Tel Aviv Diary: Karen Alkalay-Gut

It is very strange to see films in Israel. Not as strange as it used to be, but I remember when it was the wild west. The first movie I saw in this country was in 1965 in Beer Sheva. I think it was a Belmundo film but the film itself didn;t matter – the and everyone laughed, or threw things at each other over the rows… ah, the film didn’t matter at all. Tonight we saw the Coen Brothers, “A Serious Man,” which is completely different when the audience knows all the languages and linguistic references, but few of the social references. America of the sixties is strange to Jews who grew up here. So my laughing sometimes echoed hollowly in the theater, and sometimes was countered by a silent accusation of antisemitism. But everyone understood the Yiddish, the Herew, and the religious references. I myself thought the film the Jewish version of “No Country for Old Men.”