The Women Pioneers
Michal Aviad’s intimate documentary portrays the lives of women who helped found Kibbutz Ein Harod between 1920 and 1948. Dreaming of a revolutionary socialist society with gender equality, they worked the land alongside men and handled domestic responsibilities, yet struggled to attain management positions. Archival footage and personal narratives from pioneers’ diaries reveal infidelity, harsh conditions and loneliness. Eden Productions. —Sara Trappler Spielman 

The Dove Flyer
The trauma of exile is not new to Jews, but it’s hard to grasp the shock and pain of being forced from a land you have called home for nearly 2,500 years. The documentary captures the angst, fury and divisions within the community of 130,000 Iraqi Jews condemned to flee beginning in the 1930s through the 1970s what many considered to be their homeland. Israeli Films. —Judith Gelman Myers