192’ / status : completed
Why Israel, Claude Lanzmann’s first film, traces the creation of the State of Israel and exposes the contradiction between normality and abnormality in the existence of a Jewish state. Whether at Yad Vashem, the Israeli memorial to murdered Jews, in supermarkets, in Jerusalem, in the desert or the Mediterranean, he explores normality in this “abnormal” country. Lanzmann asks the question necessary for the proper functioning of a Jewish state, a question without end or answer perhaps: “Who is a Jew? Who is a Jew?