Ashkenaz
a film by rachel leah jones
Ashkenazim — Jews of European origin - are Israel's "white folks." And like most white folks in a multicultural society, they see themselves as the social norm and don't think of themselves in racial or ethnic terms because by now, "aren't we all Israeli?" Yiddish has been replaced with Hebrew, exile with occupation, the shtetl with the kibbutz and old-fashioned irony with post-modern cynicism.
But the paradox of whiteness in Israel is that Ashkenazim aren't exactly "white folks" historically. A story that begins in the Rhineland and ends in the holy land (or maybe the other way around), ASHKENAZ looks at whiteness in Israel and wonders: How did the "Others" of Europe become the "Europe" of the others?
reviews
““Brilliant... The cinematic equivalent of a Talmudic text.””
“Innovative and subversive”
— Maariv
“Thrilling”
“Essential viewing for people trying to understand the tangled nexus of race/ethnicity, religion, and power in Israel.”
“Rachel Leah Jones serves up a probing analysis of the contradictions of Ashkenazinessas it has functioned within Israel. Rather than a celebratory exercise in Yiddishkeit nostalgia, Ashkenaz paints a refreshingly complex portrait of Ashkenazi identity as seen not only through the eyes of Ashkenazim themselves but also through the eyes of Mizrahim and Palestinians, in an audaciously lucid gaze at the ironic twists of history.”