Each year, one of my greatest joys has been to attend the "Sephardic Film festival" in New York City. It has always been a treat for me because it is a visual representation of the "images" a diverse body of my CO-religionists use to depict lost communities or lost souls on a quest to reinvent themselves in Israel or in the Diaspora. What a wonderful concept!!!!! However, this time, I also attended the "African Film Festival," and an "Arab Film Festival" which presented under the auspices of New York University. I was also aware of the way this experience, for me, involved a plethora of other acutely felt manipulations.
To convey a validation and identification of the manner in which the Sephardic and Mizrahi presence has impacted world history, Jewish or not, is a 5,764 year old story of who we are, as Jews, and how we think of ourselves today. However, my journey through "movieland" was overladen by an intense feeling of manipulation and alienation from the very people who control the selection of the movies shown and their vision of how we should be educated about non-Western culture.
Because I was affected so deeply both positively and negatively, at least I can say my reactions are noteworthy. Obviously, the "scripts" themselves convey the world view of the writers. However, as a panoply of "festivals" began to converge on New York City in early December, I began to realize how Jewish identity is molded by even the most superficial associations as one enters the tacit partnership that occurs between the spectator and filmmaker. In addition, the relationship and provenance of the film as it measures up to the criteria of the film selection committee must also be open to scrutiny. An organization, like Sephardic House, that professes to present clarity about "outsider Jews" is as much under circumspection as the material it chooses to present. The audience, then, is also obliged to perceive the material presented, not only as spectator, but also as recipient of preconditioned standards and conclusions. Thus, I became very sensitive to the purposes of the purveyors of the films and the demographics of the audiences themselves at each of the festivals I visited. In the end, then, I realized very quickly, how the "scripts" become a marketing tool for a particular target audience.
So, my point is, that I became acutely involved in what became for me the twisted drama of European Vs. Nonwestern appreciation of culture and establishment versus antiestablishment views on Jewish self-perception. Ultimately, I felt like a victim of the ineluctable interplay between "Who is a Jew?" and the Jew-ish milieu that defines interpretation for me. But isn't this a compression of what's played out in the world arena vis a vis Jewish politics inside and outside Israel and between the Sephardim and Mizrachim themselves?
I don't know where my passion for Sephardic and Oriental Jews comes from. My choices to spend time in North Africa and involvement with marginalized peoples is not of recent vintage. However, the decision to show the "radical" film by David Benchetrit, "Ruach Kaddim" about the Moroccan struggle to equilibrate itself with the Western Zionist model for success, is a very positive step forward. However, I had to go to "The African Diaspora Film Festival" or the N. Y. U. Arab program to see Sami Shalom Chetrit's, "Israeli Black Panthers." Its omission from the Sephardic film Festival clearly reflects the values engendered by the administrative body at Sephardic House and their sense of political correctness.
"Israeli Black Panthers" was an up-in-your-face, defiant, and resolute in its commitment to an authentic statement of facts as mirrored in the U.S. by the Black Civil Rights movement that spawned it's imitation for a brief three-year period in Israel. The sparks that generated that movement are still flashing today.....The bearers of those sparks are our connection to a disappearing Jewish-Arab world and it is their efforts that re-ignite the memory of a lost world.
Indeed, the "tikkun olam (healing of the world) must include "tikkun mizrachi (mizrach healing) and hearing!!!!!! Black Panthers in Israel also played at the Kantor Auditorium which is affiliated with N. Y. U. The audience was young and open, inquiring, Jewish and Muslim. There was a panel discussion by Sami Chetrit Shalom and Ammiel Alcalay. Ella Shohat, the prominent Iraqi-Jewish Professor who wrote one of the definitive books on Israeli cinema was not present but she figures in "Forget Baghdad" which was another offering at the "Sephardic Film Festival." Chetrit and Alcalay's presence enhance the film by extraordinary scholarship and dedication to the soul of the Jews from Arab countries. After staying for a portion of their discussion, I ran over to catch the screening of "Forget Baghdad" at the Sephardic Festival.
"Forget Baghdad" was very fascinating, as well, but immediately I felt like I had entered another energy field. The movie is a documentary about Samir Naqqash, Shimon Ballas, Sami Michael , and Moussa Houri and Ella Shohat, herself, who figures prominently in the film. The film describes the men's affiliation with the Communist party, their estrangement from the Arab context from which they where exiled and how they express their emotional and intellectual frustration in a world where they describe the pain they feel in trying to straddle the Arab world they left behind and reintegrate into Askenazi - dominated society.
I thought the movie was very illuminating and important. However, many people in the audience commented that the people in the film couldn't really represent mainstream Iraqi-Jewish people because the spokespeople in the movie were all Communists and basically what could they know, anyway, since you don't have to be a Communist to be a successful Iraqi Jew. This underlying threat was the rationale that seemed to negate the creative, brilliant ways these people have accommodated themselves to their current conflicted reality in Israel and in the Diaspora. In the meantime, "Forget Baghdad" is playing at Cinema Village which is a commercial theater. Touting it as a premiere at the Sephardic Film Festival and then having it shown concurrently at a nearby venue made its uniqueness seem somewhat less compelling.
The biggest atrocity for me, however, was "La Verite Si Je Mens?" which means "Would I Lie to You ?" Well, in short, I believe you would on every layer of interpretation available. The premise of the movie is that, the hero, a n'er do well "goy" mistakenly gets embraced by Jewish North Africans who have attained high economic status in the garment industry. As a result of this association, he attains great success in their fellowship and winds up marrying the boss' daughter. To say the least, the execution of this story line must have had a powerful affect on me because I found it so reprehensible.
It was filmed in 1997 and was a great commercial success in France. The director is Polish. Because it was a comedy, I think a lot of liberties were taken that many people can write off as silliness or caricature. I found everything about it offensive! The successful North
Africans were broad stereotypes of the Maghrebian nouveau riche who are vapid, venal, sex-obsessed and having no sense of culture or taste. Their homes are luxurious but garishly decorated, they pander to the lowest common denominator. The main Jewish characters are duplicitous, and vulgar.
In the end, the "goy" prevails. His values are the most honorable but to win his heart's desire he has to better his most formidable and despicable adversaries. He does this by emulating his Jewish role models and then it turns out his "Neshama" is not really Jewish!!! Hello!!! Is there a mixed message here? I am all for romantic love and the idea that love conquers all but does everything have to be so one-sided?
When I was in Morocco, I found that Moroccan Muslims thought of Moroccan Jews to be exactly like the stereotypes portrayed in the movie. After, all Andre Azoulay is Mohammed VI's financial advisor and Albert Levy owns a very fancy nightclub in Rabat and drives a very fancy car. When I went to see Serge Berdugo, a well-known and respected member of the Casablanca Jewish community who was the Minister of Tourism in Morocco about 8 or 9 years ago, he was amazed that I wanted to research the remnants of the Amazigh Jews left in Morocco today. He was more concerned with trying to seduce me in his grand Minister's office in Rabat. I was so earnest to pursue my quest that he seemed confounded by my misguided passion. So he patronized me by calling me "ma pauvre Juive " and proceeding to redirect my ardor.
I married a Amazigh Muslim and consequently he was given a new appellative, "The Husband of The Jew!" To me, it seemed as if he had been perceived as if he had married the entire Jewish nation! Anyway, Abraham Serfaty, the Communist, was a Jew, and someone whom my ex-husband had perceived as a personal hero long before I met him. Serfaty, spent 27 years in Tazmamart prison for his beliefs and my ex-husband was drawn to him. My ex-husband is an educated man with a degree in English Literature from the University of Kenitra, Morocco. But Serfaty, for him, was emblematic because of his political struggle. Serfaty was a Moroccan, first and foremost. To non-Jewish intellectually aware North Africans, Serfaty's is a great man because of his ideals and certainly not because he is Jewish.
Abraham Serfaty was never pro-Zionist so the paradigm in which he falls is neatly constructed. His patriotism as a Moroccan, first and foremost, was never in question. My ex-husband never understood the concept of Zionism and now, considering his cultural orientation, I can now understand his position although I used to tirelessly accuse him of callowness.
The North African Jews I visited for Passover were the only Moroccans I ever visited that had a completely European home, furnished in elegant taste, I might add, but a far cry from the ordinary Jews or ordinary Muslim Moroccans who I met serendipitously, on the street or in rural settings, for example. Morocco, is unusual because you can go a short distance from one village to another and encounter a very different society.
When I prayed on High Holy Days in Rabat, the congregation looked at me with disdain for having henna on my feet and hands. Amazigh North Africans, whether Muslim or Jewish, don't even have a first language in common and likewise indigenous Amazigh Jews and Jews who settled in Morocco after the expulsion from Spain don't even have a common heritage!!!!! Imagine then, a film like "La Verite Si Je Mens? being a box-office hit in France where 6 million Moslems, are laughing at the stereotype of the Jewish Maghrebian that is easiest to hate. Ugh!!!!! Apparently, a sequel has already been made to this movie so I can only shudder at its premise and execution!!!!!
And that brings us back to the wealthy arriviste category of North African Jew that religiously looks after itself and its own material gain. The fact that they are successful probably obviates any need to balk at the picture. The affluent Moroccan Jews inside Morocco and in France probably just laugh at the exaggerated way they are portrayed because, what the Hell, the others are just jealous and anyway, they have already made it in the European world. So, what I really want to know is, who is really being educated by watching this movie at a Sephardic Movie Festival that purports to present an accurate Jewish lifestyle!!!!! Because, we mustn't forget that so many of them came to America, with nothing and we're blessed with the promises of the American Dream. In fact, at one point, the words, American Dream subliminally flash at the audience during the film.
Maybe, we need a film about the life of Abraham Serfaty or a movie about my beautiful Amazigh Jews of the High Atlas, Middle-Atlas, and the Rif. Their oral histories and their own recorded accounts of their life experiences would be infinitely more enlightening. Certainly, that would be a real eye-opener, wouldn't it? Or, for example, a tribute to Jewish Maghrebis told from the point of view of their Muslim neighbors who could show what items the Jews gave them when they left and how much they are missed. Why have I never seen a documentary of a "hilloula" to the graveside of Rabbi Amran Ben Diwane at Oezzane? Well, for the time being, a dispassionate look at art cooking, and music seems to among the safest forms of nostalgia that Jews from Arab countries can present to Western audiences without creating a sense of mistrust or doubt. But before we can satirize a Jew, we definitely need to know how to portray him realistically in the myriad Protean guises that such an analysis entails. ideally, we could view each other, then, with open minds and open hearts and fewer apologies.........

" I ran with Kahena, and wept when the magic stopped,
The rabbis said to build a fence around the torah
but the fence they built has locked me out...."


LaKa                  

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