The Israel Film Service Collection

A Stranger Among Us

49 Minutes, 1997
Genre:
Documentary

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Production Company:Israel Film Service
Photographer: Nili Azlan
Languages: Hebrew, Russian
| Subtitles not available

A documentary produced by the Israeli Film Service and directed by Liora Eisenstein in remembrance of her grandmother, who emigrated to Israel as a Christian alongside her Jewish husband. In her efforts to make peace with the story of her “gentile grandmother” and its effects on her identity, Eisenstein follows the stories of three gentile women who have emigrated to Israel due to their love of Jewish men; Irina Selezniova, a Ukrainian-born Christian who left behind a theater career in Russia to make Aliyah with her Jewish husband; Jacqueline Berman, a Netherlands national who came to Israel to volunteer in Kibbutz Kfar Blum and fell in love with one of the residents, not anticipating the lengthy, arduous conversion process she would have to endure so their children could be recognized as Jewish; and Svetlana Pisahov, who was born in Latvia and emigrated to Israel for her family and due to her children’s sense of belonging there, and whose son, Lev, perished in a terror attack and was buried near the fence of the cemetery, because his mother wasn’t Jewish.
The movie ties together the stories of these contemporary women with the Biblical tale of Ruth, emphasizing the differences between Ruth’s acceptance and the many challenges faced by Israeli women who have not been recognized as Jewish. Against the backdrop of Eisenstein’s grandmother’s life story, interviews with these women and their families explore the tension between feelings of anger, rejection, and frustration caused by these struggles and the simple idea that led them to Israel in the first place: that love has no borders.

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