In the earliest Israeli films, Sephardi/Mizraḥi characters are marginal but are portrayed positively. One of the four protagonists defending a strategic outpost in Hill 24 Doesn’t Answer (1955), the first Israeli film distributed internationally, is a Yemenite girl played by Margalit Oved. She dies together with the other three—her American Jewish volunteer boyfriend, a Sabra, and an Irish volunteer. The film shows that all are equal in the service of the national cause. 

The first Mizraḥi central character in Israeli cinema was Sallah Shabbati, in the eponymous film…