New book examines Mizrahi cinema in Israel

A new book by a UNC assistant professor of Asian studies provides the most comprehensive, systematic study to date of Mizrahi (Oriental-Jewish or Arab-Jewish) films produced in Israel over the last several decades.

Yaron Shemer, the Levine-Sklut Fellow in Jewish Studies, is the author of Identity, Place and Subversion in Contemporary Mizrahi Cinema in Israel (University of Michigan Press).

Through an analysis of dozens of films, the book illustrates how narratives, characters and space have been used to give expression to Mizrahi ethnic identity, and to situate the Mizrahi within the broader context of Israeli society. Identity, Place, and Subversion is based on scholarship in postcolonial, race, ethnic and cultural studies, on film reviews, and on interviews with more than 40 members of the Israeli film milieu.

University of Michigan Press writes that “the book engages the sensitive topic of Mizrahi ethnicity head-on, confronting the emotional notion of Israeli society as a melting pot and the widespread dismissal of ethnic divisions in the country. … This pioneering work is a probing exploration of Israeli culture and society through the prism of film and cinematic expression.”

Shemer earned his Ph.D. in radio-television-film from the University of Texas at Austin in 2005. He focuses his research on ethnicities in Israeli films and the Jew in Arab cinema. He has produced and directed films in Israel, Poland and the United States, including Pilgrimage of Remembrance: The Jews of Poland (1991) and The Road to Peace: Israelis and Palestinians (1995).