Re-Orientalism In Israeli Cinema

The modern state of Israel was founded in1948. Located at the crossroad of Europe, Asia and Africa, Israel has always been the spiritual center of the world. Despite the huge difference between Israeli culture and East Asian culture, Israel seeks to friendly communicate with and to learn from East Asia. Israeli cinema is not a familiar field of studies in China. The researcher considers Israeli movies as a vital channel through which the Israeli ideology, societal culture and values can be studied.This research aims to analyze the East Asian images in Israeli movies. Considering Israel’s unique cultural identity, Said’s Orientalism theory as well as the emerging "re-Orientalism" theory are reviewed and the concept of Sabra (Hebrew) is introduced. The researcher selects Panofsky’s iconography as analytical tool to analyze two Israeli movies, namely Noodle and A Matter of Size in order to answer a. How Orientalism theory can be applied in the Israeli context, b. How are East Asian images constructed in Israeli movies, and c. What is the relation between East Asia and Israel in a cultural sense.In conclusion, the research points out that there is a certain level of "re-Orientalism" discourse applied in Israeli movies to construct East Asian images. The dilemma and contradiction between East and West,"New Jew" and "Old Jew" play a joint role in shaping the identity negotiations.Israel has limited knowledge of East Asian culture, although she indeed shows much interest in East Asia’s exotic culture. The lack of knowledge is visible in the aspect of language, social system, and traditions, with Orientalism discourse filling the blank space.However, grassroots ambassadors do exist in Israel-East Asia relations, such as Israeli moviemakers, Israeli travelers who speak Asian languages and Asian Israelis living in Israel. They serve as an important bridge to connect Israel and East Asia and will gradually enrich mutual knowledge and understanding as well as removing obstacles that stand in between future dialogues.