On the Cutting Room Floor

...The Mandate authorities favored such censorship for the familiar if fuzzy reasons: to protect public morals, to prevent offense to community standards, to avoid incitement to religious or ethnic strife...

...Now the police didn't know what to do...

...In one scene he tortures an Arab by burning him with Shabbat candles...

...But on the odd occasion, they make highly questionable judgments, as in banning a silly if harmless film like In Praise of Older Women, or in demanding cuts of political plays...

...When statehood was declared, the provisional Jewish government inherited a body of laws from the British Mandate authorities...

...As with most of Levin's previous plays, this one made fun of many aspects of Israel...

...Film director Ne'eman said he would challenge the ban in court...

...The police were called in and threatened to bust the cast...

...It is just because of the odd occasion, however, that we must ask if censorship works or should exist...

...To see if he qualifies as a potential West Bank landowner, settlers there subject the Patriot to a number of tests...

...In view of recent history, the founders of Israel understandably considered censorship of printed matter abhorrent, and today even pro-PLO propaganda may be purchased in Israel...

...If a subcommittee favors cuts in a film, however, or wants advice, more members will be called in, and on something deemed truly controversial, the full Board may take the matter under review...

...Some Knesset members joined in and howled about a theater that receives government subsidies (almost all Israeli theaters do) refusing to abide by the censor...

...The whole question of censoring films, of course, is rapidly becoming academic, with the growth in popularity of home video systems and the looming possibility of satellite and cable TV, none of which can be policed by the Censorship Board...

...Generally the view of the subcommittee is adopted as adequate for full Board recommendation...

...A number of Knesset members—and surprisingly among them is Tehiya's Geula Cohen, who politically is to the right of Nero—have called for the abolition of the Censorship Board...

...Whatever our problems, restrictions on full and free expression is not among them...

...But it's not just Arabs who can run afoul of the censor—or of public opinion...

...It was clearly a bad film from an artistic point of view—uneven pace, weak narrative line, vague character development and motivation—and its main aim seemed to be titillation...

...It was an Arabic production that preached Palestinian propaganda and outright hatred of Israel," says Justman...

...Shinui member Mordechai Virshubski, for example, said that "the Board had exceeded its authority, because the film did not endanger state security...

...Among the men and women on the Board are a criminologist, several other social scientists, some university students, the head of Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Hospital, the director of the adult-education division of the Ministry of Education and Culture, several journalists, an Arab and so on...

...In Israel few plays have ever incurred the censor's wrath...

...It was not the political message of the play, says Justman, that brought about the ban, but those specific elements—the use of Shabbat candles as instruments of torture and the direct paralleling of Israelis with Nazis...

...The board reviewed 58 plays, one of which was cut and one of which was banned...

...We thought this was a harmful film that served enemy interests and could incite community strife...

...The Interior Minister selects a Board chairman, who serves on a voluntary basis, usually for five years...

...Meanwhile, the Performing Artists Association threatened to darken all of Israel's theater...

...In addition to being a moment contributing editor, Nesvisky is an editor and feature writer for The Jerusalem Post...

...Next night the actors performed the play with the offensive scenes removed—but they distributed the excisions in mimeographed form to the audience...

...A storm of protest immediately followed the announcement of the ban...

...Israel's lively and often scrappy theater will remain under the censor's scrutiny, however, and therein lies the chief cause for concern...

...The answer is Matthew Nesvisky's articles from Israel appear regularly in these pages...

...In terms of criticism of the State," he told me, "other segments in the film were much stronger than the part we decided to ban...

...interesting, if not entirely satisfying, and an examination of the workings of the Film and Theater Censorship Board helps show how—at least in one respect—Israel understands democracy...

...I should add that I am here describing the situation in Israel proper...

...We shared the feeling that some of the cut scenes were nauseating, while others were innocuous or even funny...

...That year the board passed the movie, The Night Porter, which featured Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling...

...in the administered territories, it is not Israeli civil law but Israeli military law, based on emergency regulations, that controls...

...The Board responded by reviewing the film again, and then revoking its license...

...The distributors of the film appealed the ban in the courts and lost...

...Last fall, the Haifa Theater production of Yehoshua Sobol's The Soul of a Jew opened, having passed the censor...

...But if Israel permits a free flow of artistic and political expression in print, why the mechanism of prior review of films and plays...

...A happy ending and a victory for free speech...

...Even Sweden, which has long been famous for allowing anything sexual in the movies, has been cracking down on the violence...

...18 lines were deleted from the play, the show went on and it folded shortly thereafter...

...In the end, an out-of-court settlement was reached...

...The Board members supposedly represent the spectrum of educated and concerned Israeli society...

...I never inquire into anyone's political views...

...Two were banned because of pornography combined with sadism and perversion...

...Last Tango in Paris, for example, is certainly a film that shocked many people...

...So the suicide made a point about his Jewish self-hatred...

...But that isn't our criterion...

...Not forgetting that the preservation of both requires constant vigilance, Israel's press, writers and concerned citizens and Knesset members seem to be waging the good fight, and waging it well, to preserve free speech...

...Sinai as a hoax would also be banned...

...It is as if super-sensitive amplifiers were placed at every angle, to insure that no sour note will go unheard...

...In 1978, for example, 16 films out of 23S reviewed were banned for porn and violence, and one more was banned because, as Justman describes it, "It was a PLO propaganda movie that asserted that all of the Land of Israel had been stolen from the Arabs...

...The Board then screened in full one of the films it had banned...

...we didn't know why male nudity is always considered more shocking than female nudity, and we felt that In Praise of Older Women must have offended more by its idiocy than by its erotic content...

...We are very aware of our responsibility," says Justman, "and I want to stress that our tendency is not to censor...

...Film and theater censorship (forgive one more parenthetical intrusion: none of the following discussion relates to press censorship of military information, which falls under the aegis of the army) is administered by the Interior Ministry...

...The censors, in unseemly scramble, reassembled to review the play once more...

...Consider the censor's reasoning: "The views of the hero of The Soul of a Jew, " says Justman, "are a historical fact...

...Nor have they ever questioned any of my nominees to the Board...

...This is the one requiring film and theater censorship...

...We'll deal with films first...

...This was surprising, because traditionally, both in Israel and abroad, censors are more liberal about the stage than they are about the cinema...

...Says Justman: "The composition of the Board shifts every two years, but we always have a wide variety of volunteers, including members of minority communities, observant and non-observant Jews, and the like...

...One could conclude from all this that if you hope to mount a play in Israel that criticizes Jews, you are advised (a) not to do it in Arabic, and (b) to make sure your protagonist is psychotic...

...We think that the depiction of such violence or violent sex can be harmful, and so we either cut or ban such films...

...The Association for Civil Rights demanded that the ban be revoked...

...You can debate whether or not there should be a censorship board...

...And now we come to the curious case of The Patriot...

...All other laws from the Mandate period remained on the books...

...Justman acknowledges that censorship is a delicate and dangerous business...

...Whether the public has the right to be nauseated or titillated, whether pornographers should be free to peddle their wares, the fact that no one is forced to attend the cinema—all these are matters that Justman is not overly concerned with...

...As noted, of the 58 plays scrutinized by the censor last year, one was banned on political grounds...

...The journalists left the screening room puzzled about the Board's standards...

...Control of foreign currency, for example, which the British had instituted as an emergency measure during World War II, was found useful by Israel's Labor government and was enforced right up until 1977, when the Likud replaced Labor and radically relaxed such restrictions...

...Laws restricting Jewish immigration were immediately rendered null and void...

...The incident brought to mind a case in 197S when the Censorship Board seemed to act with dubious wisdom...

...Some films have been banned because of religious sensibilities...

...three or four naked couples going at it in an amiable atmosphere in a single bed...

...The press therefore charged that the film was being banned for political reasons—either that Israel was bowing to pressure from Turkey, or that Israel on its own was wary of offending the Turks by licensing the film...

...Israeli artists recognized this principle...

...I think it would be a mistake for Israel to go against this trend, especially as we do not have the most sophisticated, best educated population in the world...

...If I or any of us ever suspected there was the slightest attempt to influence us, I'm sure none of us would stay on the Board for one minute...

...several scenes showing full-frontal male nudity...

...Until recently, that is...

...Among the excised scenes: a woman apparently having intercourse with a butcher knife...

...Board members serve two-year terms, also unpaid, and may serve a second two-year term...

...In the end, as so often happens, a compromise was reached...

...But while there is, and while the law requires censorship, we do our job as well—and I think as liberally and as fairly—as we can...

...It is still in force today...

...He easily passes...

...and—this one you had to see to believe—a man having his penis tatooed...

...Turkey is also reportedly a route for Jews who manage to flee Syria...

...The theater company refused to heed the ban on The Patriot and went on with the premiere...

...In response to criticism of its function, the Board decided a few years back to hold a year-end press conference for certain members of the media to present their annual report and to show examples of what had been cut and banned...

...The Board's annual report for 1982, which was released recently, shows that it reviewed 214 films, of which 60 were given age limits, two were cut and seven were banned...

...This particular section showed Israel Defense Force officers using physical and psychological pressure to induce a West Bank Arab farmer to sell land...

...As long as the law exists, he says, and because he happens to agree with it, he will administer censorship as judiciously as he can...

...Then, in an unusual step, the Attorney-General, without being asked, opined that the Censorship Board had overstepped its authority...

...Almost every country in the world has it in one form or another, and few of those are considering doing away with it," he says...

...Joshua Justman thinks the abolition of censorship unlikely...

...Similar controversy arose in respect to a number of recent theater productions...

...The Board chairman is Joshua Justman, a journalist who until recently headed the Jerusalem bureau of the afternoon daily Ma'ariv...

...The distributor of the film went to court and said that if the film had once been passed, it shouldn't be subjected to renewed scrutiny...

...The subcommittees find that the great majority of what they see requires no censoring, although often they will assign a minimum age limit or suggested age limit for a film...

...Reports of the subcommittee's proposed ban, however, were leaked to the press, and soon rumors arose that the Foreign Ministry in fact had pressed for banning the film, at the behest of the Turkish ambassador...

...What has moved some Knesset members to advocate abolishing the Board is its alleged censoring on political grounds...

...Among other critics, Haifa's rabbinical council and Jerusalem's chief rabbi decried this display of anti-Jewish sentiment...

...And so is his suicide, which is shown on stage...

...This play, again by Hanoch Levin, was produced by the Neve Zedek Theater, a fringe company in Tel Aviv...

...The Interior Minister, meanwhile, rapped the Attorney-General for expressing an opinion on the case, since no one had solicited his legal opinion...

...Justman also holds a law degree, and among other things in his long career, he once served as a member of Israel's mission to the UN...

...Israel maintains the censorship for the same reasons...

...The other four were forbidden because of gratuitous and revolting violence...

...One would hope so...

...I once got a first-hand look at what the Israeli censors had forbidden the public...

...The most recent (April 1983) was "Bank Accounts...

...The board's failure to "sell" the journalists on the wisdom of its judgments apparently convinced Justman to skip such a "porn party" for the press this year...

...With such flat condemnation by the censor, the producers of the play apparently felt it would be futile to challenge the ban in the courts...

...That film eventually passed...

...The view seems to be that the theater offers a "more legitimate" literature than the screen does, and that the theater is a time-honored temple of ideas...

...In the West Bank, for example, it is illegal to possess many publications that are freely available in Israel proper—and, for that matter, in East Jerusalem...

...Hence when, some months ago, a new play—The Patriot— was banned by Israel's censors, some who read of the ban must surely have concluded that it was merely another example of—take your pick, depending on your perspective—^ 1) the unfortunate costs of living in a nation besieged or (2) the steady narrowing of Israeli democracy...

...As time went by, many of these laws would be rescinded or altered to meet the needs of the Jewish state, but it was found convenient to leave many untouched...

...We don't go about hoping to find things to cut or ban...

...The full Board eventually viewed the film and passed it, but suspicions lingered that politics had reared its nasty head at the censor's office...

...Although like Superstar, the film had been made in Israel—we appreciate the bucks—the Board said that showing the crucifixion as a hoax would indeed offend local Christians...

...The fact is these film producers escalate all the time, looking for wilder and more shocking things to show...

...The Board functions by subcommittees, usually numbering three members, to review the hundreds of films and theater productions that must be licensed each year in the country...

...None is an expert on film or theater, or is in any way professionally engaged in those areas, which is probably just as well...

...Israel is sensitive about its relations with Turkey, because it is the only Moslem country with which it has ties and because of concern for the Jewish community there...

...This spring an Israeli film called '83 drew the censor's wrath...

...bad taste, after ail, has been a hallmark of good satire since the age of Petronius...

...But why this two-hour diatribe against the Jews was permitted while the Arabic anti-Israel play was not remains unclear...

...Now all of this provides only the undertone to the question of freedom of expression...

...The Board deliberated long and hard, for example, overJesus Christ Superstar, apparently believing that the depiction of the "earthy' Jesus might offend the Christian community...

...The censors banned no films on political grounds in 1982, but they had in previous years...

...We felt the suicide made the point that the hero had a sick mind...

...The court ruled for the distributor and, despite the raging controversy in the press, the film was shown...

...an interplanetary orgy in which earthlings have congress with characters in Buck Rogers outfits...

...But it was very soft porn...

...TV is not subject to censorship in Israel—remember, the law dates from 1927, before the age of television...

...After a decision is made, a film distributor or theater producer may appeal, in the courts, an age limitation, cut or ban, but then the issue is no longer the Censorship Board's responsibility...

...Says Justman: "Any film that showed the encounter at Mt...

...men in Arab costume fitting a device over a woman's head that gouges out her eyes...

...Justman felt the ban was proper...

...Shortly after the film opened, Holocaust survivors began picketing cinemas, saying they were appalled at the sado-masochistic relationship depicted between the former camp inmate and former Nazi guard...

...The drama deals with a 19th-century Austrian intellectual named Otto Weininger, who for two hours on stage rails against his Jewishness, Judaism in general, such Jewish contemporaries as Freud and Herzl, and the idea of a Zionist state...

...Before doing so, however, he decides to buy some West Bank property, as he is sure this is a good investment...

...Hard-core pornography is plain exploitation, and we don't see why we should have to assist someone to get rich by appealing to prurience...

...A number of Knesset members criticized the decision...

...it showed no perverse acts, no group gropes and no violence...

...Another law predates even the currency regulations...

...As I think we have seen, the Israel censors are generally well-intentioned and conscientious sorts who are not keen to cut, who readily pass the great majority of what they must review and who probably provide a service in protecting the public from grotesque and nauseating images...

...They feel that sufficient laws already exist to deal with porno-sadism or subversion in films and plays, and (hat citizens can seek court injunctions to halt them if they wislt—without the apparatus of a board previewing the material...

...Britain, for example, ended all censorship of plays in 1968 (although observers claim that the English have become much more vigilant in cutting and banning films in recent years...

...So too, for that matter, are democracy and freedom of expression...

...But since it was written in response to the Lebanon war, The Patriot came down especially heavy on the Begin government and on Israeli attitudes towards Arabs...

...The same year a row arose over a possible ban on the movie Midnight Express...

...Deep Throat, on the other hand, was banned...

...If anything, because of the trend of film and theater people going for evermore sensational effects, the drift is towards stricter censorship...

...I've never been a member of any party myself, and I've never had the slightest hint of political pressure from the Interior Ministry...

...In our view this both libelled the army and would agitate and incite the Arab population...

...The Foreign Ministry hastily denied all of this, and Justman maintained that the objections to the film were solely based on its sadism and violence...

...The upshot was that the play was allowed to go on, and what theater critics considered an excellent play by the man who is probably Israel's best playwright enjoyed a successful run and was selected for performance at this summer's Edinburgh Festival...

...Before they are presented to the public, all films and theater productions must be previewed by an official censor...

...Ne'eman was not happy about it, but he agreed to chop some footage, and the ban was lifted...

...A speaker or writer may say what he will—that is, may run the risk of being charged with slander, libel, incitement or endangering the public welfare, as in the English legal tradition—but no prior restraints are placed upon him...

...But the movie version of Hugh Schoenfeld's book, The Passover Plot, was not allowed into Israeli cinemas...

...The eponymous "Patriot" of the play is fed up with Israel and plans to emigrate...

...Stung, Justman felt he had been placed in an untenable position, and demanded the Attorney-General give him more specific guidelines...

...Censors the world over," he adds, wanning to the subject, "are much more concerned about violence on the screen than pornography...

...In another, he kicks an Arab shoeshine boy—and the boy assumes the hands-up posture intentionally reminiscent of the famous photo of the Warsaw Ghetto child facing his Nazi captors...

...I suspect at the moment there isn't a single Likudnik on the Board, but that isn't by design, it just happens to be, and anyway, I wouldn't ask...

...The press raised the issue of free speech, Knesset members made their noises, and the country, which always seems to be in uproar over something, was in uproar once again...

...It turns out, however, that free speech is gustily alive and well in Israel...

...But the play generated an explosion of outrage...

...A series of heavy-handed satirical sketches, The Patriot was a production that most theater critics believed would have died a well-deserved death in a week or two—had it not been for the censor's interference...

...In practical terms, I think this means that any film or play of artistic merit will be passed...

...The chairman in tum nominates a Board, to be approved by the ministry, that currently numbers 25...

...It was a Canadian production called In Praise of Older Women, directed by George Kaczender and starring Karen Black and Susan Strasberg...

...The British introduced it back in 1927...

...Of the seven we banned last year," Justman says, "one was out-and-out hard-core porn...

...The film consists of five segments, all of them concerned with the Israeli presence on the West Bank...

...As mentioned earlier, no movies were banned for political or religious reasons in 1982, but 1983 got off with a bit of a bang...

...With one exception...

...The subcommittee that viewed the film reportedly saw no redeeming value in the story of an American drug-runner being brutalized in a Turkish prison...

...All this developed into a good old-fashioned war of the Jews, with the debate raging in the press for weeks...

...But we recognized its serious intent and it passed without problem...

...But even if this were only a question of taste, the issue would not be simple...

...This exception is significant because it affects the widest marketplace in the exchange of ideas, the one that embraces even the unlettered and uneducated...

...The last play to draw any official criticism was Hanoch Levin's The Queen of the Bathtub in 1967 which—heaven for-fend—dared make fun of Golda Meir...

...The Board voted to ban one of the segments, entitled "The Night a King Was Born," directed by Yehuda Ne'eman...

...Other Knesset members said that no civilized nation still censors its theater...

...In any event, the Censorship Board has not become an object of controversy in Israel because of the question of pornography and violence...

...But that play went on and, aside from an occasional eyebrow over a nude scene here and there, Israel's theater appeared immune to the censor's scissors...