Oscar-winner Natalie Portman, born in Jerusalem in 1981, is in Israel, directing and starring in her adaptation of Amos Oz’s “A Tale of Love and Darkness.”
In A Tale of Love and Darkness, Oz chronicles his childhood in Jerusalem at the end of the British Mandate in Palestine and the early years of the State of Israel. As a child, he was lucky enough to meet prominent Israeli figures like Shai Agnon, Shaul Tchernichovsky and David Ben-Gurion. One of his teachers was the poet Zelda. Joseph Klausner was his great-uncle.
Told in a non-linear fashion, Oz’s story is interwoven with tales of his family’s Eastern European roots. Oz’s father recalls how the walls in Europe were covered in graffiti saying “Jews, go to Palestine,” but when he reached Palestine, the walls were scrawled with the words “Jews, get out of Palestine.”
The NY Times reported Haredi protest graffiti in Nachlaot, where Portman is shooting, calling her production a “foreign invasion.”
But she’s from Jerusalem!
Which goes to show you that good graffiti requires good research, like everything else.