Sh'Chur (Hebrew: שחור) is a 1994 Israeli drama film starring Gila Almagor, Ronit Elkabetz and Hanna Azoulay-Hasfari.

Sh'Chur received critical acclaim and was the 1994 official Israeli submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

[1] Cheli, a successful Israeli television personality, receives news that her father has died and she must immediately return to her childhood home for the funeral.

Her mother and older sister Pnina, who is both developmentally disabled and an extremely potent medium, attempt to remedy these problems with sh’chur (traditional magic rituals).

Pnina remains outside of the institution and lives with their mother, while Cheli has accepted the role of sh’chur in her life and forged a strong bond with her daughter for the first time.

[2] The film was both praised and criticized in Israeli academic circles for subverting the traditional media portrayal of the warm, close-knit Mizrahi family, which was popularized by the Bourekas genre.

[2] Scriptwriter Azoulay-Hasfari states “After I finished school, I saw those Boureka [sic] films later and I didn’t see myself—or the group I came from—represented properly in them.”[3] Sh’Chur was also accused of reinforcing stereotypes about Middle Eastern and North African Jews such as laziness, misogyny, and rigidity.

[4] Unlike forms of Jewish mysticism such as Kabbalah, which is considered admirable in specific circumstances, sh’chur is often viewed as vulgar and primitive in Israeli society.

[3][7] It has been suggested that the various ailments of Rachel’s family, including blindness, mental illness, autism, and bedwetting, symbolically represent primitivism.

[5] Dov Halfon of Ha’aretz wrote “Sh’chur has broken one of the central tenets of traditional Sephardic thought: Always blame the Ashkenazis.”[5] The film was a subject of extensive debate among Israeli academics for its perceived negative portrayal of Mizrahi Jewish community.

Some critics complain that Sh’Chur portrays Mizrahim as responsible for their own marginalization and, as a result, in need of saving by the Ashkenazi dominant society.