AllMovie

Cultural confusion and the lack of true identity plague a young boy swept away from his mother during a joint American-Israeli rescue mission in director Radu Mihaileanu's fact-based drama. As thousands of displaced Africans crowd into Sudanese refugee camps, American and Israeli troops organize "Operation Moses," a mission aimed at relocating the wandering Falashas to Israel. Forced by his Christian mother to declare himself Jewish in hopes of joining the exile and escaping a grim fate, young Solomon (Moshe Agazai) is swept away to Israel and adopted by a Tel Aviv-dwelling French Sephardic family and re-named Schlomo. Terrified of being revealed and shaken to the core by the radically different culture of Israel, Schlomo does his best to adapt to his new surroundings as his presumed salvation slowly gives way to the inner decay of a fading identity.