Educational Media Reviews Online

Ramleh is the story of four women living in an Israeli town, notable because Arabs and Jews live in it together, albeit in separate neighborhoods. Three women—Svetlana, Sima, and Orly—are Jewish Israelis; one—Gehad—is a Palestinian Arab. Svetlana is a relatively recent immigrant from Uzbekistan; the other two are newly religious native Israelis.

Michal Aviad, who wrote the film, calls it a social-political study. If so, her observations are depressing, indeed, to this secular American reviewer. The women lead lives lacking opportunities for self-development, and are limited by culture and tradition as well as their social, educational, political, and religious environment. But one must ask whether Ms. Aviad is truly an objective observer faithfully recording all events, or if she has an agenda the film was carefully and selectively designed to promote. Ramleh was recently entered in the 13th Annual Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, a festival avowedly dedicated to exposing the worst oppressions endured by people anywhere in the world. Israel has long been on HRW's list of bad guys. Thus, viewers should be aware that the film was intended to exemplify bad things being done to people—to Palestinians by Jews, and to immigrants and women by those in power. In that, it succeeds completely.

The film opens with lines about unsolved murders of Ramleh women that no one will talk about, not even the police. One gathers the women were killed by family members or lovers for punishment and revenge, and no one will bring the perpetrators to justice. At the end, the narrator says several more murders have occurred since she started filming.

The town itself is depressing. Nearly all shots of it depict ugliness, even in the more affluent parts of town. Poorer areas don't merely look poor; they resemble the kind of urban blight that symbolizes crushing poverty. Less than a decade ago, this reviewer drove around Ramleh and can't recall seeing so much ugliness, though the town was far from beautiful.

Sima and Orly live narrow, segregated ultra-Orthodox lives, focused on their husbands and many children (no birth control allowed). In the summer heat, they wear long skirts, long sleeves, and headscarves. They pray, attend election rallies, and teach their babies to kiss the portrait of Shas political party leader Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef that occupies an honored place in their homes. Like so many converts to restrictive religions, they are consumed with being perfect examples of the lifestyle. Svetlana fails to find a job, but mourns her grandmother's death in traditional style and celebrates her daughter's 13th birthday with a splashy party she can ill afford. Gehad, a teacher and law school student, discusses Israeli oppression with her classes and helps organize cultural events that do more of the same, along with promising revenge against the Jews. A friend asks what she will do when she graduates, but Gehad has no answer. She agonizes over her inability to make her own decisions and wishes she was a man, but she dresses in startlingly revealing clothes and packs a cell phone like a pistol—things that don't seem to gibe with the Arabic customs by which she claims to be bound.

The film is well made, telling its story dramatically, but viewers should not think it shows the whole truth about Ramleh. That would take a far more objective eye.