Defamation (2009)

Recommended

Israel/Austria/Denmark/Norway/USA

Feature Documentary

Original Title: השמצה

Director: Yoav Shamir

Cinematographers: Yoav Shamir, Yehonatan Ofek

Featuring: Abe Foxman, Norman Finkelstein, John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt

Film-maker Shamir, a Jewish Israeli who, quite understandably, has never experienced anti-Semitism, though his country’s media is so often filled with mentions of it, sets off for New York and Auschwitz in order to find out what anti-Semitism means today, interviewing Jewish people from the far right and left of the political spectrum, and presenting us with some rather eye-opening results, with the views of a bunch of Israeli teenagers being particularly revelatory and decidedly depressing. Iain.Stott