Kedma (film)

The film is a historical tragedy set during the opening stages of Israel's 1948 War of Independence. The film takes place in the final stages of the civil war in Mandatory Palestine just before Israeli independence. It follows the fate of a group of Polish-, Russian-, and Yiddish-speaking refugees from the Holocaust who are illegally brought to Israel by the Palmach. When they arrive, they are chased by British soldiers. Once they escape, they are immediately drafted into the war, and take part in a grueling battle against Arab irregulars. Toward its ending, the film centers on two long monologues: one by an Arab peasant (played by Yussuf Abu-Warda) who pledges to oppose the Jews forever, in a reworking of a poem by Tawfiq Ziad; and one by an emotionally demolished refugee who laments the seemingly endless suffering of his people.

Gitai intended the film to be a more realistic answer to the romanticized depiction of the war in Otto Preminger's Exodus. The final shot of Kedma, with a trail of military vehicles disappearing into the horizon, is identical to the final shot of Preminger's film.

• Kedma at IMDb
• Kedma's review from The Jewish Channel Archived 2022-03-28 at the Wayback Machine
• Stephen Holden (February 7, 2003). Film Review; War-Weary Immigrants Facing Another War. New York Times