A Romantic History of Zionism? The Daring Path of Rami Kimchi
Filmmaker Rami Kimchi debuts in prose with a collection exploring the prospects of romantic love in Israel. By centering on Mizrahi men outside of social margins, Kimchi weaves a narrative that blends psychology, tradition, modernity, and the history of the Zionist project.
As a filmmaker, Rami Kimchi (Night of the Fools, 2015; Sleeping with the SS, 2025) is considered one of the most skilled narrators among documentarians. His family trilogy (My Travels with My Brother, 1996; Cinema Egypt, 2001; Father Tongue, 2006) is noted by critics for its moving, poetic, and literarily deep narration. It seems Kimchi took the hint, as he recently published his first prose book with Gamma-Tangier publishing.
The book, consisting of two novellas and four short stories, deals with the possibility of romantic love in the Israeli space, introducing characters of Mizrahi men who, unlike those in the works of Dudu Busi (The Green Moon in the Wadi, 2000) or Ron Khalili (Shaul, 2024), are not from the social margins.
Although, like Yossi Sucary (Amzaleg, 2019), Kimchi does not ignore the Mizrahi aspect in his characters' personalities, even when they are obsessively occupied with their Mizrahi identity, it is branded as a psychological problem, not a social one.
The collection's characters—ranging from a PhD in cultural studies to the captain of Beitar Jerusalem—move between unbridled emotional addiction to romantic love and opinionated doubt about its existence. Indeed, most love stories in the book end in failure or a dead end.
But as Woody Allen declares at the end of Annie Hall (1978), romantic love is a kind of madness. A person in love is like someone who thinks he is a chicken, but we don't hospitalize him because "we all need eggs...." In the sense Kimchi gives to the absurd: although romantic love is a place almost impossible to reach, what a wonderful way it is.
"Red," the central novella, is a sexy, contemporary love story in the spirit of film noir, set between Tel Aviv and New Orleans. At its center is a sweeping relationship between a culture researcher and a child psychologist. It is a charged encounter between passion and consciousness, bringing to mind both the film Basic Instinct and S.Y. Agnon's masterpiece, The Lady and the Peddler.
The protagonists are convinced they are in love, but having grown up in nuclear families, they lack the emotional security to give their hearts fully. Since realizing their intense attraction, they have been busy running away from each other.
"I don't think we'll meet anymore," Lenny says to the hero. "Men like you are dangerous for me." The hero is gifted with a passion to love from a distance, finding it romantic to have a "transatlantic love." Such starting positions are a proven recipe for a process of diminution, leading to a macabre and blood-stained end.
In the novella "Ally," Markito takes his first steps in the Sephardic-Jerusalem world of the late 19th century, characterized by a sharp conflict between tradition and modernity. His guide is his smart and rebellious sister, Asterika. As is customary in Sephardic families of the period, both are in love with their cousins. Tradition definitely gives modernity a fight here.
In the story "Tin Soldier," Yael Ben-Atar, the smart captain of Beitar Jerusalem, has little tradition left to consider, which perhaps explains the surprising ending.
Kimchi's writing is hyper-realistic: sensory, sensual, and dense with plot movements. He lays his characters on the psychiatrist's couch—Freud is very present—while creating literary allusions to Agnon, Dan Benaya Seri, Hans Christian Andersen, and great filmmakers like Hitchcock, Polanski, and Woody Allen.
To discuss love, Kimchi recruits the maligned Otto Weininger, Israeli matriarchy, and early feminism. All this creates a rich mosaic, making the reading experience intense.
Yet, there is a complex element in the stories. Kimchi is careful to provide dates for each. "Ally," dealing with the first local acquaintance with the romantic conception, is dated to 1896, the year of the Zionist Congress, while the last story, "Tin Soldier," takes place on Israel's 125th Independence Day, immediately after the dissolution of the Zionist state into a confederation. Is Kimchi attempting to write the history of the Zionist project from a romantic perspective? Kimchi has the answers.
