Perhaps the main reason I consider myself Jewish is the fact that I belong to a minority that other people have tried many times to destroy throughout history. I don’t want to be the dickhead who ignores all those years of tradition, culture and identity. They’re something to hold on to. In general, I believe that Judaism is driven by fear, but I’m not sure it’s purely negative, it can also be healthy.
Assaf Machnes
Director, Berlin
I practice Judaism by questioning, by seeking, not by answering. I find the concept of my country to be confusing – that’s where this beautiful culture of questioning gets a lot of exclamation marks, and then sometimes that drags it down. Putting exclamation marks on something spiritual can get quite messy.
In many ways, I feel more Jewish when I’m in exile. I’ve travelled and hiked a lot by myself and this loneliness or lack of roots brings me closer to higher powers. But Berlin has a different effect. I feel that this city is all about deconstructing and doubting everything. It’s really about tearing apart ideas, and I come from a place that is all about an idea. So it’s all pretty overwhelming. I feel that many people from around the world come here to get themselves into this kind of washing machine. Some can’t find a way out. In a way, Berlin offers too much freedom. It’s very distracting and yet so far I’m really glad I came here.
I’m very attracted to the Orthodox Jewish way of life. Many friends of mine, mostly people that don’t know me too well, thought that I was Orthodox, mostly because of my fetish for their music. And at times I have flirted with the idea of becoming religious. Now I’m getting older and I feel like I missed that wave. But I’m still very much attracted to this world of black and white. It’s not only what they wear – it’s everywhere. A world of rules, of do and don’t do. And it all comes from this masculine figure called God. Sometime I feel that people created God first and foremost because of their inability to properly communicate with their fathers. It’s not a coincidence that Christians call their priests ‘father’ and that in Judaism they call god Tate (father). I have less issues with my own father these days so perhaps, just perhaps, it got me further away from religion. Other than the father-figure issue – it’s also somehow homoerotic at times. So many religious songs and prayers are on the sexual spectrum. For example, the songs of Shlomo Karlibach and the Lubavitcher Rebbe. ‘My soul is thirsty for you’, ‘My flesh longs for you’, ‘In a dry, lonely land I want to be water for you.’ They’re singing to God, but it’s always homoeroticism or craving for compassion from a father figure. Either way – I find it both funny and beautiful at the same time. And I can relate to that.
When I arrived in Berlin for the first time I didn't think I'd like the city. The festival invited me to come here with a film of mine. I wasn't into electronic music back then, and in a way I was also afraid to explore my sexuality, and I knew that this city is a potential place to do that. So Berlin wasn't a destination I planned to visit. However - on the second night here in Berlin I was in a flat with 60 people. It was a jam session organized by a friend I knew. I was the only Jewish person in that flat and everybody was singing ‘Alle Brider’, ‘we are all brothers’, which is a song in Yiddish. I had never heard it before – and I loved that song. They played several Klezmer songs in that house party. And that was actually my first love affair with Berlin – a Yiddish song, sung out loud by 60 people. Before that I had only heard Yiddish music from my grandfather.
I love Klezmer music and I love old Jewish music. And in Israel it feels as if it’s disappeared. The whole idea of Israel, at least at the beginning, was to get rid of the nebech, the victimized Jew goes ‘willingly’ into the ovens, and creating this new warrior image of someone who's in charge of his own destiny. Klezmer music is very much related to the victimized Jew. Those jam sessions in Neukölln and Kreuzberg were the core I built on in my following visits, way before I joined up with other Berlin scenes. Before my 6th or 7th visit to Berlin, my mother was like, “Can you please just go to the Holocaust monument already?" For me, the old Jewish music played out loud was way more powerful.
Writer-director based in Berlin and Tel Aviv. I began my film quest in Minshar School Of Arts, Tel Aviv, while studying mathematics at university. In 2013 I completed my film studies in London, specializing in cinematography. My projects have been featured at festivals including the Berlinale, Venice Biennale, Locarno, Sarajevo, BFI London, Cannes Series, and have appeared on HBO Europe, ARTE, Rai and more. These days I’m working on a feature film in Berlin and a TV series in Tel Aviv.