"Hole in the Moon" or Zionism and the Binding (Ha-Ak'eda) Myth in Israeli Cinema

The biblical story of the binding of Isaac (Ha-ak'eda) has been identified as one of the central codes through which Israeli society communicates with itself about itself. The fact that significant transformations of the myth occurred in Israeli culture at large during the 1960s directed my attention towards the same period in cinema. Two films by Uri Zohar, Hole in the Moon (1964) and Three Days and a Child (1967), will be discussed and compared with He Walked through the Fields, made by Yosef Millo that same year, and a later film, The Cherry Season, made by Haim Buzaglo in 1991. Interestingly, the "personal cinema" in Israel of the 1960s, a sub-system operating within the larger cultural and social system, was not only influenced by the central code but prefigured its future course.