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Yoel, Israel and the Pashkavils

Directed by: Lina Chaplin
54 Minutes, 2006

Israel Kletzkin owns a printing press and has written and printed hundreds and thousands of pashkavils. Yoel Krause has been collecting them for 20 years and has over 20,000 in his possession. Yoel is the most authentic representative of the Neturei Karta, the radical anti-Zionist stream in ultra- orthodoxy. He has no Israeli ID card, no social security and no contact with the State. He is 34 years old and lives in a one-room apartment. He has 9 children, and he and his wife Rachel plan on having 22. Yoel doesn’t eat “Zionist” food. Rachel bakes bread and he has his own cow in order not to purchase milk from the Israeli dairies. For him, the Zionists are the source of all evil. Our camera managed to penetrate, for the first time, the private and intimate moments and to really get to know them. Israelis different, so different that he even put in a bid and became the official pashkavil paster of the city of Jerusalem. Israel is charismatic, talented, a joker and savvy businessman who insists upon leading his life as he wills, having his picture taken. He has become an obvious target for the radicals who conduct a war with him on-camera. Both men are believers who will not compromise their respective ways of life.

Credits

Director: Lina Chaplin

Producer: Aaron Goldfinger