Official Description of product:
As seen on Discovery Channel - Emmy-award winning filmmaker Simcha
Jacobovici documents the plight of Ethiopias Jewish community, a
minority group struggling to escape famine and persecution by
immigrating to Israel.
More Info:
There
is something uncanny about seeing a black man in traditional Ethiopian
clothing wearing a tefilla on his forehead and praying at the Western
Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem.
There is something uncanny in hearing
that an isolated Jewish community in Ethiopia---which has been there for
over two millennia, possibly since the destruction of the first
temple---believed for the longest time that it was the sole surviving
remnant of the Jewish people.
Uncanniness haunts this film precisely
because the very existence of the protagonists, the Falasha or
"exiles"---the black Jews of Ethiopia---violates many of the viewer's
unconscious conceptual categories. As one speaker in the film notes, the Falasha are "Jewish, black, Zionist, and third-world," which does not
make them too many easy friends in the polarized global climate of the
late Cold War.
Alas, the film is saturated in dated Cold War
imagery and geopolitics. That said, the main thrust of the film, asking
why the world Jewish community seemed to ignore their plight as exiles
in Ethiopia and refugees in the Sudan, is still fascinating and
challenging. In the twenty-plus years since the film was made, and in
some part due to the impact of this film, most of the Falasha have left
Ethiopia for Israel. How they fit in there would be the subject of a
fascinating follow-up documentary.
This film is definitely worth
seeing, if only because of its effects on our over-simplified concepts
and its sparking of interest in learning more about Ethiopian Jewry.
Product details
- Aspect Ratio
:
1.33:1
- Is Discontinued By Manufacturer
:
No
- MPAA rating
:
NR (Not Rated)
- Product Dimensions
:
7.75 x 5.75 x 0.53 inches; 4 Ounces
- Director
:
Simcha Jacobovici
- Media Format
:
Color, Full Screen, NTSC
- Run time
:
1 hour and 20 minutes
- Release date
:
September 21, 2004
- Studio
:
Wellspring Media