DEFAMATION (Hebrew: השמצה; translit. Hashmatsa) is a 2009 documentary film by award-winning Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir who embarks on a provocative — and at times irreverent — quest to answer the question, “What is anti-Semitism today?” Is it a dangerous and immediate threat? Or is it a scare tactic used by Zionist partisans to unjustly discredit everyone that disagrees with them?
In particular, the film examines the way perceptions of anti-Semitism affect Israeli and U.S. politics. Speaking with an array of people from across the political spectrum (including the head of the Anti-Defamation League and its fiercest critic, author Norman Finkelstein) and traveling to places like Auschwitz (alongside Israeli school kids) and Brooklyn (to explore reports of violence against Jews), Shamir discovers the realities of anti-Semitism today.
Shamir decided to make this film, that won Best Documentary Feature Film at the 2009 Asia Pacific Screen Awards, after a critic of an earlier film accused him of anti-Semitism. His findings are shocking, enlightening and — surprisingly — often wryly funny. At the beginning of the film, Shamir states that as an Israeli he has never experienced anti-Semitism himself and wants to learn more about it since references to anti-Semitism in countries all over the world are common in the Israeli media.
Today, we are happy to bring you this very enlightening Israeli film in the spirit of Nostra Aetate (Latin: In our Age), Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions, promulgated on October 28, 1965, by Pope Paul VI. The Declaration decries all displays of anti-Semitism made at any time by anyone.
