Sallah Shabati

Infobox Film
name = Sallah Shabati


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director = Ephraim Kishon
producer = Menahem Golan
writer =
narrator =
starring = Chaim Topol
music =
cinematography =
editing =
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released = flag|Israel June 1964
flag|USA March 10 1965
runtime = 110 minutes
country = Israel
language = Hebrew
budget =
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imdb_id = 0058541

"Sallah Shabati" ( _he. סאלח שבתי) is a motion picture comedy about the chaos of Israeli immigration and resettlement that introduced actor Chaim Topol ("Fiddler on the Roof") to audiences worldwide. This social satire placed the director Ephraim Kishon and producer Menahem Golan among the first Israeli filmmakers to achieve international success.

The film's name, Sallah Shabati is a play on words; ostensibly a Yemenite Jewish name, it is also intended to evoke the phrase סליחה שבאתי, (lit. "Forgive me for coming"), equivalent to "excuse me for living" in English.

This film was nominated for a 1964 Academy Award in the category of Best Foreign Language Film, a first for an Israeli production, but it lost the Oscar to the Italian film, "Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow".

Plot

The film begins with Sallah Shabati, a Mizrahi Jewish immigrant, arriving with his family in Israel. Upon arrival he is brought to live in a "ma'abara", or transit camp. He is given a broken down, one room shack in which to live in with his family and spends the rest of the movie attempting to make enough money to purchase adequate housing. His money making schemes are often comical and frequently satirizes the political and social stereotypes in Israel of the time.

External links

*imdb title|id=0058541|title=Sallah Shabati