The Brachman Family Israel Initiative enables Harvard Hillel to have programs that showcase the cultural and societal diversity and vibrancy of Israel. Programs are held once or twice during the academic year.
Rage and Glory: The Restoration of an Israeli Controversy
Sunday, December 6th, 2020
Acclaimed Israeli film director Avi Nesher joined Harvard Hillel to discuss the reignited controversy surrounding his 1984 film Rage & Glory (Za’am v’Tehila) following its restoration by the Israel Film Archive and the Jerusalem Cinematheque. The film tells the true story of Eddy the Butcher, a Zionist freedom fighter played by the Israeli Jewish-Palestinian Arab actor Juliano Mer-Khamis, dispatched to Jerusalem to assassinate an officer of the British Mandate. Released in the aftermath of the First Lebanon War, the film sparked fierce public debate about the casting of Mer-Khamis, the legitimacy of comparisons between Zionist and Palestinian terrorism and the place of the Holocaust in Zionist mythology.