The world got shocked on the 4th of November, 1995, when Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin got assassinated.* While Rabin did not set out to change the foundation of Israel's relations with the Palestinians, he nonetheless wanted to grant them some autonomy. This enraged Israel's far-right religious community, who saw him as a traitor. His assassin, Yigal Amir, came from this community.
Yaron Zilberman's "Yamim noraim" ("Incitement" in English) focuses on Amir and his radicalization. Israel's submission to the 92nd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film depicts the religious establishment as the ones who drove Amir to murder Rabin, even if they didn't tell him to do so. They put up posters of Rabin depicting him as Israel's enemy. Either way, these are some scary individuals; it's almost as if they inspired the Taliban. We saw similar depictions of Obama from the far right (many of them evangelical Christians) in the US. Regardless of the religion, fundamentalists are no one to trust.
Overall, this is a fine movie. In keeping the focus on Yigal Amir, it shows his evolution from typical Orthodox person to full-on fanatic. Frightening stuff. Definitely see it.
*I was approximately the same age at that time that my parents were when JFK got assassinated. As Mark Twain put it, history doesn't always repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes.
