Operation Maya

Directed by Shaul Shalhin

The film opens with a monologue by a year five pupil who goes to primary school in the city of Rishon LeZion, outside Tel Aviv. He addresses the camera and a recent incident that happened in class, which helped his fellow pupils and himself learn how to better treat “new kids and new people.” Thus begins the story of Maya Kajinowski, who arrives at the school as part of the tidal wave of mass Jewish migration to Israel, following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early ‘90s. Maya struggles to integrate and assimilate, as the native children continue to tease her, relentlessly, for her accent and looks, and flat out refuse to sit next to her. When the bullying and humiliation reach their nastiest peak, after which the children’s treatment of Maya finally starts to change, Maya too turns a corner and goes from the new immigrant and perennial outsider to a student, just like everyone else.