A wide-ranging selection from the Jewish Film Festival

Yves Jeuland’s Being Jewish in France is an absorbing and sprawling documentary. It will be screened in two parts, on Sunday, April 19 at 6 p.m. and on Monday, April 20 at 7 p.m. Both screenings are at the Al Green Theatre.

 

A history of France’s modern Jewish community, its departure point is the exoneration of Alfred Dreyfus, an army officer who was falsely accused of treason and whose case divided a nation. The file footage of his reinstatement is atmospheric and priceless.

As Jeuland suggests, the Dreyfus affair was the culmination of an anti-Semitic campaign spearheaded by such far right propagandists as Edouard Drumont.

The film, whose archival footage is supplemented by interviews with prominent French Jews, documents the immigration of Eastern European and Balkan Jews to France, the rift between Yiddish-speaking and assimilated members of the community, the rise of fascism, the upsurge of anti-Semitism in the 1930s, and the Vichy era after Germany’s invasion in 1940.

In the second episode, it examines the impact of the Holocaust on a community that lost one-quarter of its population, the settlement and absorption of North African Jews, the attitude of Ashkenazi Jews toward Sephardi newcomers, France’s fleeting alliance with Israel, and the effect of the Six Day War on French Jews.

Jeuland also explores France’s complicity in the Holocaust and its attempts to come to terms with its role and the tension between Jews and Arabs following the eruption of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000.

***

Eran Riklis’ Hebrew and Arabic language film, Lemon Tree (April 23, 3:45 p.m. at the Cinema Odeon Sheppard Grande), navigates the rocky shoals of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Set in contemporary Israel, it turns on a grove of lemon trees near the so-called seam line, the border between Israel and the West Bank. Salma Zidane (Hiam Abbass), a Palestinian widow, tends to her lemons with tender loving care. But when Israel’s new defence minister, Israel Navon (Doron Tavory), and his wife, Mira (Rona Lipaz-Michael), take up residence in a house next to Zidane’s orchard, all hell breaks loose.

Israel’s security service, concerned that terrorists may infiltrate through the grove and assassinate the minister, advises Navon to cut it down and erect a fence around it. In private, Navon opposes the recommendation. Nonetheless, he accepts it.

Salma rails against the order, viewing it as an infringement of her private property rights. She enlists the aid of a young Palestinian lawyer, Ziad Daud (Ali Suliman), who lodges an appeal to Israel’s military court and falls hard for Salma’s feminine charms. Since the court uphold’s the government’s position, Salma takes her case to the next level, the Supreme Court.

If nothing else, Lemon Tree, ably directed by Riklis, is an allegory about Israel’s long-running conflict with the Palestinians. Riklis focuses on the land question –  an integral component of that bitter dispute – by building his film around Salma’s lemon trees. Though he is basically sympathetic to Salma’s plight, he hardly ignores Israel’s need for security.

The cast is quite impressive, with Abbass and Lipaz-Michael leading the way. A thoughtful film, Lemon Tree offers a disturbing glimpse into one facet of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

It is scheduled to open in Toronto theatres in May.

***

Little Traitor (Sunday, April 19 after the screening of Amos Oz at the Al Green Theatre), directed by Lynn Roth, is based on a story by that Israeli author and unfolds in Hebrew and English. It is set in Jerusalem in 1947, during the fading British Mandate.

Proffy (Edo Porat), an 11-year-old boy who likes playing war games and whose Polish-born parents work for the Jewish underground, is caught breaking the curfew by a British sergeant named Stephen Dunlop (Alfred Molina).

Rather than arresting him, Dunlop – an amiable man who reads the Bible and is trying to learn Hebrew – escorts Proffy to his home. Eventually, the sergeant and the precocious boy form a strong bond. Their unusual friendship is pointedly questioned by Proffy’s anti-British friends and equated with treason, leading to unforeseen consequences.

At once brooding and joyful, Little Traitor coaxes great performances from its lead actors.

***

Jerusalem Day (Monday, April 20 at 2 p.m. at the Al Green Theatre), by Jonathan Aroch, focuses on a patriotic but polarizing Israeli holiday that has commemorated the unification of the city since the Six Day War.

For the national religious camp, the holiday summons up messianic fervour and signifies Israel’s conquest of the territories. But to Israelis not so religiously or nationally inclined, Jerusalem Day is an exercise in nationalistic excess or an inconvenience from a business point of view. For Palestinians, it is nothing less than an affront.

The film is augmented by interviews with veterans who fought in Jerusalem and who agree that the battles there were among the most difficult of the war.

***

The King and the Jester: The Story of the Lodz Ghetto (Tuesday, April 21 at noon at the Al Green Theatre), by Yossi Godard, explores the depths of a human tragedy through period photographs, old movie footage, re-enactments, animation and readings from diaries.

The ghetto, the last in Nazi-occupied Poland to be liquidated, was a case study in self-preservation. The Jewish “elder” appointed by the Germans to manage its affairs, Chaim Rumkowski, believed that he could save its 160,000 inhabitants if only they produced enough goods for the Wehrmacht. To a certain point, he was right. Ultimately, he was wrong, since Nazi racial hatred trumped war production.

Godard mocks Rumkowski through the medium of a ghetto street singer named Yankele Herszkowicz, whose bitterly ironic songs deflate him. “Rumkowski is great,” he croons. “So why is everyone sighing?”

As a cinematic document of despair, The King and the Jester chronicles the desperation, the hunger, the deprivation and the fear that pervaded the ghetto.

***

It is followed by Dorit Starik’s short documentary, Transport 2-8-2, which revolves around a remarkable but little-known footnote of the Holocaust.

In 1944, Germany traded 282 Jews destined for the gas chambers for German Templers in Palestine. The exchange, which was completed with the arrival of the Jews at Rosh Hanikra, was almost torpedoed by Britain and the Mufti of Jerusalem.

Replete with interviews with Jews and Germans, the film spends far too little time in explaining the lives and philosophy of the Templers.

The Toronto Jewish Film Festival runs April 18 to 26. For tickets and info visit www.tjff.com.