Elizabeth Nord recalls a moment that captured the essence of Israel for her. She was standing in a sea of rather menacing-looking, tattooed, pierced, dyed and mohawk-haired youth outside a music club in Tel Aviv.
Performing that June night a year ago was Chaos Rabak, a popular street punk band in Israel. A car pulled up to the curb, and out walked three religious men — payot, kippot and all.
Nord braced for a fight, but instead watched as a young punk broke from the crowd and embraced one of the men — brother of a band member, Nord discovered.
That, says Nord, is Israel.
It’s the Israel that the S.F.-based independent filmmaker hopes to show everyone in her documentary, “Jericho’s Echo: Punk Rock in the Holy Land.”
“When the current intifada started, I recognized that so many of my peers had such a limited view of what’s going on over there,” says Nord, 27. “I have a particular interest and fondness for the people. I wanted to throw other voices into the mix, to help my peers understand.”
A longtime punk and underground music lover, Nord realized that punks would be outspoken enough to share a very different perspective of Israeli life.
“Punks are the most engaging and captivating characters” whose voices aren’t often represented. Despite their generally bad reputations, the ones she met in Israel were frequently involved in charity and activist groups.
Like the country itself, Israel’s punk scene is “small, young and passionate,” she says. And while punk isn’t what it used to be in the United States, it is growing — quickly — in Israel.
In a hectic month spent in Israel filming and interviewing by herself, four new punk bands had their first shows — not unique here but huge for Israel.
“Punk music tends to take ground when the situation around the people making the music gives them a lot to respond to,” she says.
Given Israel’s rocky political climate, religious restrictions and mandatory military service, it’s no surprise that the punk scene is taking off.
Originally, Nord just planned to follow Useless I.D., an Israeli punk band that’s well known internationally. But when she got to Israel, she realized there was a bigger story. With members approaching their 30s, Useless I.D. offered an older, “more worldly” voice, she says. While that’s important, she wanted to hear what younger punks — especially teens facing military service — had to say.
In all, she interviewed and photographed about 15 bands, ranging from the all-girl hardcore punk group Va’adat Kishoot to ska-punkers Smash4$ (whose members are emigres from Russia) to the street-punk band the Dead Rabins.
Many had lots to say about the military, including confessions by some that they plan to deliberately fail a psychological assessment, thereby becoming legally psychotic and unable to serve. Others share their thoughts on Israel’s religious right, suicide bombings, the security barrier and the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (quite a few are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause but don’t believe the “road map’s” call for two separate states will work). Still others prefer to avoid anything political and use their music as escapist fun.
Political lyrics or not, she says, they’re all making a political statement just “by the way they look, by the way they’re living. If a band’s lyrics aren’t political but the band members are refuseniks, that says something to me.”
But almost all said their music meant one thing to them: freedom. Nord says it struck her how important freedom was to these young kids who feel trapped not only by military service, but by ever-present security guards watching their every move in public places.
Oddly enough, she says, the punks were “some of the most hopeful people I met,” who believe that peace is possible and that they could change things.
“Israelis are pretty cynical, and even though some of the things they say are negative [in the film], I saw a lot of hope. They want to make music, despite all the stuff going on and the pressure to follow a mainstream life path.”
Nord’s own path started in a Conservative household in upstate New York. It was around the time of her bat mitzvah that Nord began to question her own direction in Judaism. “It was Orthodox, so I could only do the Haftarah. That’s when I said, ‘Hey, I need to be able to participate the way I want to,'” says Nord.
She and her husband, Seth Hyman, 28, owner of the independent record label Negative Progression Records, have been searching for their own “Jewish niche” since moving to the Bay Area from Boston four years ago.
Nord’s trip to Israel last June was her second; she had gone as a tourist for 10 days five years ago. What amazed her this time was how nonchalant many Israelis are about suicide bombings (one claimed the life of Omri Goldin, frontman of a popular punk band, in a blast last year). “People are apathetic, saying, ‘You just get used to it.’ Again and again I heard that same phrase,” she says.
The film had its first rough-cut screenings in Philadelphia in late August, as part of the Lost Film Festival and at a smaller, private preview. Nord, who graduated summa cum laude from Boston University with a degree in multimedia design and communication, was encouraged by the response.
“They were really excited about the idea. When I saw the religious people come in, you know, tzaddik, I was nervous. There’s some controversial stuff in the movie, but they were the most supportive,” she says.
Nord contemplated submitting the film to the Sundance Film Festival, but the September deadline is too soon. She, editor Joseph Bironas and co-director of photography Steve Lerner are still tweaking it. Nord, who funded the movie by donations from her Web site — www.jerichosecho.com — and at fund-raisers, says she needs about $20,000 to edit the 75-minute documentary.
Nord’s eager to get the film — and its message — out there. “I hope people will come away feeling like there is some hope for the situation in Israel, and that there are some young people who are smart and articulate and committed to making a change for the better.”