkenazi and Mizrahi in the bourekas films. bols of identity papers and are reminders of the Unlike Saint Clara’s highly stylized represen- various displacements and replacements of the tations, Yana’s Friends’ spaces are depicted exile. Indeed, these letters reveal Rosa’s own realistically. The film begins with the suspicious identity as a former immigrant. Rosa’s reunion landlord Rosa (Dalia Friedland) ushering the with Yitzhak instantly transforms Rosa from a young immigrant couple, Yana and Fima, down suspicious and powerful Israeli landlord into a a narrow entrance hallway of the flat they will sensitive and vulnerable Russian woman. She share with Eli. Rosa introduces a stereotypical lovingly feeds Yitzhak, cleans him, and puts

journal of film and video 60.3–4 / fall/winter 2008 35 ©2008 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois him to bed, all the while telling him the story of able within the airport’s large open spaces, her life without him and her love for him. This hollowed by fluorescent light reflecting on the scene transforms the small dark room in which hard surfaces of floors and glass partitions. it unfolds into an intimate space engulfed by She looks particularly vulnerable in a moment memory and longing. Temporarily, this romance of utter desperation, when she makes a mad undoes the successful absorption, restoring dash through the control gates, only to be ap- Rosa to her Russian origin. prehended by security guards and taken to Exterior spaces, however, are fraught with an office for interrogation. The office is a stale alienation. Already in the opening sequence, space, where two bored agents witness Yana’s the image of the street musicians introduces a humiliation as they realize her state of help- motif of homelessness. Echoing this sequence, lessness—pregnant, duped, and abandoned other characters beg in the streets: Yuri (Shmil by her husband. Eli rescues her, paying the Ben Ari) plays his accordion, and paralyzed various fines sanctioned against her as a result Yitzhak silently displays his medals. Ironically, of her husband’s transgression of Israeli law they fight over the best begging spot. For Yana, and even helping her finance an abortion. In the streets are also sites of “homelessness and the airport scene, as in every situation, Yana is wandering” (Naficy 225). Because she lacks overwhelmed and lost, whereas Eli is indepen- a routine for life outside the communal flat, dent and self-sufficient. Eli controls the spaces her identity is unanchored, situated perilously of Israel, reproducing images of them with his within the permanent transit of estrangement camcorder; Yana, by contrast, is controlled by and self-exile. these spaces. In addition to open and closed spaces, Na- The public spaces in Yana’s Friends also per- ficy describes a third space of borders, sites mit Yana to refashion herself and achieve her of departure and arrival and transportation absorption. In a scene that immediately pre- vehicles—spaces that are “transitional and cedes Fima’s return, Yana joins the celebration transnational” (154). International airports and of Purim that has taken on extra significance border checkpoints are spaces under state con- because it coincides with the end of the Gulf trol that are emotionally charged and anxiety- War. Citizens perform the festival’s carnival­ provoking because of the possibility, for some esque reversals by disguising their everyday travelers more than others, of being detained identity under colorful costumes and outland- or deported. For such travelers, airports can ish hats. Costumed modestly in a bowler with easily transform into prisons, especially in the a pair of dots painted on her face, Yana begins case of Israeli airports, as evident in films such to perform a new identity, still herself, but more as the comedy James’ Journey to Jerusalem (Is- Eli’s girlfriend than Fima’s wife. rael 2003; dir. Ra’anan Alexandrowicz) or in the experimental short Transit (Palestine/France Politics of Language: Accented, Mediated, 2004; dir. Taysir Batniji). As for characters in and Otherworldly Communication these films, for Yana the airport becomes a site of panic where spaces of claustrophobia The different vantage points on immigration— and agoraphobia overlap and become a bu- those of outsiders in Saint Clara and those reaucratic web in which she is trapped. The of insiders in Yana’s Friends—also define first snare in her travel plans occurs when she the films’ approaches to languages, accents, is told that her dog, safely nestled in a bag, is and other means of communication. Thus, too large to ride in the passenger cabin. But a Clara communicates with the universe (or the more serious hurdle comes at another point in Judeo-Christian god) via telepathy, whereas her departure. Not having a bank release note, Yana is confined to the mundane means of a she is not allowed to proceed through immigra- telephone. The telephone functions in Yana’s tion. Framed in a long shot, Yana looks vulner- Friends like the other mechanical apparatuses

36 journal of film and video 60.3–4 / fall/winter 2008 ©2008 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois in the film—camcorders and gas masks—as local cinema screens a disaster movie during a means of mediating direct contact between Clara and Tikel’s first date (see Photo 4). humans. This mediation is especially important Clara’s capacity to communicate telepathi- for constructing Yana’s character. Her future cally—without the help of technology—makes is largely determined by information that she her even more “alien” than the recently arrived receives via telephone or voicemail. In one Yana. Because of her contact with other realms, scene, she phones Moscow to speak with her Clara’s presence in Israel is partial. Her class- husband. He pretends not to hear and hangs mates describe her as living in “two worlds,” up. When Yana phones back, her mother-in-law only “visiting” their world when relevant. In answers the call, informing her that Fima will so doing, they express a common perception not be returning to Israel and advising her to of immigrants, exiles, and diasporic people seek an abortion. In the short space of a few as attached to two places and, consequently, sentences, Yana learns that her life as a wife as divided or insincere in their loyalty to any and as an expectant mother is over. It is pre- one place. When Clara falls in love with Tikel, cisely after this traumatic telephone conversa- however, her union with the young sabra “nor- tion that Yana decides to accompany Eli to vid- malizes” her, ridding her of her apocalyptic eotape a wedding reception. Drunk, Yana nearly powers of prognostication. Although Tikel func- acquiesces to Eli’s seductive charms when they tions simultaneously as an assertion and as return from the reception. Only an incoming a parody of Israeli masculinity—he bullies his voicemail message from one of Eli’s girlfriends schoolmates yet displays vulnerability over his alerts her and interrupts the seduction. first encounter with love—the onus of assimila- Telephones are largely absent from the re- tion falls on Clara. Through romantic attach- mote town in which Saint Clara is set. Unlike ment, Clara is domesticated: she stops being the ubiquitous technologies of communica- otherworldly and becomes one of the worldly tion and documentation in Yana’s Friends, the and the nonthreatening. She abandons her film’s selective representation of technology “saintly” powers of divination and supernatural enhances the town’s remove from reality—from communication and becomes a fully mortal cosmopolitan Tel Aviv and historic Jerusalem, woman. Like Yana, who presumably abandons as well as from the everyday violence in the her immigrant life, defined in terms of medi- occupied territories. The technologies that do ated telephone communications with loved mediate communication are menacing: televi- ones back in Russia, Clara also abandons her sions broadcast stories of nuclear contamina- immigrant life, defined by unmediated commu- tion, tree viruses, and suicides; seismographic nication with other realms. monitors promise catastrophe; and even the If international telephone and otherworldly

Photo 4: Clara (Lucy Dubinchik) and Tikel (Halil Elo- hev) find love in a darkened cinema during an earth- quake. Courtesy of Kino International.

journal of film and video 60.3–4 / fall/winter 2008 37 ©2008 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois communications are characteristics of a psy- leads to accent-sensitive casting: they are cast chological state of inner exile and homeless- in the roles where their Hebrew accents would ness within immigrant life, then abandoning sound appropriate to the Russian-speaking them signifies an absorption into Israel. The audiences. Yitzhak’s role is largely silent. Yuri is same principal is conveyed through language a Bukharian (Central Asian) Jew, whose strong and accented dialogue. Dialogue in Saint accent in Russian sounds authentic. Rosa’s Clara is conducted almost entirely in Hebrew, character has been living in Israel since the with a few phrases of Russian and French. 1940s, so presumably her Russian is rusty. Even Clara’s Russian immigrant family speaks Moreover, Friedland herself has Russian roots— Hebrew among themselves. In that way, Saint she is a daughter of Zvi Friedland, a founder Clara continues the Hebrew-only convention of of the Israeli theater Habima, which hails from Israeli cinema, where accents have historically Moscow. Similarly, representation of immi- been used only for caricature, as in bourekas grants’ accents in Yana’s Friends recognizes films. In contrast, Yana’s Friends belongs to an cultural diversity among Russian immigrants. ever-increasing body of new multilingual Israeli The film distinguishes between the languages films often geared toward international audi- and accents of Muscovite Yana, provincial Alik, ences. Dialogue in Yana’s Friends moves freely and Bukharian Yuri. between Russian and Hebrew, with the majority of dialogue taking place in Russian. Saint Clara From the Bourekas to is made to appeal to the mainstream Hebrew- the Pierogi speaking audiences, whereas Yana’s Friends is also made for Russian-speaking audiences, The themes on intercultural romance and immi- who can access Russian dialogue without sub- gration in Saint Clara and Yana’s Friends clearly titles. More importantly, Yana’s Friends gives draw on the earlier cinematic conventions of central stage to Russian language and accent, bourekas—and also depart from them. Within usually relegated to the margins. Thus, Saint the Israeli social context of institutionalized Clara evokes Israel as an imagined community and ideologically approved immigration, an that speaks a single national language; Yana’s immigration story framed as a romantic comedy Friends evokes an immigrant state, where vari- also becomes a story of cultural assimilation ously accented Hebrew is spoken along with into a new nation and a story of national iden- other languages. tity formation. The question, then, is how to Similar patterns emerge in casting: the cast- situate Saint Clara and Yana’s Friends vis-à-vis ing practices in Saint Clara are only slightly less Israeli-Zionist ideology and the bourekas genre. condescending than those for the bourekas Both Saint Clara and Yana’s Friends pose films, where Ashkenazi actors portrayed ste- partial challenge to the Israeli-Zionist ideology reotyped Mizrahi roles under the direction of of immigration. Both films break the linguistic Ashkenazi producers. Although Russian immi- hegemony of “Hebrew only”— Yana’s Friends grants are portrayed by actors who themselves to a large degree and Saint Clara to a lesser are immigrants, it is the Israeli filmmakers who degree. However, both films clearly pose as- direct these actors to play stereotyped immi- similation as an ultimate goal for immigrants. grant characters. In Yana’s Friends, by contrast, This approach, like in bourekas films, reflects Russian immigrant filmmakers direct not only and perpetuates the dominant ideology of immigrants but also Israeli actors to portray the mizug galuyot—literally, “mixing of the exiles” motley Russian immigrant characters. Popular and figuratively, “melting pot.” Clara and her Israeli actors are cast as Rosa (Dalia Friedland), family abandon their witchlike powers in order Yitzhak (Moscu Alcalay), and Yuri (Shmil Ben- to integrate into Israeli society. Despite its im- Ari). Popularity of the actors, and hence their migrants’ vantage point, Yana’s Friends also easy identification by the local audiences, ends with an ultimate “melting pot” happy end-

38 journal of film and video 60.3–4 / fall/winter 2008 ©2008 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois ing. The epitome of this formula is conveyed its “accent,” the political-ideological message through romantic relationships in both films. of assimilation is not substantially different in Yana’s “successful absorption” is realized the two films. through her sexual relationship with Eli; Clara’s In that way, both films typify the emergence inassimilable foreignness is overcome by ro- of the pierogi film. Several more recent films mantic involvement with Tikel, albeit only at the continue the trend, shaping and challenging level of an innocent kiss. its conventions. An example is The Schwartz The ideological induction via romance with a Dynasty (Israel 2005; dir. Amir Hasfari and sabra is an important narrative strategy in both Shmuel Hasfari), which might have even been films. Historically, interethnic romance has called “Ana’s Friends.” The film’s narrative been a recurring theme in Israeli cinema, with conflict hinges on the presence of a beautiful interethnic romance typically revolving around and seductive Russian woman, Ana (Anya Buk- the “Orient question,” as in the Mizrahi–Ash- stein), who comes to Israel not to immigrate, kenazi intermarriages of bourekas films, which but to fulfill her late father’s last will and to celebrated “integration,” and the Jewish–Pales- burry his ashes in the Land of Israel. As the tinian “forbidden loves” of Hamsin (Israel 1982; daughter of a non-Jewish mother, Ana is not dir. Daniel Wachsmann), The Lover (Israel 1985; considered Jewish according to the religious dir. Michal Bat-Adam), On a Narrow Bridge law. Consequently, she runs into endless bu- (Israel 1985; dir. Nissim Dayan), and more reaucratic obstacles in a rabbinical court that recently, A Trumpet in the Wadi (Israel 2002; will not give her permission to bury the ashes in dir. Lena and Slava Chaplin). The prohibitive a Jewish cemetery without proof of her father’s impetus of the latter plots is fueled by the fear Jewishness. Trying to resolve this problem, she of miscegenation (Shohat 160–61, Loshitzky falls prey to various exploiters and crooks. As 113). In the case of Yana and Eli, as well as Clara in Yana’s Friends, the plot includes an older and Tikel, this fear is completely removed. Like woman, Miryam (Miriam Zohar), who is origi- in bourekas films, the interethnic relationships nally Russian herself and who is trying to help are celebrated because they facilitate the in- Ana, perhaps out of ethnic and gender solidar- duction of an immigrant into the Israeli-Jewish ity. Parallel to this story is a story of Ana’s bud- nation. Significantly, the immigrant characters ding romance with Miryam’s grandson, Avishai in these films are women, potential mothers (Yehuda Levi), who comes out of the Schwartz to Israeli babies. Also significantly, both Yana dynasty—a dynasty of rabbis and cantors—and and Clara are assumed to be Jewish despite the who is a religious teacher and cantor himself. Russian looks of Evelyn Kaplun and Lucy Du- Avishai assists Ana in navigating Israeli spaces binchik.8 In this sense, both Clara and Yana are in the same way in which Eli helps Yana. The “sanctioned” by Israeli-Zionist ideology. union between the two is accomplished also Ultimately, both the heavily stylized ap- during emergency—a fire, from which Avishai proach in Saint Clara and the more realistic ap- rescues the urn containing Ana’s father’s proach in Yana’s Friends produce only partially ashes. At the end of the film, predictably, Ana resistant readings of Israeli-Zionist discourse and Avishai are married, and Ana gives birth to of immigration. The cultural verisimilitude in a daughter, named after the late Miryam. Yana’s Friends is limited. Its realist details sug- Yana’s Friends and The Schwartz Dynasty gests that the film documents social reality, share the interethnic marriage and conventions yet, whatever the conflicts based on identity of romantic comedy that recall the bourekas politics, all is resolved through either romantic films, yet deploy comedic but realistic detail in (Yana and Eli) or familial (Rosa and Yitzhak) re- their representations of immigrants. The con- lations, so that, although Yana’s Friends differs nection between the two films is reinforced also significantly from Saint Clara in the identity of by the casting of the same actors in secondary its filmmakers, its style, its language use, and roles. Evgeny Fleisher plays minor comedic

journal of film and video 60.3–4 / fall/winter 2008 39 ©2008 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois characters in both films. Vladimir Friedman plays Chen tells him, “But I am half-Russian!” to Yana’s obnoxious neighbor and Ana’s pig-selling which his father replies, “But you are more uncle, Alex, married to Ziyona (Sharon Elimeleh), non-Russian than Russian.” Chen contemplates a Mizrahi Israeli. In that way, the intermarriage this statement but does not agree with it. The formula of “absorbing” foreign bodies into the Hebrew title of the film—Sipur Hatzi-Russi/Half- Israeli nation is reproduced twice—through Av- Russian Story—exemplifies this tension. ishai’s marriage to the Russian Ana and through As a part of this gender/culture battle, Alex’s marriage to the Mizrahi Ziyona. However, Chen’s father wants him to take up judo, but like Saint Clara, The Schwartz Dynasty takes an Chen is instead fascinated with ballroom outsider’s perspective to immigration. It adopts dancing—a hobby imported and spread out an Israeli-Jewish perspective, with Judaism in Israel by the Russian immigrants since the as a central theme in the film. Assimilation of 1990s. It is ridiculed in Israel (and the film por- Russian immigrants in The Schwartz Dynasty trays as much) as being “too Russian” and “too is achieved not only through intermarriage but effeminate” according to Israeli standards of also through religion, given that the marriage masculinity. Chen uneasily negotiates his Rus- presumably involves Ana’s conversion. The sianness and his Israeliness, encountering his Israeli-Jewish characters of the film also go to first love, his first friendship, his first fight, and great lengths to lure pork-eating, secular Russian his first moral choice. However, Chen’s parents immigrants into a synagogue on Yom Kippur, cannot negotiate their cultural differences. the Day of Atonement—and thus include them Their marital—and cultural—conflicts escalate, in the national religious practice. The intermar- so that even their love for each other and their riage formula, adapted from the bourekas films love for their son likely will not help them to re- as a means to resolve interethnic conflict and connect. The film’s prognosis for intermarriage to integrate new immigrants, continues in the as a vehicle of assimilation is not optimistic. transformed form of pierogi comedy. Even an offspring of this intermarriage is some- An interesting question to ask about these what inassimilable into mainstream Israeli so- films, then, is what will happen to Clara and ciety. Chen is a conflicted hybrid—half-Russian, Tikel, to Yana and Eli, or to Ana and Avishai in half-Israeli—with alliance to two cultures that the “happy ever after”? The recent film Love & are placed at odds against one another. Be- Dance (Israel 2006; dir. Eitan Anner) continues cause he desires to relinquish neither culture, the narrative device of intermarriage between a the only remaining alternative is not to be Russian immigrant woman and an Israeli sabra. absorbed. In the sense of its pessimistic con- Framed according to the genre conventions of clusion, Love & Dance perhaps most challenges romantic comedy-cum-melodrama and adopt- the legacies of the bourekas formula, thus of- ing the style of cinematic realism, Love & Dance fering hope for a new story to be told. depicts Chen (Vladimir Volov), a young boy battling a cultural conflict between his Russian- notes born mother (Oksana Korostyshevskaya) and We would like to thank Anne Ciecko, Dorit Naaman, his Israeli father (Avi Kushnir). Like Eli in Yana’s and Caryn Aviv for the critical comments and insights Friends, both Chen and his father are photog- that greatly contributed to our work. raphers and videographers, always seen with 1. The term “Russian immigrants” in Israel refers a camera. Like Yana and Ana, Chen’s mother is to immigrants from the entire former Soviet Union, beautiful and charming but helpless and frivo- including non-Russian republics. In conversational Hebrew, they are often referred to simply as “Rus- lous. Chen’s own identity is caught between his sians.” Here, we use these native terms. frustrated parents. The rift in his identity is em- 2. Although the term Mizrahi (literally “Oriental”) phasized linguistically with his mother speak- has replaced the term Sephardic, the two terms are ing to him in Russian, and his father in Hebrew. sometimes used interchangeably. Here, we use the When the father objects to his use of Russian, politically correct term Mizrahi.

40 journal of film and video 60.3–4 / fall/winter 2008 ©2008 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois 3. The Russian immigrant community includes Gershenson, Olga. Gesher: Russian Theatre in Israel; “core” Jewish members as well as their non-Jewish A Study of Cultural Colonization. New York: Peter relatives who were entitled to enter Israel according to Lang, 2005. the Law of Return. Although the numbers are contro- Gertz, Nurith. “From Jew to Hebrew: The ‘Zionist Narra- versial, sociologists estimate that about 20 percent of tive’ in the Israeli Cinema of the 1940s and 1950s.” Russian immigrants are non-Jews (Leshem and Sikron In Search of Identity: Jewish Aspects in Israeli 81–118). Culture. Ed. Dan Urian and Efraim Karsh. London: 4. The most notable exception was Gesher, an Frank Cass, 1999. 175–200. Israeli theater founded by a group of Russian immi- Kaplun, Arik. Personal interview (with Olga Gershen- grants. However, Gesher’s critical and popular recep- son). 19 July 2005. tion has been controversial, revealing its ambivalent Karpel, Dalia. “The Dream Forest of Evelyn Kaplun.” status in Israeli culture (Gershenson). Haaretz [English edition] 23 July 1999. 5. Saint Clara won awards from the Israeli Film Kimmerling, Baruch. The Invention and Decline of Is- Academy (“Israeli Oscars”) in six categories, the prize raeliness: State, Society, and the Military. Berkeley: for best film at the Haifa International Festival, and a U of California P, 2001. jury prize at the 1996 Karlovy Vary Film Festival. Yana’s Leshem, Elazar, and Moshe Sikron. “The Soviet Friends won awards from the Israeli Film Academy in Immigrant Community in Israel.” Jews in Israel: ten categories, the Wolgin Award for Jewish Film at Contemporary Social and Cultural Patterns. Ed. Uzi the 1999 Jerusalem Film Festival, and multiple prizes Rebhun and Chaim I. Waxman. Hanover: Brandeis at other venues, including the 1999 Karlovy Vary Film UP, 2004. 81–118. Festival, the 1999 Moscow International Film Festival, Loshitzky, Yosefa. Identity Politics on the Israeli the 2000 Cinemanila International Film Festival, and Screen. Austin: U of Texas P, 2001. the 2000 Paris Film Festival. Mulvey, Laura. Visual and Other Pleasures. Blooming- 6. Cohout’s novel has been adapted to film once ton: Indiana UP, 1989. before, in Dei Einfalle der Heiligen Klara (Germany/ Naaman, Dorit. “Orientalism as Alterity in Israeli Cin- Czechoslovakia 1980; dir. Vojtech Jasny). ema.” Cinema Journal 40.4 (2001): 36–54. 7. Because of fear of chemical attack, each house- Naficy, Hamid. An Accented Cinema: Exilic and hold in Israel set up a sealed room with taped win- Diasporic Filmmaking. Princeton: Princeton UP, dows and life supplies. During each attack, people 2001. would go to the sealed room, put on gas masks, and Ne’eman, Judd. “Cinema Zero Degree.” Kolnoa: An Is- wait for the all-clear signal. The sealed room became raeli Journal for Films & Television 5 (1979): 20–23. an iconic image, representing the time period with its [In Hebrew] fear and absurdity. Ne’eman, Judd. “Israeli Cinema.” Companion Encyclo- 8. In an interview, Evelyn Kaplun acknowledged, “I pedia of Middle Eastern and North African Film. Ed. look like a Russian” (Karpel). Moreover, in the previ- Oliver Leaman. London: Routledge, 2000. 223–36. ously mentioned film What a Wonderful Place, Kaplun Shohat, Ella. Israeli Cinema: East/West and the Poli- is cast as an ethnic Russian. tics of Representation. Austin: U of Texas P, 1987. Swirski, Shlomo. Israel: The Oriental Majority. Lon- references don: Zed, 1989. Vinokur, Semion. Personal interview (with Olga Gersh- Ben-Shaul, Nitzan S. Mythical Expressions of Siege in enson). 17 July 2005. Israeli Films. Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen, 1997. Zimmerman, Dana. “Sod hahatzlaha Shelanu” [The Dahan-Kalev, Henrietta. “The Mizrahim: Challenging secret of our success]. Haaretz. 11 Nov. 1996. 21 July the Ethos of the Melting Pot.” Who’s Left in Israel? 2006 [In Hebrew]. Ed. Dan Leon. Brighton: Sussex AP, 2004. 161–68.

journal of film and video 60.3–4 / fall/winter 2008 41 ©2008 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois