Israel owes its diverse Jewish population mostly to its history of, and foundation upon, aliyah, Jewish immigration. However, out of circa one hundred narrative films that pertain to aliyah, only a scattering depict the life of Jewish immigrants prior to leaving their countries of birth at length (including Lacking a Homeland, Nuri Habib, Israel, 1956; Escape to the Sun, Menahem Golan, Israel, 1972; Burning Land, Serge Ankri, Israel, 1984; Farewell, Baghdad, Nissim Dayan, Israel, 2013; and Fig Tree, Aalam-Warqe Davidian, Israel, Germany, France, Ethiopia, 2018). This gaping hole in Israeli cinema and scholarship begs to be addressed, clearly evoking the controversial issues from Israel`s Sabra and "people without a land" mythoi, to the "melting pot", "negating the exile" and post-Zionism ideologies and absorption (klita) methods; raising questions of identity, transnational engagement, and multi-culturalism. In such a diverse society, it is outrageous that so few stories of the life before immigration have been cinematically dramatized.
This paper will focus on the outliers within aliyah cinema: The films depicting life prior to immigration. Exploring which stories were chosen to be told out of the vast others that weren`t; what purposes these stories may have served within the broader Zionist narrative and Israeli historical contexts; and how the portrayals of life before aliyah have evolved over time can allow for new insights on the circumstances in which Israeli culture has allowed for a real diversity of identities, voices, heritages, and stories to be heard within its alleged multi-cultural nation.