Maya Ben Yair was the inaugural Lumer Fellow. Her film, Maydeleh and the Prisoner (2017), was supported by the fellowship. Its inspiration stems from her identity as an international Israeli student, her interest in the American approach to Jewish studies, and her double major in film production and screenwriting.
Ben Yair discovered the Jewish Studies department through her involvement with Jewish Student Life. She was close with the campus rabbi, an after meeting Professor Holli Levitsky, she became interested in exploring Jewish Studies in a way that differed from her experience in Israel—an approach that was more focused on culture and history rather than the religious aspect of Judaism. This interest manifested in her film, which would go on to premiere at the Laemmle Theatre in Santa Monica, and would then screen at the Cannes Film Festival "Short Film Corner" in 2018.
Maydeleh and the Prisoner is about a Holocaust survivor who sustains an injury that requires him to have a live-in caretaker. A Japanese woman takes on that role, and he gives her the Yiddish nickname of "Maydeleh." The film is a beautiful representation of cultural memory and intergenerational trauma, and Ben Yair managed to approach a story that has been told so many times—that of a Holocaust survivor—from a unique angle. She cites her discussions with Professor Levitsky and Mrs. Estee Lumer as the catalyst for developing the film with this perspective.
"I didn't want to do anything using the mythology of the Holocaust for drama . . . I didn't want to abuse it for its dramatic appeal," Ben Yair said. "Through talking to these women, I was able to find an angle that was a bit more profound."
Jewish and Japanese approaches to resilience—simultaneously distinct to each culture yet universally human—are embedded in the film, stemming from the ways in which both cultures experienced and responded to trauma. Ben Yair was interested in juxtaposing the Jewish-Israeli culture she grew up in alongside an Eastern tradition of mindfulness in response to hardship.
Coming to the U.S. alone as a college student, Ben Yair experienced her own challenges. She worked full-time while double majoring, and as an Israeli citizen, she had already served in the military prior to attending LMU. After college, when she landed a job at Netflix, she encountered challenges with her work visa. For nine months before her visa was renewed, she worked from many different places across the globe outside of the U.S.: The Philippines, Singapore, Japan, Korea, Brazil, multiple European countries, and of course, her home base of Israel. She is now able to work in the U.S., but nearly a year after she received her work visa, COVID hit. This experience as a "nomad," as Ben Yair described it, tested her resilience.
Despite these obstacles, she prevailed. She still works at Netflix, now managing a team that organizes post-production facilities for Netflix creatives and filmmakers. While it wasn't the role she originally envisioned taking on, she loves doing this work to cultivate an environment for others as they experience a film for the first time. She's taken a break from writing scripts but has been writing proses (short stories and personal essays) that are inspired by her time traveling the world and isolation during quarantine.
Ben Yair is grateful for Professor Levitsky's guidance as the professor helped her brainstorm and find her voice, and she advises Jewish Studies minors to do the same, ". . . look inward and find the individual angle on something that's so common to all of us. Find your personal voice in it."
