---
title: New Documentary Captures ‘The Soldier’s Opinion’
date: 2022-11-08T05:30:00-05:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://today.umd.edu/new-documentary-captures-the-soldiers-opinion"
section: Articles
---
# New Documentary Captures ‘The Soldier’s Opinion’

*November 8, 2022* — by [Jessica Weiss ’05](/author/jessica-weiss-05)


> Film Based on Professor’s Research Sheds Light on Five-Decade ‘Big Brother Apparatus’ in Israel

*Credit Yaron Weinstein1 1920x1080 — For half a century, millions of letters from Israeli military troops were systematically analyzed to give top leadership insight into "The Soldier's Opinion"—the title of a new film film based on a UMD researcher's work.*

Words of longing to distant lovers. Complaints about rotten food and ill health. Admissions of doubt about the motivations for war.

For soldiers fighting on the front lines across the world, letters have long been a way to share personal reflections with those back home.

But for five decades in Israel, it wasn’t just friends and loved ones who pored over soldiers’ most private writings. From 1948 to 1998, the top-secret Postal Censorship Bureau intercepted and copied soldiers’ outgoing personal letters and compiled the findings in biweekly briefings for the country’s military leadership.

That bureau’s work is the subject of a new documentary co-created by University of Maryland Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies Shay Hazkani. The 55-minute film, “The Soldier’s Opinion,” features both the letter writers and the former censors discussing the impact of the bureau’s intrusion—sometimes even face-to-face with each other. Directed by award-winning Israeli film director Assaf Banitt, the film will be screened at UMD tomorrow.


*"The Soldier's Opinion" poster*



**Sidebar note:**

“The Soldier’s Opinion” will [screen tomorrow at 5 p.m.](https://calendar.umd.edu/the-soldiers-opinion) at UMD in H.J. Patterson Hall followed by a panel discussion with the filmmakers. It will also be shown at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the [JCC in Washington, D.C.](https://www.jxjdc.org/events/soldiers-opinion/)





**Topics:** [Arts & Culture](https://today.umd.edu/tags/arts-culture)


**Tags:** [History](https://today.umd.edu/topic/history), [Jewish Studies](https://today.umd.edu/topic/jewish-studies), [Research](https://today.umd.edu/topic/research), [Arts](https://today.umd.edu/topic/arts)


**Units:** [College of Arts and Humanities](https://today.umd.edu/topic/college-arts-and-humanities)