{"id":573659,"date":"2026-08-03T17:14:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T17:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/573659\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T17:14:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T17:14:15","slug":"even-in-the-darkest-moments-of-history-people-love-israel-jewish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/573659\/","title":{"rendered":"Even in the darkest moments of history, people love – Israel & Jewish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Aug. 3, 2026 \/ JNS)\n <\/p>\n

Look up the word \u201ctough\u201d in the dictionary (if people do such things anymore), and you might just find a picture of an Israeli. Tougher yet, an Israeli woman. Hardened by circumstances, history, work, wifedom, motherhood, and loss after loss, they have come to symbolize the sabra, a desert cactus\u2014prickly to the core.<\/p>\n

Nobody knows this better than an Israeli man.<\/p>\n

That, in short, is the theme of a new movie in English and Hebrew, \u201cFor the Love of a Woman,\u201d released in mid-July. It\u2019s based on The Loves of Judith, a 1994 novel by Israeli writer and newspaper columnist Meir Shalev, who died in April 2023, just months before the editing of the film finished in September.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The character Esther Horwitz (played by Mili Avital) in the Hebrew-English 2025 film \u201cFor the Love of a Woman.\u201d Photo by Vered Adir \u00a92023 Colorado Film Production, Vivo Film.<\/p>\n

The story opens in Rhode Island in 1978, with two estranged sisters in a hospital waiting room, struggling to make small talk as their mother lay dying. The elder one, Esther (\u201cEtty\u201d) Horwitz\u2014divorced, no children and working as a self-described stewardess in San Francisco\u2014is handed a small white Styrofoam cup of vending-machine coffee, peers into it and says blankly, \u201cthere\u2019s milk in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She throws her married sister with children a sour look\u2014meant for someone who should know her better\u2014setting the stage for disappointment to come.<\/p>\n

Esther is willed a handwritten letter from their mother, along with an enclosed Yemenite pendant, dated Oct. 4, 1932, and a torn photo of her as a baby with their father in Haifa, in what was then British Mandatory Palestine.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a mystery of sorts, instructing Esther to travel back to her birthplace to find a woman named \u201cYehudit\u201d and some answers to the reason that she never quite fit into her family\u2014and her own skin.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Poster<\/p>\n

Poster for the Hebrew-English film \u201cFor the Love of a Woman\u201d (2025). Credit: Courtesy of Colorado Film Production, Vivo Film.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first read her part, I thought, she\u2019s so annoyed\u2014and so annoying,\u201d said Mili Avital, 54, the Israeli actress who played the part of Esther. \u201cBut when you\u2019re far from your own truth, you\u2019re unsettled. It\u2019s almost like there\u2019s a piece missing. And she doesn\u2019t understand the source of it, which this journey she\u2019s embarking on is all about. It\u2019s going to bring her to the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

People, she notes, came from Europe with such tragedies behind them\u2014there was a lot of mystery.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story weaves its way from the 1970s and Esther to the 1930s and Yehudit.<\/p>\n

Avital, who was born in Jerusalem, where some of the scenes take place, said one of the challenges of the project was to pretend that the city was new to her and that she didn\u2019t know the Hebrew language. She said she tried to relate to having no sense of place.<\/p>\n

Her character is an outlier. She lives in California, on the opposite coast from her family; she flies the skies for work, with few permanent connections. \u201cShe\u2019s both a foreigner in the United States because she feels different, and then she comes to Israel, and she really is a foreigner; she\u2019s a tourist,\u201d says Avital.<\/p>\n

\u2018The themes are universal\u2019<\/p>\n

So, too, was the film\u2019s Italian director, 66-year-old Guido Chiesa, in Israel for the first time for the project. A Catholic, he says he was always interested in the country and its history, both geographically and religiously.<\/p>\n

He was there for a few months in 2022 and at the beginning of 2023. They (joint screenplay writer Nicoletta Micheli is also Italian) scouted for a location to film; yet modern-day Israel has become very modern. Most of the locales were either too built-up to reflect immigrant life in the early 20th century or, in some places, like an abandoned Syrian army base in the Golan, too close to borders and potential rocket fire to be secure.<\/p>\n

And so, Sicily became the backdrop for much of the film\u2014namely, the fictional moshav of Beit Caleb. Parts of southern Italy used to house farmers in communal villages, \u201cagro-towns,\u201d in the 1930s through 1950s.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The character Yehudit Salomon (played by Ana Ularu) in the 2025 Hebrew-English film \u201cFor the Love of a Woman.\u201d Photo by Vincenzo Aluia \u00a92023 Colorado Film Production, Vivo Film.<\/p>\n

Vincenzo Aluia<\/p>\n

When Yehudit Salomon, an attractive young woman who\u2019s deaf in her right ear, arrives there, the place is never the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis film, to me, is incredibly universal,\u201d says Avital. \u201cI mean, it has a specific worldview and a specific character, but the themes of it are universal.\u201d<\/p>\n

A main one is inherent misunderstandings, and the inability, for many men, to understand the psyche and concerns of women, and perhaps most of all, their emotions. Men often shy away from the depths of a woman\u2019s pain, either because they don\u2019t know how to approach it, or in many cases, don\u2019t want to.<\/p>\n

That has left Yehudit\u2014and Esther\u2014proverbially wandering in the desert. But it doesn\u2019t seem to affect their spirit, which becomes stronger with every obstacle they face.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a testament to the times when the movie takes place,\u201d says Avital. \u201cYou had to be tough to stand up to all these men and to carry on\u201d amid some very real threats: physical, sexual, mental, emotional.<\/p>\n

Add to that the \u201cplain hardship of both trying to and then having a family. That\u2019s a very relevant and important theme,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s like the name of the film\u2014what people do for the love of a woman and what a woman does for the love of herself.\u201d<\/p>\n

The deeper meaning that runs through it, Avital points out, is that even in the darkest moments of history, people fall in love, give birth, build families and form communities.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"On<\/p>\n

On the set: Guido Chiesa, the Italian director of the 2025 Hebrew-English film \u201cFor the Love of a Woman.\u201d Photo by Vincenzo Aluia \u00a92023 Colorado Film Production, Vivo Film.<\/p>\n

Vincenzo Aluia<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Guido<\/p>\n

Guido Chiesa and Nicoletta Micheli, director and screenwriter, respectively, of the 2025 Hebrew-English film \u201cFor the Love of a Woman.\u201d Photo by Vincenzo Aluia \u00a92023 Colorado Film Production, Vivo Film.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s a story about hope\u2019<\/p>\n

The segue between Esther and Yehudit becomes clearer as the saga unfolds. Esther seeks out several people in Israel (interestingly, all men) to help her uncover lost history, while Yehudit wrestles with men who profess their love\u2014or outright needs\u2014as she keeps the past to herself.<\/p>\n

Men can have a hard time \u201cbeing retrospective, looking inside themselves,\u201d says Chiesa. \u201cWe have a hard time seeing the other person, learning from the other person, being able to listen to the other person. Not all of them, of course, but generally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chiesa said he was captivated by the era he was filming and the early Jewish pioneers. \u201cThey were very idealistic, in a way. They wanted to have a land, they wanted to have a country; they wanted to build a new society, a freer society. It was a unique experiment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon after editing was completed, Israel was roiled by the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks. From that moment on, he says, no European festival wanted to screen the film. Eventually, using Chiesa\u2019s domestic clout, they managed to distribute it in Italy, where it won the Best Film Award at the Bari International Film Festival, known as the \u201cFederico Fellini\u201d Award for Best Movie.<\/p>\n

Even now in Europe, it\u2019s very hard to talk about the film, says Chiesa. \u201cThere\u2019s so much antisemitism going on \u2026 I understand that people are afraid of bringing up the word \u2018Israel.\u2019 It has become more and more complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t easy for Jews then, and it isn\u2019t now, attests both he and Avital.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"From<\/p>\n

From left: The characters Globerman (played by Serhii Kysil), Moshe Rabinovich (played by Alban Ukaj) and Yaakov Scheinfeld (played by Marc Rissmann) in the Hebrew-English 2025 film \u201cFor the Love of a Woman.\u201d Photo by Vincenzo Aluia \u00a92023 Colorado Film Production, Vivo Film.<\/p>\n

Vincenzo Aluia<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Yehudit<\/p>\n

Yehudit Salomon (played by Ana Ularu) and Moshe Rabinovich (played by Alban Ukaj) in the Hebrew-English 2025 film \u201cFor the Love of a Woman.\u201d Photo by Vincenzo Aluia \u00a92023 Colorado Film Production, Vivo Film.<\/p>\n

Vincenzo Aluia<\/p>\n

Still, Chiesa doesn\u2019t shy away from the facts, stating plainly that \u201cJewish culture and heritage are at the roots of Western society.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says \u201cwithout Israel, without the Torah, without Abram\u2014all the way up to Jesus\u2014there wouldn\u2019t be Western society. I think that\u2019s something we should treasure, rather than condemn without thinking about all the aspects of it, all the aspects of the complicated situation that is in the Middle East right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

He enjoyed being there, he says, pointing to the deserts and the demographics. \u201cIsrael, from what I understood by visiting it and working there, is a very complex society,\u201d he says. \u201cNot all people think the same. There are people that are in favor of one position and people in favor of another position; it\u2019s a democracy. And everyone has a say. They have a vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

The way he puts it, it almost doesn\u2019t sound so complicated. It\u2019s encapsulated in his directorial skills. What\u2019s left unsaid comes together in the end.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a story about hope against all odds,\u201d states Chiesa.<\/p>\n

Esther, he explains, goes from being \u201can unresolved woman, a very fragmented woman, a person that is unable to love. And then she learns that a tragic event happened in her family, and she\u2019s able to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finding the truth about herself and her family history allows her to be a freer person. And that, he says, \u201cis something we all believe in deeply.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the letter that sets up the story, Esther\u2019s mother writes: \u201cI believed it was important for you to go on this journey, wherever it may have taken you. It was your right. I hope this story allows you to make peace with many things.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The characters Esther Horwitz (played by Mili Avital) and Zayde Rabinovich (played by Ori Pfeffer) in the Hebrew-English 2025 film \u201cFor the Love of a Woman.\u201d Photo by Vincezo Aluia \u00a92023 Colorado Film Production, Vivo Film.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The characters Esther Horwitz (played by Mili Avital) and Zayde Rabinovich (played by Ori Pfeffer) in the Hebrew-English 2025 film \u201cFor the Love of a Woman.\u201d Photo by Vered Adir \u00a92023 Colorado Film Production, Vivo Film.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Aug. 3, 2026 \/ JNS) Look up the word \u201ctough\u201d in the dictionary (if people do such things…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-573659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}