Siyon Dağı’nın Gölgesinde Beyazperdeye Yahudilerin Sinemayı Kullanım Biçimleri

From the Shadow of Mount Zion to the Screen  How Jews Use Cinema 

Jewish cinema is a rich cinematic tradition that builds on histori-cal, cultural and religious foundations and makes visible various dimensions of Jewish identity. By analyzing the basic concepts of Jewish cinema, this study reveals the ways in which Jews use cin-ema for their own purposes and goals through themes such as identity, diaspora, Holocaust memory, the promised land, and the conflict between modernity and tradition. In the light of the issues of individual and collective belonging, Jews use cinema as a means of creating public opinion pressure in order to enact the idea of the promised land by highlighting the alienation and as-similation they are exposed to in the diaspora. Accordingly, nar-ratives of diasporic experiences such as migration, exile and the search for a new homeland have an important place in Hollywood and European Jewish cinema. Another focal point of the study is the memory of the Holocaust. In Jewish cinema, the Holocaust is addressed not only as a tragedy, but also through the reconstruc-tion of memory, testimony and the quest for justice. While these films deal with individual trauma, they also aim to strengthen Jewish identity in a historical context by creating a social con-sciousness. In addition, Jewish cinema, shaped around the ideal of Zionism, serves as a means of preparing the world public opin-ion to put the occupation plan of Palestine into effect more quickly and to reach the borders of the promised land as soon as possible. On the other hand, Jewish cinema strengthens the cultural ties between Jews in the diaspora and Israel, while at the same time questioning the internal conflicts of national identity. By focusing on the conflict between modernity and tradition, Jewish cinema especially focuses on the attitudes of groups such as Haredi Jews towards modernization and intergenerational identity conflicts,  and tries to isolate such groups by over-representing them with an attitude that prioritizes modernity. In this context, Jewish cinema continues to exist not only as a field of artistic production, but also as a tool of Jewish culture, memory and identity construction. 

Keywords: Judaism; cinema; Holocaust; promised land; diaspora