Ajami - عجمي - עג'מי - It's the Arab Review of Israeli Cinema!

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“It’s called Ajami. No, not the Ajami in Alexandria - it’s a neigbourhood in Yafa.. ever heard of Yafa? It’s a city, on the Mediterranean. They used to plant oranges there... oranges and lemons”. This is what I answered my younger brother who asked what I was watching.

On the screen, an Israeli Arab guy was telling the other: “Crystal meth. 200 grams. That’s worth 150,000 shekels”.

Yes, Yafa has changed much.



“Ajami” is a brilliant and deservedly much lauded film, which straightforwardly follows the lives of the people who live there. A neighbourhood of Jaffa - Yafa in Arabic - it has become a hotbed for crime, lawlessness, and poverty. Supposedly part of the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality, an Arab character asserts - in Hebrew- that “here in Jaffa, there’s no municipality. The municipality ends there, at your Tel Aviv”.

Those who follow current events will recognize it as the neighbourhood whose poorer Arab inhabitants are being expelled by Israeli developers, with the complicity of the State, to build beachfront properties for Jews.

The backbone of the film is Omar’s story - a 19-year old whose uncle inadvertently causes a major vendetta. عطوة, they call it. Omar is poised to become the next murdered, and his panicked family - himself, his mother, and two younger siblings - seek mediation with the family that wants him dead.

Other storylines, handily split in chapters, add layers of complexity to the film, and deepness to the characters.

Those include Malek, a 16-year old from Nablus who works illegally in a restaurant in Jaffa, trying to earn the money needed for his mother’s surgery.
Dando, the Jewish policeman working the hot zones of Ajami, father of two who struggles to keep his sanity and his family’s, struck by the murder of their younger son.
Then there’s Binge; the Christian Arab, the hip dopehead with a big heart, who wants to move in with his Jewish girlfriend in neighbouring Neve Tsedek.
There’s Omar and Hadeer’s complex love affair - he’s Muslim, she’s Christian, and the boss’ daughter.

The multiplicity of the stories, along with the film’s non-linear timeline, makes it riveting. The actors - who are not professional actors but Ajami natives who got some acting coaching are amazing. (well, all but one. Hadeer sucks.) Scandar Copti, co-director of the film (alongside Yaron Shani) actually plays Binge.

Most of the film is in Arabic - an Arabic sometimes peppered with Hebrew, the way Palestinian Israelis sometimes speak. Segments in Hebrew are more difficult to understand so I had to rely on the ‘pause-check-dictionary-play-pause-check-dictionary’ technique...

There’s also the insights into the lives of Israeli Arabs. The poverty, the relationships, the solidarity proper to a persecuted minority group. The generational gap, the attraction of a western/Israeli lifestyle as opposed to the traditional family structure (for instance, Omar and Hadeer have to go to Tel Aviv to meet freely).

And I did laugh whenever Arabs use profanity in Hebrew. “Shou, dafouk enta?”



Previous installments of ‘The Arab Review of...”: Kalat Hayam, and Srugim.