The film takes place in Tel Aviv, much of it in a fictitious local pub called Barbie, a satirical nickname for a famous Israeli mental health institution. The pub's name hints at the characters and the events which occur in the pub and which befall its owner (Daliah), the employees and customers. The plot unfolds with a streak of violence which takes a surprising turn.
Gila AlmagorDaliah
Shuli RandBenny
Irit FrankLioraEzra KafriEli
Sharon AlexanderNimi
Avital DickerRicky
Smadar KilchinskyDanielaAkram TillawiSamirTsipor AizenNavaDanny LitaniCzerniak
Meduzot (the Hebrew word for Jellyfish) tells the story of three very different Israeli women living in Tel Aviv whose intersecting stories weave an unlikely portrait of modern Israeli life. Batya, a catering waitress, takes in a young child apparently abandoned at a local beach. Batya is one of the servers at the wedding reception of Keren, a young bride who breaks her leg in trying to escape from a locked toilet stall, which ruins her chance at a romantic honeymoon in the Caribbean. One of the guests is Joy, a Philippine chore woman attending the event with her employer, and who doesn't speak any Hebrew (she communicates mainly in English), and who is guilt-ridden after having left her young son behind in the Philippines.
Escaping death, a Hebrew infant is raised in a royal household to become a prince. Upon discovery of his true heritage, Moses embarks on a personal quest to reclaim his destiny as the leader and liberator of the Hebrew people.
An American Army officer is recruited by the yet to exist Israel to help them form an army. He is disturbed by this sudden appeal to his Jewish heritage. Each of Israel's Arab neighbors has vowed to invade the poorly prepared country as soon as partition is granted. He is made commander of the Israeli forces just before the war begins.
An Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.
In 1976, four hijackers take over an Air France airplane en route from Tel Aviv to Paris and force it to land in Entebbe, Uganda. With 248 passengers on board, one of the most daring rescue missions ever is set in motion.
Two childhood friends are recruited for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.
Eyal, an Israeli Mossad agent, is given the mission to track down and kill the very old Alfred Himmelman, an ex-Nazi officer, who might still be alive. Pretending to be a tourist guide, he befriends his grandson Axel, in Israel to visit his sister Pia. The two men set out on a tour of the country, during which Axel challenges Eyal's values.
Disappointed with humanity, God wants to revoke his contract with humanity and wants to take back the stone tablets containing the ten commandments. To this end an angel is sent out to affect the personal lives of three humans so an appropriate child may be conceived.
After living abroad, Lana returns to the United States, and finds that her uncle is a reclusive vagabond with psychic wounds from the Vietnam War.
Or shoulders a lot: she's 17 or 18, a student, works evenings at a restaurant, recycles cans and bottles for cash, and tries to keep her mother Ruthie from returning to streetwalking in Tel Aviv. Ruthie calls Or "my treasure," but Ruthie is a burden. She's just out of hospital, weak, and Or has found her a job as a house cleaner. The call of the quick money on the street is tough for Ruthie to ignore. Or's emotions roil further when the mother of the youth she's in love with comes to the flat to warn her off. With love fading and Ruthie perhaps beyond help, Or's choices narrow.
In 1980, the black Falashas in Ethiopia are recognised as genuine Jews and are secretly carried to Israel. The day before the transport the son of a Jewish mother dies. In his place and with his name (Schlomo) she takes a Christian 9-year-old boy.
Ari Ben Canaan, a passionate member of the Jewish paramilitary group Haganah, attempts to transport 600 Jewish refugees on a dangerous voyage from Cyprus to Palestine on a ship named the Exodus. He faces obstruction from British forces, who will not grant the ship passage to its destination.
A family with five kids in the 80s get into a crisis when twin brothers fall in love with the same girl.
The trial story of Viviane Amsalem's five year fight to obtain her divorce in front of the only legal authority competent for divorce cases in Israel, the Rabbinical Court.
Two pairs of assassins are sent by a holocaust survivor's son to bring the last Nazi for a show trial in Israel.
Life in a Tel Aviv apartment complex, an urban mosaic whose seedy characters, try as they might, can't get out of one another's faces. Gabi, a bobbed haired sexpot, and her lover Hezi—who's older, balding and married—rent a room to have an affair, while Ezra, a pot bellied divorcee, supervises an illegal construction site next door. All this racket drives Schwartz, a Holocaust survivor, to a mental breakdown. Other characters include illegal Chinese immigrants, a teenage boy who's afraid to serve in the army, and a corrupt police detective.
After years of sexual denial, Yiftach leaves his family to live alone in Tel-Aviv. Attracted to men but torn between his former and new life, Yiftach is consumed with blame and feels disconnected from everything around him. The drama moves between different time periods, raising penetrating questions regarding prejudice and life on the fringes of society.
The story of a platoon of Israeli soldiers in Lebanon of 1986, shortly before Israeli withdrawal, and the dilemmas they face in having to fight against Lebanese guerilla in a hostile but civilian area.
Based on a true operation by Israeli commandos. An Air France flight is hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The airplane landed in Uganda. The terrorists released some passengers, keeping 94 Jews and 12 air crew hostage. The Israeli government would not negotiate. A rescue plan was devised, and less than 100 commandos were flown across Africa to rescue the passengers in surprisingly successful operation.
A Jew and an Arab in Israel become romantically involved, much to their family's dismay.