SJFF 2022 | APPLES AND ORANGES - Stroum Jewish Community Center of Greater Seattle

Virtual Screening: Monday, March 28 – Sunday, April 10

Film: In the 1960s, volunteering on a kibbutz became all the rage, as young counterculture idealists flocked to Israel to work on its storied agricultural collectives and participate in its great experiment of communal living. This absorbing documentary explores their vast impact and its dark underside.

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Full Film Details:
During the swinging ’60s, idealistic and rebellious youth of the countercultural generation from around the world, both Jews and non-Jews, were charmed by the old communist ideology that came to life on the Israeli kibbutz. Offering travel abroad, new experiences, and opportunities to participate in its great experiment of communal living, travel agencies started selling “kibbutz volunteering” packages. What began as a trickle soon turned into a flood after the Six-Day War in 1967. For Israel, this wave of international support was seen as nothing less than a political miracle, for the tourism industry a profitable business, and for the kibbutz movement, a source of free labor on its storied agricultural collectives. But the kibbutzniks found themselves facing the unfamiliar. These blonde-haired and blue-eyed volunteers brought sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, and intermarriage to these insular communities. Many Israelis left kibbutzim for their spouses’ home countries, though some volunteers converted, learned Hebrew, and stayed. During the 1980s, unemployment across Europe secured a steady new stream of volunteers, but Israel was no longer the same country. The war in Lebanon and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict forced them to face a new question: Does supporting a kibbutz mean supporting the State of Israel? This absorbing new documentary spotlights those volunteers who flocked to Israel’s kibbutzim and their vast impact while exposing a darker underside.

Director Bio:
Yoav Brill is an animator, filmmaker, and musician, who has created pieces both for exhibitions and for the big screen. ISHIHARA, his graduation animated film for the Bezalel Academy, won first prize in the Haifa Film Festival (2010) and HORA, a short animated documentary, won first prize in the Tel Aviv Animation Festival (2014). Both were nominated for an Iris Prize in Cardiff’s LGBT film festival and were screened in over 30 International festivals. He also contributed animation to several Israeli documentaries such as KING BIBI (Dan Shadur, 2018) and the Oscar shortlist nominee ADVOCATE (Philippe Bellaiche and Rachel Leah Jones, 2019). View on IMDB.

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