One Trauma, Two Narratives: Adamah versus Tomorrow’s a Wonderful Day

Abstract

In the three years after World War II, prominent Jewish organizations in the United States and in the Land of Israel made films aimed at promoting Zionist goals. The film Adamah (Helmar Lerski, 1948) was produced in the Land of Israel with the support of the Jewish-American volunteer women’s organization Hadassah. It tells the rehabilitation story of Benjamin, a Holocaust survivor in the Land of Israel. When the final version was sent to Hadassah for approval, the directorate felt that the American public would not relate to it. Hadassah altered the footage and distributed its own version entitled Tomorrow’s a Wonderful Day (1949). This article presents a comprehensive analysis of the main differences between the two representations of trauma, which were taken from the same footage but shaped into two differing narratives. Based on studies in Zionism and a great deal of archival material, it shows how these films epitomized the differences in the perception of trauma and its representations between the Zionist organizations in the Land of Israel and the USA.