Cinema of Disobedience: The New Jews

80 Min. | 2025

Language: OmeU | Original language: hebrew, english, german

Director: Amir Ovadia Steklov

A decade in the making, The New Jews is a bold and provocative documentary following a group of non-Zionist Israeli Jews who flee the rise of right-wing nationalism and relentless violence. Seeking refuge in Berlin, they become entangled in the city’s layered history, only to find that their search for belonging leads them into a web of sexual, social, and political contradictions, complicated by the fetishization of Jews.

Visually witty and partially animated, the film centers around filmmakers Amir and Inés on a hunt for intimacy and sexual adventure in their new home. In a darkly humorous twist, their encounters—through dating apps and sex calls—expose the lingering shadow of Nazism, Holocaust guilt, and a disturbing objectification of their Jewish bodies.

Other participants are interrogated in a dimly lit room, confessing their conflicted relationships with Israel and the bittersweet experience of making Berlin their new home. Their testimonies reveal that the violence that once shaped their rebellious Jewish identity in Israel continues to haunt them, now appearing in a different guise in multicultural Berlin.

In a country eager to love its Jews—but only the ‘right’ kind—the film unfolds as both an ironic reminder of the world the participants sought to escape and a wake-up call to the one they now face.