Time of Favor

Winner of six Israeli Academy Awards including Best Picture, Time of Favor is a timely, compelling thriller about religious nationalist settlers who conspire to blow up the Dome of the Rock mosque on the Temple Mount, which has become the quintessential symbol of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The story follows Menachem (Aki Avni, current Israeli heartthrob) an Orthodox army officer in the intensive hesder yeshiva program, which combines yeshiva study with service in a combat unit. His mentor is Rabbi Meltzer (veteran actor/director Asi Dayan), who preaches fanatically about the need for Jews to be able to return to pray on the Temple Mount. Menachem falls in love with Michal (the popular Israeli sensation Tinkerbell, also featured in Total Love), the rabbi’s daughter, who has already been promised by her father to Menachem’s best friend Pini. As the love triangle evolves, so does a violent scheme to assume Jewish control of the Temple Mount. The stakes are high and Menachem’s allegiances are put to the test. Whose orders will he obey? Time of Favor is the work of an insider to the culture it portrays. Joseph Ceder was raised in an Orthodox home and lived for a year in a settlement on the West Bank. He based his characters on people he knows well. Messianic nationalist activism is a growing undercurrent in modern day Israel. The film is a study of the motivations behind a movement that is willing to take Israel to the brink.