Jones, who was born in Berkeley, California, but grew up in Israel,[1] was always hyper-aware of her "Ashkenazi-ness",[2] and wrote about the subject during her studies in Race, Gender and Politics at Hebrew University.

[2][4] When producer Osnat Trabelsi approached the New Israel Fund for backing, she requested that the film be included in its minority track program.

"[7] Noy expounds on the refusal of Ashkenazim to see themselves as an ethnic group, who'd rather view themselves as distinguished from "the other": secular rather than religious, rational rather than emotional, cultures rather than primitive, educated rather than ignorant, not-oriental, not-Arab, and many more "nots".

She praises the filmmakers' choice to blend exposition by articulate experts with random people encountered on the street:[8] This mix not only maintains a dialogue between the research and its subjects, but also makes it clear that Ashkenazi-ness, as is evident in the film, is not only a research subject but also a living and breathing body, albeit repressed: something that, with all the "irrelevance" that some interviewees claim, still provokes emotion.

For example, one of the interviewees broke into a spontaneous recitation of poetry in Yiddish, another eulogized the forgotten language with tears, and there are those who declare that ethnic differences no longer exist, yet evoke images taken directly from the 'database of Ashkenaz'.