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