Cinema and Zionism: The Development of a Nation Through Film

Feldestein examines the connections between the film of the Yishuv (Ottoman and Mandatory Palestine) and the Zionist idea. The book follows the plans to create the figure of the New Jew in Eretz Yisrael as part of a personal, national and universal revolution, and explores the figure and traits of the pioneer. It also examines how cinema presented the Zionist idea. The book analyses the plots, modes of expression, themes and ideological elements that typify these films, and positions them within the structure of the Zionist idea. Feldestein also engages with connections between the Zionist idea and the cinema through a discussion on the cinematic endeavours and the relationships between the filmmakers and national institutions. The correlation between the two histories is revealed in the book with all its complexity and depth. Feldestein s book sheds light on a distinctive perspective in the narrative of Eretz Yisrael that of the creation and consumption of a new culture. The tales of work on the films, how they were prepared and shot, and their ultimate reception, are interwoven in the book with outlines of the films themselves. Together they create a portrait of an ideological society that distilled events and incidents into myths aimed at forging the Zionist outlook and instructing Zionist settlers toward fulfilling its goals.