Shoshana is the Love Story We Need
By Aaron Gold
True Story. Shoshana is the true story of Shoshana Borochov, a young Jewish woman who falls in love with a British officer amid the turmoil of the 1930s Tel Aviv. The movie takes place as her Christian boyfriend, a British police officer, is tasked alongside his boss, to arrest Avraham Stern and his fighters who made up the Lehi; also known as the Stern Gang. Shoshana must decide where her loyalties lies as the British take an increasingly hard line against the Jews following the Arab Revolt from 1936-1939 and the White Power in 1939.
It is a fascinating story. Shoshana was the daughter of Ber Borochov, who was one of the founders of the socialist Zionism. Ber dedicated his life to building socialist Zionist political parties in Russia. He founded the Zionist Socialist Worker’s Party in 1905 and the Jewish Social Democratic Labour Party (Poalei Zion) in 1906. He unfortunately died in Kiev in 1917. In 1926, Shoshana (aged 13), her brother, and her mother, Lyuba, immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine Eretz Yisrael.
Starshenbaum is brilliant. Shoshana, a sharp and open-minded moderate socialist and Zionist, is masterfully played by Irina Starshenbaum, a Russian Jewish actress in her first English-speaking film. Starshenbaum is bold and dynamic. She embodies a woman ahead of her time, a new Jew, a Zionist, an Israeli-to-be, who is confident in her decisions and contradictions, whose personal and political complexities are smoothed over with courage and charm. Her boyfriend in the movie is Tom Wilkin, who is played by Douglas Booth, an English actor who played Mr. Bingley in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Tom is the Assistant Superintendent in the Criminal Investigation Department of the British Palestine Police. In real life, Shoshana and Tom were married for ten years. The movie just shows them as boyfriend and girlfriend.
Watch the trailer for Shoshana here
Tom’s boss, Geoffrey Morton, is played by Harry Melling. Melling is probably most famous for playing Dudley Dursley in Harry Potter, but I know him best from Harry Beltik, the reigning Kentucky state chess champion in The Queen’s Gambit. Morton is the British police officer who is brought in to find and arrest Stern. In real life, he left Israel in 1945. Like so many others, the Jewish people outlasted him. Morton’s utilitarian and inhumane methods, predicated on his blinding ambitions, need for recognition and disdain for the Jews, are pitted against Tom, his subordinate, who is sympathetic to Jews and Zionism.
The movie exhibits the main anxieties, crises and debates during the 1930s Mandate period: how to achieve Jewish independence, what constitutes Jewish self-identity, the role of women in modern society, the response to Arab terrorism, how to deal with the British Empire, and the rise of Nazi Germany. All of these are tied up in the question of how to properly safeguard the Jewish people in Eretz Yisrael and beyond admin a myriad of never-ending external threats and internal setbacks and complications. Nothing is ever easy, and the stakes are sky high – independence is so close we can feel it in the air. The arguments that will win out and the decisions that will be made will have a lasting impact on the Jews living in the land and potentially, their third sovereignty if hope wins out.
The Zionist Dream. If the Zionist dream does come to fruition, what will it look like? How will Jews now identify now that exile is over and we are once again a free people in our own land? How will Israel deal with all of the issues that are still present, from integrating refugees, distributing social services, creating a political system, and building Jewish life, to defending Israel from Arab terrorists near and far and their state allies intent on undoing all that we have built? Shoshana beautifully tackles these issues as the movie progresses. We hear the arguments on all side of these issues. Some are marked by inconvenient facts and moral quandaries; some are defined by momentous historic urgencies and selfless bravery. Others are arguments from self-serving nefarious actors who can only by characterized by half-truths and deliberate lies.
The White Paper in May 1939 and then Britain’s entry into WWII in September 1939 sets the course of our characters on an unavoidable clash with history as Soshana is tasked with one a heart-wrenching decision after another. Set against the beauty of Tel Aviv, despite being frustrated and sometimes angry with her, we cannot help but root for her. Deep down, we know she will make the right decision.
I did not sense any large ideological agenda with Shoshana. There wasn’t any pitiful Western gaze that examined this complicated Mandate period love story from the perspective of 21st century British politics. It was just a good movie.
In the end, hope is not lost. Shoshana gives us the deep pain and sorrow of the 1930s. We hear about the Shoah. We see the British double-standards and betrayals; the irrational and genocidal Arab terrorism; and the overwhelming nature of the Zionist moment. But, we also see the hope of what is around the corner. More than anything, Soshana embodies that hope, even if that hope is a winding road, long, too long, be soon to be found because, in the end, the real love story is with the land and its people.
By Aaron Gold. Aaron Gold is a writer and the founder of The Hasmonean.
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