Under revision: In pro-Zionist circles, there exists a highly attractive image of the Israeli army, with a special charm supposedly attributed to the service of women in it. Pretty (and not so pretty) smiling girls in military uniforms appear in numerous photographs and posters, apparently designed to convince naive citizens of the civilizational superiority of the «advanced and progressive Zionists» over the «backward Arabs who wrap their women in hijabs and niqabs and keep them locked up. But life is far from this glamorous image. This is the subject of the new film «Levia,» directed by Reut Shemesh, a former soldier in the Israeli army, and the play of the same name, which she also directed. Shemesh herself served in military intelligence and left Israel for Europe after her service, but her traumatic experiences continued to haunt her there.
The movie «Levia» consists of five stories based on real experiences of female soldiers. They are stories of constant sexual harassment, crude jokes, degrading exploitation by male military superiors, and an overall lifestyle that is totally unsuited to the female psyche and leads to its breakdown.
«It took me a long time to understand that military service creates a distorted image of relationships between men and women. We grew up [thinking] that it’s completely normal for you to be 18 and your commander to look at your butt or for you to make coffee for him, but it’s not really normal. When you live in a situation like that, you don’t realize that something is distorted. You don’t see how fragile the boundaries of your body are, and these fragile boundaries threaten the way you see yourself and your ability to defend yourself,» says the former soldier.
Shemesh is outspoken about the position of women in the Israeli army: «We are all sexually harassed in the army on an almost daily basis.»
The filmmaker and playwright say they were not afraid to tell the truth because their production was not funded by the Israeli Ministry of Culture. After all, the ministry does not provide funding for productions that expose problems in Israeli society, but only funds the dissemination of Zionist myths, one of which is the happy face of women in the Israeli army.
«I am afraid that we will get used to this; I am afraid that instead of all the artists taking to the streets, there will be self-censorship. We quickly get used to it and become immune, like a soldier used to an abnormal situation. A little cynicism, a little insecurity, and we seal ourselves off. We cannot feel. In order to abstain from action, you have to abstain from observation; in other words, you have to seal yourself off from things and not feel,» says Shemesh.
It should be noted that in Israel military service is compulsory for both boys and girls. In practice, they serve together. Those who have gone through it explain the consequences. And if their experience is to be believed, the Israeli army is a social institution that systematically corrupts or breaks the psyche of the Israelis who have gone through it.