CEDAR, JOSEPH

CEDAR, JOSEPH (1968– ), American-born Israeli film director whose first two movies, A Time of Favor (2000) and Campfire (2004), both won the Ophir Award for Best Picture, the top prize of the Israel Academy for Film and Television. Born in New York, Cedar moved to Israel as a child and was raised in Jerusalem in a religiously observant family. He studied film at New York University and then returned to Israel to make A Time of Favor (better known by its Hebrew title, Ha-Hesder), the story of yeshivah students on the West Bank who plot to bomb the Temple Mount. He drew wide acclaim for being the first director to take an in-depth look at   the religious right. He followed it up with Campfire, the story of a widow trying to join a West Bank settlement. His father is Howard (Chaim) cedar , a molecular biologist who won the Israel Prize. (Hannah Brown (2nd ed.)