Defamation

"I saw what my grandmother felt, but I didn't share those feelings with her," explains the Israeli grandson of a Holocaust survivor. For director Yoav Shamir, born and bred in Israel, it is a familiar sensation: even though his society is constantly talking about the concept of anti-Semitism, he has never personally come in contact with it. His film is a personal quest for the meaning of anti-Semitism in the contemporary Western world. Shamir talks with the boss of the American Anti-Defamation League, as well as various professors who express strong criticism of this organization. Whereas the director focused on the lives of Israeli soldiers in his earlier films (which won the Joris Ivens Award in 2003) and (2005), he takes a step back with his latest work: is in part about the mechanisms used to prepare Israeli children for military service. Compared to his earlier films, Shamir is a little bit lighter-hearted this time around. He poses his questions with an almost childlike innocence: what exactly is anti-Semitism? How often does it really occur? And what is the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism?