CULTURE “We Are Victims of Our Past .. .”—Israel’s Dark History Comes to Light in New Documentaries OLGA GERSHENSON he 34th annual Jerusalem and the facts of the occupation on the Zionist paramilitary forces — Irgun Film Festival opened on July ground. But once in a while, there is and Lehi — conquered the village. 13 with a screening and greet- a breach in this wall of denial, and When they ran into trouble, they ings in Sultan Pool, a valley in through the cracks one can glimpse called on the more mainstream Haga- Tbetween the West Jerusalem and the the pain and the trauma, the terrible nah for help. Approximately 110 villag- Old City. Sitting in the large amphi- toll the violence takes not only on vic- ers were killed, others were expelled. theater under the open sky, one could tims but also on perpetrators. Rumors of a massacre in Deir Yassin see the gorgeous old Jewish neighbor- The wall of denial surrounding the spread across Palestine, causing panic hood of Yemin Moshe on one side, and past is especially thick. If 1967 is dis- and leading to mass exodus of the the walls and steeples of the Old City cussed occasionally and reluctantly Arab population. The events in Deir on the other. The next day, three men, (think about such films as The Law in Yassin had far- reaching consequences Palestinian citizens of Israel, came These Parts or Censored Voices), the for both Jews and Palestinians. Argu- out of Al Aqsa Mosque and shot two 1948 is still a non- starter. Whenever ably, it is at the root of the Palestinian Israeli Druze police officers who were the War of 1948 (known in Israel as refugee problem, whose displacement guarding the compound. The police a War of Independence) is discussed, paved the way to the establishment of officers, themselves Arabs, died. Their the violence of Israeli military- in- the- Israel as a Jewish majority state. The assailants were killed too. This ter- making against the Palestinians is massacre at Deir Yassin implicated rible incident started a new cycle of justified as necessary for the survival Zionist forces in violence: the victims escalated violence and retaliations be- of the new Israeli nation, which had to turned perpetrators. tween Israelis and Palestinians. be established in the aftermath of the After the war, the village stood But if you were at the beautiful Holocaust. empty. In 1951, Israel’s government es- Cinemateque, a site of the Festival, Today, both Israeli and Palestinian tablished Kfar Shaul, a mental health you’d never know about these politi- cultures exist in the shadow of these hospital at the site of the village. The cal and military developments — there original traumas — the Holocaust and traces of Palestinian presence were it was business as usual. People went the Nakba (the Arab name for the erased. to see movies, or spread out on the War of 1948). The third generation To this day, Deir Yassin remains a lawn chairs; they ordered drinks or has been raised with this complicated taboo in Israel. Its history is blocked ice- cream and had lively conversa- legacy. This new generation of Israeli from public consciousness, and to the tions. From where they sat, they could artists and filmmakers dare today to extent to which it is discussed, it is clearly see not only the Old City, where deal with that trauma, and not only phrased as a debate of whether the thousands of Palestinians were pro- with the trauma as victims, but also events can qualify as a massacre. Born testing the new restrictions, but also as perpetrators. in Deir Yassin brings this dark history the Apartheid wall (or a Separation Born in Deir Yassin, a new docu- into the light. It recovers — or rather Barrier, its Israeli euphemism), that mentary by a young Israeli filmmaker, attempts to recover — the memory of cuts across communities in the West Neta Shoshani, which premiered at the Deir Yassin from the point of view of Bank. But no one talked about it at the Festival, is a case in point. Deir Yassin the perpetrators. In other words, it’s a screenings or during the breaks. was an Arab village near Jerusalem brave film. This culture of denial is the Israeli that signed a non- violence agreement Born in Deir Yassin is not fueled reality. It is as if another wall comes in with the nearby Jewish neighborhood by attacks and accusations. Instead, between the vibrant, flourishing, and of Giv’at Shaul. Both sides adhered it tells a complex and nuanced story, exciting Israeli cultural production to the deal, but in April 1948, the weaving together a conversation with VOL. 33, NO. 1–2, WINTER/SPRING 2018 | © 2018 OLGA GERSHENSON TIKKUN 73 Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/tikkun/article-pdf/33/1-2/73/527808/0330073.pdf by TIKKUN MAGAZINE user on 23 April 2018 Dror Nissan, an Israeli man who was recalls the terrible silence that settled implicit acknowledgment that these born to a mental hospital patient in on the village after the battle was over images are incriminating. It is also a Kfar Shaul, and interviews with for- and piles of corpses that needed to be vivid testimony of Israel’s attitudes to mer Zionist underground fighters, buried. “It still haunts me,” she admits. its dark history — the attempt to who took part in the conquest of Deir This is the nature of a trauma: “You recover it is halted. Yassin. These veterans are in their don’t just remember it — you live it.” The story of the Deir Yassin massa- late 80s and 90s today, and they had Others recall traumatic memories of cre is told on screen in parallel with a a chance to reflect on their roles in the their own: a horrified Arab child, a story of Kfar Shaul, the Israeli mental events. Some of them remain proud woman with her head cut off, a stench health hospital. The two stories are of the part they played in what they of burnt corpses, body parts flung into different but they overlap in some called a battle for Deir Yassin. Ben the air. They do not fully agree on sort of painful traumatic territory Zion Cohen, a fiery former Irgun op- the nature of the events, and their scat- with unresolved past. Hanna Nissan, erative says: “I am proud that I was in tered memories do not all add up to a a mentally ill woman was a reluctant the underground . that I kicked out coherent story. Maybe that is the nature patient in Kfar Shaul in the 1950s- 60s. the Arabs. They ran away crying ‘Deir of trauma, or maybe it’s an evidence of She got pregnant, believing that the Yassin is upon us!’ ” Uri Yanovsky of their conflicted ideological positions. birth of a child will heal her, and she Haganah emphasizes the importance But in fact, these awful sights were would be released. The child — Dror of Deir Yassin, which “made possible documented. Shraga Peled, who was Nissan — was taken away from her. the establishment of the state.” Shi- with Haganah, remembers taking pic- The film recreates Hanna’s diaries and mon Moneta of Lehi, self- identified tures for official documentation. Sig- her correspondence with Dror. “This is as a “Jewish terrorist” calls the 1948 nificantly, he has never seen the photos an evil place,” she writes to him from war justified. In his view, it was the himself: “I repressed the images,” he Kfar Shaul, “Never come here.” But he war for the survival — “we had to fight explained. does. so that the next generation could be Neta Shoshani documents herself The connection between the two here.” These veterans are so convinced trying to get hold of these photo- narratives, that of Deir Yassin and that they are right that Moneta is graphs, which are still held at the that of Kfar Shaul, comes to the fore distraught by the filmmaker’s prob- IDF archives. Facing rejection after in the words of Dror Nissan. “When ing questions; he responds “We went rejection, she gets all the way to the I came to visit here,” he says after the wrong in your education — we failed to Supreme Court. The judges examine emotional journey, “I was shocked. explain to our children where did they the photos, and deny her appeal. I understood that it was ruins of the come from . .” According to them, the conflict hasn’t village — Deir Yassin. A tragic con- But for other veterans, the assess- been resolved and the exposure of the tinuity remained: victims exited, other ment of the events is less clear- cut. photographs of such graphic nature victims entered.” Filmed at night, sit- Sarah Ben- Or, who fought with Haga- may harm Israel’s foreign relations. ting behind a fence, as if behind bars, nah, speaks of her own trauma. She Paradoxically, this judgement is an Nissan acknowledges that reconciling with his mother’s story was difficult. He wished he could escape his biogra- phy, but, he adds, “We are victims of our past.” ***** Collective memory and Israel’s ac- countability for the Nakba is also at the center of another documentary, Jerusalem, We Are Here, by Israeli- Canadian filmmaker Dorit Naaman. If Born in Deir Yassin focuses pre- dominantly on the perpetrators of the Nakba, Jerusalem is almost entirely about Palestinians expelled in 1948 from their beloved neighborhood of Qatamon, and their descendants Still from Born in Deir Yassin today. It is more than a film: defined Rotem Faran 74 TIKKUN WWW.TIKKUN.ORG | WINTER/SPRING 2018 Downloaded from https://read.dukeupress.edu/tikkun/article-pdf/33/1-2/73/527808/0330073.pdf by TIKKUN MAGAZINE user on 23 April 2018 as an interactive documentary, the project also includes sophisticated layered maps of Qatamon in differ - ent eras, as well as careful records of families, businesses, and architec- ture of every identified house in the neighborhood.