The House on Chelouche Street

The film tells the story of a Sephardi family of Egyptian Jewish immigrants from Alexandria that settle in 1947 Tel Aviv. The family consists of a 33-year-old widowed wife, Clara, (played by Gila Almagor, one of the most prominent actresses in Israel for the last three decades) and her four children. They live in a working-class neighborhood surrounded by their extended family, including Clara's mother Mazal, Clara's uncle Rafael, and Sultana, his wife.

The plot centers on the firstborn, Sami, his transition from a shy 15-year-old to a working man and an activist in the "Irgun" (a resistance movement that acted mainly against the military forces of the British), and the romantic attachment he develops with a 25-year-old Russian immigrant librarian (Michal Bat-Adam, now a director). In addition to this, Clara struggles between social pressure to take a husband and her own complex feelings surrounding this, complicated by another Sephardi Egyptian, played by Yosef Shiloach, who has strong feelings for her.

The film is a vivid and very credible description of the lives of Sephardi immigrant families on the eve of the declaration of the state of Israel. Also covered are the escalating violence between British forces and the local populace, as well as Palestinian Arab violence towards Jews.

• Gila Almagor as Clara
• Ofer Shalhin as Sami
• Michal Bat-Adam as Sonia
• Yosef Shiloach as Nissim
• Rolf Brin as Grossman

• List of submissions to the 46th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
• List of Israeli submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

Wikimedia Commons has media related to The House on Chelouche Street.

• The House on Chelouche Street at IMDb