New Directions?
This film endeavors to relate the
project of this internationalist oligarchy, which has confiscated democracy and
people’s sovereignty to the benefit of a caste, by questioning its origins and
its networks-lobbies, but, above all, by showing its flaws. The financial oligarchy wants to drown the
world in chaos, blood and warfare, and goes about this through its game of
repeated provocations and counterprovocations.
This tactic will help deflect attention from the extremely serious collapse
of their system and to stifle any questioning that could change the order.[1]
The mixture of old and new
discourses in this blurb concerned with a new pseudo-documentary film (Oligarchy and Zionism, 2013) that has
been receiving frighteningly favourable attention in the French media signals a
turn to more sinister versions of anti-Semitism in France and elsewhere in the
rest of the world. The term “project”
identifies the writer as one of the trendy jargon-ridden authors from within
post-modernism, with all its negativity towards western values and its
intrinsic separation from the Enlightenment, the Judeo-Christian heritage, and
the liberal intellectualism characteristic of almost all previous French
criticism. Meanwhile, the terms,
“internationalist,” “people,” and “chaos, blood and warfare” arise from the
formulae of 1930s Nazi and Russian anti-Semitism, the Jews being at once the
instigators of capitalistic and socialistic subversion of national sovereignty
and culture, whereas the phrase “networks-lobbies” elides two other more recent
bugbears, the mythical Jewish Lobby that controls American, French and other
western governments, and the fantasized Jewish domination of the press and
other news and entertainment organizations.[2] On the whole, though the statement
substitutes Zionism for Judaism and oligarchs for Jews, the message is the
same: Jews attempt to manipulate the news, control people’s minds, and confuse
all awareness of what is going on in the world to their own benefit, even as
world-capitalism and the system of nation-states falls apart.
Although all that we wrote in the
first part of this essay stands still after several years a few footnotes aside
to amplify some small points, but, taking off from this obscene propagandistic
film and its media puffery, what about now in the second decade of the
twenty-first century? There have been
an increasing number of films in French about the Arab-Israeli crisis, some of
them emanating from metropolitan France, others from Israel, and a few in francophone
states. Whereas on the whole, aside from
a few films made during the German Occupation of the 1940s, on the whole French
cinema has tended to be sympathetic to Jews and Judaism, as we have seen. The faces displayed have been those of
ordinary people, even ordinary French men and women, but especially French
children, suffering from discrimination; the images of grotesque anti-Semitism
have been eschewed and the burden of the producers has been to evoke
sympathy. Now, however, given that most of
the cinematic industry is dominated by left-wingers, politically-correct and
post-modernist personages, the tendency has started to emerge of showing
sympathy for Muslims, evoking antipathy for Israel and its defence forces, and
raising suspicious doubts about the practices of Judaism, not least its
inwardness, anti-modernism, and restriction of women’s rights. A series of new topoi or clichés has
arisen. In such films young women rebel
against their strictly Orthodox or Hasidic parents and communities in order to
try to discover their potential as sexual beings, moral persons, and
individuals. Home-life regulated by
daily and yearly rabbinical—and therefore male-dominated—rituals is viewed as
stifling and tension-ridden, while sisters clash with another, with parents and
with the secular society’s tempting array of philosophical and social
options. The scenario may include a
flirtation or more serious sexual relationship with an outsider, even
occasionally a Muslim, who himself may be caught in an analogous conflict with
his own background. But what is truly
unique and important in the new genre is what seems to be a serious and
intimate depiction of Judaism and non-completely assimilated Jews. In other words, the inner, intellectual and
emotional qualities of the main characters are no longer there merely as
exotic, picturesque or nostalgic aspects of their life, the heart and mind of
the figures being shaped by and continually directed towards their Jewish
identities and belonging to rabbinical communities. Or so it would seem. Closer examination suggests something not
quite kosher going on.
La Petite Jérusalem
One relatively recent film in this genre is called La Petite Jérusalem (first released in 2005).[3]
Written and directed by Karin Albou, Little Jerusalem focuses on a Sephardic
family recently transplanted from Tunisia living in Sarcelle, an immigrant banlieu (suburban neighbourhood outside
Paris and close to a larger menacing Muslim community. Two sisters, played by Fanny Valette (Laura)
and Elisa Zylberstein (Mathilda ), somewhat like the young women in I am Forbidden,[4]
quarrel about their role as Jews and as religious females in the contemporary
world. The older sister, Mathilda, out
of her commitment to traditional values represses her sexual frustrations,
acting coldly to her husband’s advances for demonstrative acts of love; she
alienates her husband Anel (played by
Bruno Todeschini) to the point where he is unfaithful with another woman. The younger sister, the more intellectual and
liberal Laura, deflects her increasing libidinal desires into the study of
philosophy at university, yet yields to the advances of the somewhat shy and
mysterious Arab neighbour, Djamel (played by Hédi Tillette de
Clerrnont-Tonerre). It is implied that
he has a dubious political past in Algeria and, because his status as an
immigrant is not secure, in order to remain in France he has submitted himself
to his own strict religious family.
Both sisters, however, visit a mikva (ritual bath) to discuss their
problems with one of the older guardians (played by Aurore Clément). This sage woman advises them not only to
loosen up in their approach to sexual matters but points out the greater
openness allowed in talmudic Judaism than their family traditions teach. While the frank discussion of physical
intimacies from a rabbinical perspective is certainly unusual for a supposedly
mainline commercial film made in
France—or anywhere, for that matter—there are also unusual scenes depicting
rituals such as the laying of tfillin
(phylacteries) by the one adult male in the family or tashlich, the communal casting of bread upon moving waters
symbolizing purification of sins, while the study of Talmud at home and the
lighting of the Sabbath light are more familiar markers of Judaism. These actions, some of which are according to
the formal performance of mitzvoth (the
614 commandments of the Talmud) and others the localized minhagim or customs, are seen to be normal parts of the family’s
everyday life, not oppressive or alienating peculiarities imposed on the
members.
Even though these ritual
practices are not explained, they do give a structure and meaningfulness to the
domestic life shown in the film. But
this aspect of belief and practice, remain ambiguous. On the one hand, rather than what some film
critics have taken as a strict religious household, the family shows relative
toleration of the younger daughter’s predilection for secular studies at the
university, and even the supposedly conservative Tunisian mother eventually reveals
how open she was to western styles and
values in her youth. On the other hand,
the particularity of the this Tunisian version of Sephardi Judaism is not
addressed, and it does seem to be something that represses the sexuality and
other emotional freedoms of the two sisters and their mother, an anti-modern
patriarchalism, and an irrational counter to contemporary beliefs about gender
equality and individual choice. Without
a distinction between the communal participation in archaic customs like the
casting of sins on the water and the tying leather straps on the arm and
forehead as a mnemonic focus for study and interpretation of the Law, Judaism
seems a bizarre and exotic religion, one which permits a multitude of local
variations and interpretations. Keeping
kosher, for instance, does not preclude the study of Kant and celebration of
Jewish holidays at home or in synagogue does not interfere with being computer
literate or diverse professional careers.
That the two daughters each find
some resolution to their personal sense of frustration seems to derive less
from the fact of their Jewishness than from their status as second generation
Tunisian immigrants living in a close-knit community: at the end of the
narrative, the older sister, her husband and son, as well as the elderly
mother, agree to make aliyah (to go up, that is, to migrate) to Israel, while the younger daughter,
after being rejected her Arab boyfriend, returns to her secular university
studies and assumes a more assimilated life, though probably not making a
complete break with her broader Jewish heritage.
Two moments of violence occur in
the film, first when a gang of Arab youths attack the older sister’s son in a
game of soccer and, second, when a group of Arabs burns down the local
synagogue, both events highlighting the tensions in immigrant communities. Nevertheless, the director of the film does not explore the nature of the most
up-to-date form of anti-Semitism in France—Muslim anti-Semitism[5]—and
while it is probably only part of the reasons why Anel decides to take his
family to Israel the stronger explanations lie in his search for a stronger
relationship between his family and Orthodox Judaism. The film’s normalization of Jewish religious
life at home and its frank discussion of problems at an intimate level begin a
process of integrating Jewishness into French civilization. Some difficulties remain, particularly in
making clear the group solidarity and the emphasis on learning that make
Judaism seem unusual or oppressive to gentile viewers, as many of their
comments indicate. There is also the
reluctance yet to face the two forms of anti-Semitism that are on the rise in
Europe, old-fashioned religious and racial bigotry, and the new wave of
Islamicist anti-Zionism that much of the intellectual class and journalistic
mavens have succumbed to.[6]
Unlike the American situation over
the past twenty years, where, despite the breakdown of the Soviet Union and the
rise of the hostile Islamicist terrorist revolution, United States film-makers
and spectators have accepted Jews and Jewishness as part and parcel of the great
mosaic of modern society, albeit at the expense of many distortions of Judaism
and social reality. Yet in Europe and
other parts of the modern world (where commercial films are made), the
increasing number of anti-Semitic acts and the normalization of anti-Zionist
rhetoric into academic and new media discourses, have caused most Jews, not
least in France, to feel under
threat—and for that reason they no longer believe themselves to be implicitly
confident of fitting in among the societies where they were born or who
surround them. For that reason the
closer attention to Jewishness and Judaism in French films cannot be taken all
in a positive light. The acknowledgment
that comes close to the surface while very rarely breaking through into an
articulate expression of regret for the collusion of both the collaborationist
institutions in Paris and the Vichyite involvement the Holocaust is to be
welcomed, to be sure, at least as a hopeful sign that greater honesty will be
forthcoming.[7] Yet these cinematic depictions of the
round-ups, attempted escapes, and occasional support shown by both the police
and ordinary French men and women to the strangers in their midst do not yet
amount to an engagement with the deep historical place of Judaism in the
formation of French civilization, and therefore of how French Jewry developed
its own specific characteristics as against what was created in Spain, Italy,
Germany or Eastern Europe.
While I haven’t noticed any use
of traditional Jew-hating figures in this kind of contemporary cinematic mode,
such as one meets increasingly in newspaper cartoons and television network
news broadcasts, there is a shift in approach to the “Israelite Question” (to create an amalgam of the old “Jewish
Question” and the contemporary problematique
of Israel). But we do find it in the
other major politically-correct movement of our day, the so-called Occupy gang,
which seems to combine classical anti-Semitic Marxism and Anarchism with a more
trendy Nihilism, so that Jews as such are not usually mentioned as such but
clearly implied in the attack on international bankers, oligarchs and other
blood-sucking capitalists. The terrible
irony and frustration in all of this is that, except for the most extreme of
the anti-Zionist films where the merging of Jew-Israeli-Zionist (and therefore
even American imperialist colonialist) takes on an unquestioned validity, most
of the people involved—and these include many Jewish liberals—do not accept
that what they are engaged in belongs to the whole tradition of
Jew-hating. That is because they have
redefined the language of liberalism, tolerance, socialism and anti-colonialism
as part of the pro-Palestinian victimology which now-a-days absorbs the whole
seething mass of self-hating political correctness. Such an ideology can be seen articulating
itself in various human rights organization (that only perceive Israeli
perfidy), NGOs for peace (an absolute abstraction and without concern for
justice, and consequently appeasement), Marxist rage and envy (but without a
properly constructed class analysis, since the economic-social class is
replaced by race, religion and pure resentment).
Scholarly discussions
of Jews in French cinema have often slipped from a focus on who and what is
depicted and to how the realities of Judaism can be understood as part of
French civilization, not merely as an exotic or pathetic otherness, to
discourses saturated with post-modernist sociology and philosophy. These discourses require careful and serious
analysis, without a doubt, as they are often written by Jews who are attempting
at once to understand and distance themselves from their own traditions, or
rather, with few exceptions, to formulate what those traditions are since they
have grown up separate from them and know them at best through hostile
lenses. However, the conceptual
framework of such discourses needs to be recognized for what it is and not
treated as a near-transparent instrument to mirror the world of the films,
themselves fairly non-problematic mimetic images of reality. They have also to be taken as related to the
more explicitly and rancorous discourses of anti-Semitism, insofar as many of
the French Jew-haters have invested much time to study and try to understand
Jews and Judaism, seeing in this alien presence something that is at the same
time frightening and fascinating, and hence the pseudo-scientific books and
articles reflect aspects of the reality not perceived or denied by the
politically-correct liberals and more extreme left-wing intellectuals—as we; as
making visible and audible the hostile textures of French life that impinge
upon as well as shape Jewish experience
[1]
Synopsis of “Oligarchy and Zionism” directed by Beatrice Pignede by
UniFrancefilms, cited by Zach Ponts, “French Media Embraces Film that Promotes
‘Zionist Conspiracy’ Theory”, The
Algemeiner (5 June 2013) online at www.algemeiner.com/2013/05/31/french-media-embraces-film-that-promotes-zionist-conspiracy-theory.
NB the misuse of the singular verb for the plural noun in the title to this
article.
[2]
For an interesting summary of topics bundled together as post-World War Two
anti-Semitism in Germany but in many ways applicable to the rest of Western
Europe, see the précis of a lecture given by
Clemens Heni at the World Congress Institute for research and Policy,
Jerusalem (27 May 2013): “How Does Modern-Day Germany Deal With Antisemitism?” Wissenschaft und Publizistik als Kritik
(4 June 2013) online at clemensheni.net/
2013/06/04/how-does-modern-day-germany-deal-with-antisemitism-lecture-by-dr-clemsn-heni-wjc-jerusalem
[3]
This film did not show in Hamilton until 2013 during a French Festival at the Lido
Theatre.
[4] Norman Simms, Review of Anouk Moskowiits, I am Forbidden in East European Jewish History at EEJH
(12 April 2013) online at eejh@yahoogroups.com.
[5]
Some critics have noted the superficial sentimentality in depicting the Muslim
family and its consternation in discovering their son is dating a Jewish
girl. Unlike the scenes allowing some
depth to the Jewish household, albeit with the drawbacks noted in the body of
this essay, the tensions at home and in the community that lead the Arab
journalist to break off his relationship with Laura are left dangling. The politically-correct tendency of the
narrative suggests that there is a moral equivalence between the two
traditional families, a conclusion that can only be categorized as
unsatisfactory both aesthetically and intellectually, if not also historically.
[6] A
perceptive and fair review by someone calling himself “Goya-1 from France”
appears as “A Rare Feminine/Humanist take on Sephardic Judaism” IMDb (18 December 2005) online at
hhtp://www. imdb.com/title/tt0428965/reviews
[v7] Norman Simms, “A
Cycle of Judicial Memory and Immoral Forgetting: Vel d’hiv 1942” Shofar 30:12 (2012) 123-137.
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