Question: Zionist ideology called for the creation of a a new Jew.

Analyze how characteristics of the new Jew are portrayed or challenged in Israeli film.

Ushpizin explores the life of ordinary people in Israel making a new way. The concept of making a new way of being a Jewish person shows in Ushpizin, very specific mechanisms which could be said to be personal, community-based, and metaphysical. Each mechanism has different manifestations for different individuals. The film primarily concentrates on the inner world of the protagonist, the transformations of others in the film, including his spouse, and the Ushpizin (guests). The protagonist experiences a devout adherence to the religious and scholarly mandate. With his spouse they seek to make a simple humble religious family life, but find that economic worries attend them, causing immanent fears for their survival. We can see that the safety net of the community, which gathers for reading of scripture, gives some hope to the protagonist that his immediate financial crisis will be allayed. An anonymous act of kindness relieve the financial crisis, allowing future progress in spiritual attainment. Conflict between spiritual ends, and religious command to be fruitful and multiply attends his dual role as a devout religious person, and his role as a spouse and future hoped-for patriarch. The viewer is unaware that his role as a devout, hard working sensitive, person with the new jewish identity, has been evolved from a past life with a more mysterious nature. this nuance helps the reader to feel the transformation from a life of crime, to a life of devotion, and religious family life. During the holiday of Sukkah, friends released from prison appear, who make allusions to this transformation, from his previous life before he became devout. They make allusions to crime, to theft, or even murder, which remains ambiguous. The film uses this moment of personal transformation to illustrate and mirror the larger transformative process of Israeli cultural identity based in renewal and new visions. The personal renewal process holds some struggle as we begin to see ways the Protagonist struggles to keep it together when confronted with dark memories from the past, especially under his strained relationship and economic troubles. The community based transformation, is conveyed with aspects of

uniformal identity associated with Hasidic dress, and religious observance. In films shown by the Israeli Consular representative in class, we see that the universal dress of the new Israeli citizens conveyed simplicity and functionality and equality, social values which contribute to the need for social bonding, team-work, and social coherence. Social Values of equality and fairness are conveyed in unity of dress, religion, culture, and political vision for a free and independent Israel. The metaphysical transformations, are of a spiritual nature. Personal decisions, and community organizing can create conditions in which this metaphysical transformation can occur. But most important is the persons actual participation in accessing the metaphysical realms of this new identity. The new Jewish identity finds ways even beyond dress, food, language, custom, or community, to create this new identity. The authenticity of this new identity links the new to the historical and connect to the metaphysical realm. The processes of attaining this metaphysical experience cannot be said to be purely religious, but also rooted in agency, autonomy, and personal choice. Each person participating must choose to participate. Nothing about this could be faked or coerced. New Jewish identity roots in a return to authenticity, to history, and to timeless respect of ancestors and their way of worship. Zerubavels work Recovered Roots describes the inner social tensions at play in crafting a new Israeli identity. Obliteration of memory and an erasure of European cultural identity became a way of processing the traumas of the Holocaust. Zerubavel discusses ways that language itself becomes highly contentious, and whether or not identity words have consistent universal meanings becomes an issue. When persons who had been called Jewish in Europe found this to be a cause for persecution, the need to move into a new language and new dignity and new space became clear. The retaking of the name Hebrew becomes a way this new identity is accomplished linguistically to represent the transformation from secular persecution, to a new recovery of an older more authentic ethno-religious identity. As the term Zionist had particular meaning rooted in European oppression and the need to escape, finding new languages to accomplish the restoration of dignity to persecuted peoples must inhere in the process.

Alan Dershowitz in Chutzpah discusses his vision as an American fighting anti-semitism in American academia, and making a way for the spiritual aspects of new Jewish identity to be preserved. The special relationship between Jewish people in America, and the nation of Israel demonstrates ways the personal and communal and metaphysical aspects of this new identity take place across geography. Israel occurs in space and geography, but the new identity of survival and triumph on a personal and communal basis and into metaphysical realms, is conveyed by a unity of purpose, against all forms of discrimination against Jewish people in the Unites States and beyond. The incredible persona of Dershowitz as an American defender of Jewish Identity strikes out to make space for non-racist discussions of the possibility of an Israeli Peace. The unacknowledged residua of 1930s Anti-Semitism in the USA and in resurgent racist movements in Europe, is all the more reason for studious application of understanding the possibilities for an Israeli peace, and compassionate understanding of traumas which held the new identity back from possibilities which are still unknown. Through adherence to old traditions, and creation of new space, and revitalization of new meanings for old words, and personal commitment, communal unity, and metaphysical visions, the new Jewish identity is a work in progress. Universal humanity is the essence.

Mary Rose Lenore Eng 6-October-2012 for Dr. Spiegel Israeli Culture and Politics Portland State University

References: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0426155/

http://youtu.be/UgiCDDGdnv4

http://www.amazon.com/Recovered-Roots-Collective-National-Tradition/dp/0226981584

http://www.amazon.com/Chutzpah-Alan-M-Dershowitz/dp/0671760890