Films A-Z
Defamation
Hashmatsa
Yoav Shamir / Austria, Denmark, Israel, USA / 2009 / 93 min.
Holocaust, Nazi, anti-Semitism. These three most frequently heard words in Israeli society prompted director Yoav Shamir to make a documentary seeking answers to the question as to whether there is animosity towards Judaism in today's world, and in what way this hatred manifests itself. The storyline is framed by two missions: a trip by Israeli schoolchildren to former concentration camps in Poland and an official delegation of Holocaust survivors who visit representatives of the countries where former concentration camps were established. The past constantly meets the present in the film, and we get to explore how we can interpret history without distorting the facts or imposing our own convictions on an alien context. A number of issues are raised along the way, such as how Judaism is perceived as an ethnicity, or what it is like to belong among practising believers. This documentary shows how difficult it is to find answers to a seemingly simple question: Where does anti-Semitism come from?
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