Talia Klein, Eric Mayzel and Igal Hecht in New York for the filming of Not In My Name, which will play in the Toronto Jewish Film Festival in May.
Toronto filmmaker Igal Hecht’s latest documentary Not In My Name, which had its world premiere last Saturday at the 17th annual Vancouver Jewish Film Festival, raises disturbing questions about the far left of the spectrum of Jewish political opinion in Israel and the Diaspora.
The ideas they represent – of a two-state solution and an end of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, or of a bi-national state from the river to the sea – are a legitimate part of the mainstream of political discourse in Israel’s vital democracy. Yet many of the people who espouse these ideas have another agenda, according to the sub-text of Hecht’s 104- minute film, which he co-produced with Talia Klein.
To be blunt, Not In My Name shows that many of the radical Jewish leftists who attack Israel have confused identities or psychological issues that spill over to their radical political views. Many are homosexuals or lesbians seemingly acting out their angst against the Jewish community that rejected them by attacking Israel.
It’s a sordid story, but one which deserves to be told in order to understand the full range of what it means to be Jewish. Underlying Hecht’s film is his anger that the left-wing of Israeli politics has been high-jacked by extremists for a hidden agenda. Behind the camera, Hecht maintains a professional balance and objectivity. But interviewed one-on-one, he is angry, passionate, condemnatory and an unequivocally pro-Israel leftist.
“I’m pissed off that I have to do a film like this about the left,” said Hecht, 27, who immigrated to Toronto with his family from Ashkelon, Israel, at age 11. “I was pissed off that my left has been hijacked by radicals and just loons, complete crazies, who will do anything [including] lie.
“My left has been hijacked by extremists and by antisemites and by racists who have finally found an opportunity to delegitimize and really attempt to destroy the state of Israel,” he said. “Leftist Jewish filmmakers applaud them and praise them and put them on pedestals, as if they’re gods, these leftist Jews who choose to criticize Israel.”
It’s the same cinematic documentary technique Hecht employed in his 2004 documentary The Chosen People, which looked at the controversial religious movement of Messianic Judaism. Also known as Jews for Jesus, the evangelical movement says Jews can embrace Jesus as the Messiah and keep their Jewish identity.
By letting them speak for themselves, Hecht gives his subjects plenty of rope to hang themselves, while he maintains his objectivity.
The technique works especially well when Hecht interviews Norman Finkelstein, a controversial historian who has written that the Holocaust has been exploited by the Jewish establishment. While the idea has certain merit, Hecht is more interested in the vendetta Finkelstein has been carrying on against Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz. The latter defends himself by claiming that Finkelstein practises academic fraud, and simply falsifies or even invents quotes to suit his vitriolic bias.
It’s almost embarrassing to have to watch so much dirty laundry being washed in public. Pictures of Israel bashers employing Stars of David transformed into swastikas are painful. And the shots of suicide bomber carnage are gratuitous violence.
But in the final analysis, Hecht may have done a great service to the Jewish people. If the left is ever to regain its credibility, it will have to jettison the fringe, which has stolen it.
Not In My Name is a selection at this year’s Toronto Jewish Film Festival and will play on May 13 at 1 p.m.
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