5th Paragraph – Invalids

In 5th Paragraph – Invalids, Boris Maftsir and Lilia Tzvokbenkel bring to the screen, for the first time, the story of Soviet Jews who immigrated to Israel in the early 1990s. Through personal, confessional conversations and rare excerpts from Soviet newsreels, the film sheds light on a hidden chapter of history. It was conceived in March 2020, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Zoom interviews were conducted with 19 immigrants from Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev—three major Soviet cities that would soon cease to exist as such. At the heart of the film is the phenomenon known as “5th Paragraph – Invalids,” a term coined by Soviet Jews to describe the quiet yet systematic discrimination they faced. This discrimination stemmed from suspicions of dual loyalty—to both the Soviet Union and the State of Israel—and was operationalized through the infamous “fifth paragraph” in internal documents, which identified a person's ethnicity. It became a bureaucratic tool used to block Jews from accessing higher education, employment opportunities, and senior positions, effectively denying them a future. Through the moving testimonies of the participants, the film reveals a generation that grew up under the official language of communist equality but lived a reality of exclusion and obstruction. It captures the stark contrast between state propaganda and lived experience—a profound sense of alienation from a country that claimed them, yet never fully accepted them. 5th Paragraph – Invalids is a powerful, humane, and deeply poignant cinematic document that opens a window into the real lives of Soviet Jews—there, before they came here.