By Amit Epstein | 21/10/2010
Last weekend I had a screening of my latest video work "Jewish Revenge" in a festival in Utrecht, Holland. I always try to be present at festival screenings, as I often get the chance to communicate with the audience. It changes from place to place, from occasion photo: Amit Epstein
to occasion, I never really know what to expect
The work is a part of a video-trilogy, "Stockholm Syndrome", in which I refer to the tendencies of Jews to return to Europe, as many young Israelis find themselves attached to a homeland in which they were never born while perfectly aware of the victim-victimizer relationship, which is well rooted in the fabrication of Israelism. I emphasize the third generation's situation, under the current circumstances between history and national identity, and look for its terminology. Its about gaps, silent conspiracies, searches and bridges.
In Israel and in Germany the connection is clear, the context is obvious and the subtext goes through like knife cuts butter. At other locations I just hope it will not be lost in translation.
This screening started bad. For some reason, the synchronization of text and lip-sing (in the video I use several known songs, culturally loaded, which texts are being abused into the dialogue) went wrong, and with it the comic effect, as the sound came in delay, after the point. I had to stop the screening, we've tried it again and now the sound was ahead instead. So I asked to stop the screening and instead offered to have a discussion about the subjects the video project is dealing with. To my surprise, besides for one older woman all of the audience decided to stay. I've shared with them my feelings after 7 years in Europe and they – a very mixed crowd of young people of various origins – was very quickly very involved, as we were diving into the tension between the private story and the public sphere. Soon enough the technical support crew found a solution and we were able to finish watching the video from the point we've stopped.
After we've managed to do that after all, we've stayed another hour to talk. Apparently, meeting an Israeli is an interesting occasion for young Europeans, who mostly get their info from the internet, the news and the leftovers of their high-school education. I wanted to share with them the ambivalent longings, the responsibility and the guilt, the self-criticism and the existential fear, the heterogeneity of Jewish people and the homogeneity we are forced into.
It seems that public's opinion is much more available and accessible as we think – it's made, after all, of many opinions of private people who might be willing to listen and show interest and give place in their minds and hearts to others and to less familiar points of view, once given the possibility.
