Sallah Shabati Sparknotes

Since the advent of film in the early 20th century, it has evolved and had huge impacts on society. However the influence of films has not always been a positive one, one must look no further then Leni Riefenstahl, a film director that produced Nazi propaganda films during World War II. Nevertheless, film, like any other tool, can be used to accomplish an objective, good or bad. In the film, Sallah Shabati, the director Ephraim Kishon portrays the Israeli government's attempt at immigration and resettlement of immigrants as dysfunctional, while also depicting non-European Jewish immigrants as clumsy and culturally remiss. From the start of the film, Kishon depicts the whole family, but especially the father as lacking any sort of grace. He
Sallah’s behavior is constantly at odds with his European counterparts, this is clearly exemplified when he is trying to marry his daughter off to the taxi driver for money. He had little regard for the fact that his daughter, Habbubah, wanted to marry Zigi, a worker at the kibbutz. The filmmakers portrayed Sallah as getting angry when his daughter told him that she was not going to follow his orders to marry who he wanted. (43:50) The marrying off of a daughter for money was normal in Sallah’s culture, but not to the European Jews. Another point of contention was Sallah’s views on the role of women in society, at the end of the movie he tells Frieda, a kibbutz supervisor, that a women’s job is to wash clothes and clean floors. He even tells Frieda that she should not listen to men when they speak, not in a way to promote free thinking, but rather as to mean that a women is below men in the social hierarchy. (46:30) Yet another point where the main character is shown to have little cultural tact is the voting booth scene, where he attempts to vote multiple times. He also is shown to not know what he’s doing because he just picks random parties to vote for and puts them in the ballot
For example, people at the voting station cringe at the way he acts, Bathsheva’s father became annoyed at having to pay Sallah for Zigi to marry his daughter, and of the way he acts working for the forestry are all examples of others angry at him for being culturally negligent. At one point, while a worker is giving out forestry positions he calls the immigrants “poor inhuman material.” This type of resentment seems to be a theme throughout the movie towards Sallah. The portrayal of Sallah Shabati and his family as crass is not the only thing that the filmmakers showed in a negative