The day Nava Rosenfeld announced she wanted to join the Israeli army in 2003, she was 59, an established architect in Tel Aviv and a grandmother of six.
Her family had a wide range of reactions.
Her husband, a retired veteran who fought for Israel in multiple wars, was outraged. “It’s too dangerous!” he yelled at her. “What are you trying to prove?” One daughter, who was pregnant, cried. She wanted her mother to be around for support.
Her other daughter, Shevi Rosenfeld, had a different idea: She wanted to come along — with a video camera.
“I wasn’t really that surprised,” the filmmaker says about her mother’s decision to head to the front lines. “My mother has always been very independent, always done exactly what she wants to do.”
Eight years later, the younger Rosenfeld is sharing the story of her mother’s gumption with “My Mom the General,” a documentary that follows Nava on a journey to fulfill what she sees as her duty to defend Israel during the intifada. The feature-length film will be shown at San Francisco’s Women’s Building on Thursday, March 17. In Hebrew with English subtitles, it raises questions about ageism, challenges assumptions about the role of women in the military, and touches on the political gap between young Israelis and their parents’ generation.
Rosenfeld says it was eye-opening to watch her mother take on both the physical and mental challenges that basic training demanded of her — learning how to shoot an M16, but also holding her own against the male-dominated culture of the Israel Defense Forces.
“The head of the base was really condescending, really patronizing to her most of the time,” recalls Rosenfeld. “She got very upset when they weren’t putting her to work and she didn’t have anything to do. And that’s when she started getting to know other women soldiers at the base and talking about feminism.”
When she could step away from the fact that the protagonist was her mother (no small feat), the filmmaker says it also was fascinating to consider the political chasm between how she and her parents viewed the State of Israel.
“I’m a lot more left-wing than my parents,” Rosenfeld explains. “My thinking was more along the lines of, there are better ways to be helpful than joining this powerful side of the Israeli army. But during the shooting I stopped talking in terms of left and right. I understood that she wanted to do something, more than it was about any political issue.”
The documentary has been screened at film festivals in Israel and Greece and broadcast on cable television in Israel, Spain and Portugal. Rosenfeld only recently has begun showing it in the Bay Area, her adopted home for the past two years. The filmmaker moved from Israel to San Francisco when her husband was hired by a local tech company.
As for the film’s reception, she says it’s been interesting to see how audiences of different ages and backgrounds react to the questions raised.
“When I’ve shown it to Israeli women [in the U.S.], the discussion after the screening is filled with their own stories — about how [it’s possible] to not live in Israel and still be a patriot,” she says. “And older women from all backgrounds talk about getting older. That question of hitting 60 and going, ‘What is my place? What do I want to achieve, and how do I fit in? And who needs me, anyway?’ ”
Ultimately, she says, if the film gets viewers thinking and talking, it’s a success. And on a personal level, Rosenfeld says the process of showing the film serves as a constant reminder of her mother’s strength as a woman and a human being.
“There was something naive about this idea, I think, but she’s a very intelligent, very warm, very unusual woman. You’ll see, when you see her talking to some of these veterans. She really touches people,” Rosenfeld says. “And in the end, she does things the way she wants to do them.”
“My Mom the General” screens at 8:30 p.m. Thursday, March 17 at the Women’s Building, 3543 18th St., S.F. The event is free. For information or to RSVP, e-mail [email protected].