Beitar Jerusalem is the most popular and controversial football team in Israel and the only club never to sign an Arab player. Mid-way through the 2012-13 season, a secretive transfer deal by the team’s owner brought two Muslim players from Chechnya. The deal inspired the most racist campaign in Israeli sports history that sent the club spiraling out of control.
One season in the life of this famed club is a story of Israeli society, personal identity, politics, money, and a window into how racism is destroying a team and a society from within.
NIF Film Club discussed this film with NIF’s VP of Public Engagement Libby Lenkinski and director Maya Zinshtein.
Watch the film at your own convenience: stream on Netflix
Maya Zinshtein is an Emmy award-winning Israeli documentary filmmaker and journalist with a BA in Cinema and French studies and an MA in Security and Diplomacy from Tel Aviv University. Among numerous prestigious awards, Zinshtein was named best director at the 2016 Jerusalem Film Festival for her acclaimed documentary “Forever Pure” which later went on to win an Emmy award for Outstanding Politics and Government documentary in 2018 (Independent Lens/PBS). For the last ten years, she has directed and produced documentaries broadcast on Israeli TV and abroad including by Netflix, BBC, ARTE/ZDF, and PBS, and screened at over 100 festivals around the world. For years as an investigative journalist (Haaretz newspaper) she covered many of the ills of Israeli society and directed investigative stories for Israeli TV channels.