‘Zrubavel’ tells immigrants’ story

February 1, 2010 by Tiarra Wantz 

Despite low attendance, discussion proves to be lively

Though the ninth annual Las Vegas Jewish Film Festival’s UNLV screening only drew a meager crowd, it managed to tell a big tale.

Approximately 35 people attended a viewing of the film “Zrubavel” in the Greenspun Hall Auditorium, a low number compared to the crowds drawn by other films screened during the festival.

Debra Gorov, program director for the Jewish Film Festival, expressed disappointment in the low turnout of students and community members.

“We’ve averaged about 200 people for a lot of the other films,” she said.

Sponsored by the student organization Hillel, “Zrubavel” was the only film in the festival to be screened at UNLV.

The Las Vegas Jewish Film Festival ran from January 14-31, presenting seventeen films including romance, comedy, drama and documentaries.

All donations received to support the Jewish Film Festival were given to the Jewish Family Services Agency, a non-profit organization that works with and offers services to those in need throughout the entire Las Vegas community.

“Great cinema is a catalyst for introspection,” said Joshua Abbey, managing director of the Las Vegas Jewish Film Festival.

“To be enlightened and entertained through narrative and documentary stories that portray our shared humanity from a Jewish perspective is intended to uplift community consciousness and reveal alternative possibilities for our most pressing concerns.”

Abbey explained that focusing on the potential of art to benefit social causes not only sets an example but also challenges people as individuals to become more engaged.

“Zrubavel” focuses on the struggle of an immigrant family, the Zrubavels, to preserve their Ethiopian heritage while assimilating into Israeli culture.

As Gita and his wife, both immigrants, try to force their cherished Ethiopian traditions on the family, Gita clashes with his children, who wish to assimilate into Israeli life.

Shmuel Beru, a filmmaker who was an immigrant who went to Israel through the efforts of Project Moses, wrote and directed the film.

“It was a good portrayal of Ethiopian culture,” said student Lea Estefanos, a native of Ethiopia’s neighboring country of Eritrea.

Fellow student Fihan Bariagabr, also from Eritrea, agreed, although he felt that immigrants to other countries such as the United States seemed to have an easier time of assimilating than the Zrubavel family did in the film.

“It was only Ethiopians,” Feven Andemeskel said, lamenting that the film portrayed very little interaction between the Ethiopian immigrants and the Israeli community.

What little interaction that was seen between the Zrubavel family and the Israeli community became a subject of debate during discussion after the film.

“I’m very disappointed by Israel’s treatment of the Ethiopians,” said one audience member during discussion. “Such a cruel attitude. Disrespectful. We’re all Jews.”

Elliot Karp, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas and moderator for the discussion, argued that the film could not be taken as a perfectly accurate depiction of Israeli treatment of Ethiopian immigrants because non-Ethiopian immigrants played a very small role in the film.

“It was more the portrayal of tensions between different generations of immigrants,” Karp said.

He explained that the movie portrayed the challenges of any immigrant population and their struggle to keep the values of their heritage while attempting to assimilate into a new culture.

“The film showed viewers that it is not always easy to label a culture, nation, or society,” he said, citing that the customs of Ethiopian Jews differ in many ways from Israeli Jews and other Jewish peoples around the world.

“It’s sort of a hybrid culture,” one audience member said. “We’re becoming citizens of not one country, but of the world.”