Like Windows in the Wall: Four Documentaries by Israeli Women

Within the frame of feminist theory, this paper analyzes the efforts of two Israeli filmmakers to disclose women's perceptual struggle: against gendered imperatives that encourage women not to look; against the habit of looking at "others" as objects to be feared or controlled; against the forces of materialism, national insecurity and political/military power that make looking impossible. In The Women Next Door and Detained, Michal Aviad and Anat Even interview Arab and Jewish women, enacting the transgressive intention to occupy what Kaja Silverman has called "a viewing position other than that assigned" by their culture. In Ever Shot Anyone? Aviad interviews male reservists, making visible the gendered imperative not to look—even as she defies it. And in Closure Even constructs a metaphor for the gradual occlusion of vision that constricts awareness of others and changes the promising trajectory of Israeli culture.