Festival Screenings
Margaret Mead Jewish Film Festival
Lilach Dekel’s grandmother immigrated from Eastern Europe to Palestine in the 1920s resolved to help build the kibbutz movement. With an unwavering belief in Socialism and Zionism, these young idealists sought to create a utopia based on the principles of communal ownership of property, decision making and education.Dekel interviews a number of dynamic pioneer women now in their 80s and 90s whose candid assessments of their youthful challenges and sacrifices add immeasurably to our understanding of the kibbutz movement. This moving tribute to the young women pioneers whose vision, hard-work, sacrifice, and passionate dedication bore the kibbutz movement.
"To succeed, these young girls had to defy stereotypes of work, mothering, devotion to parents and sexual intimacy. Their youthful struggles evoke tears, laughter and delightful stories, made more poignant by the striking music, stills, and archival film that Dekel uses in her beautiful study.”
- Shulamit Reinharz, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute"We allowed all sorts of social experiments on our children. What mother would allow it today? We weren't good mothers. We were naïve, and so full of the ideology - and how could we betray it?"
- Esther Orchan, Kibbutz Ein Hachoresh
The National Center For Jewish Film
Brandeis University, Lown 102, MS053, Waltham MA 02454
P: (781) 899 7044, F: (781) 736 2070
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