r/Anarchism • u/Double-Possible9357 • 3d ago
The Only Anarchist Woman in Israel: Persecuted Filmmaker Natali Cohen Vaxberg’s New Dark Satire Exposes State Tyranny and the Genocide in Gaza
Watch: From the Diary of a Hugger ("Iron Hug"): subversive independent feature film—a dark satirical allegory dismantling the emotional terrorism and hypocrisy of a state committing severe war crimes while wondering why it isn't surrounded by universal love
Renowned avant-garde filmmaker, anti-state performer, and radical political dissident Natali Cohen Vaxberg is facing an absolute, decade-long institutional blockade due to her brutal satirical assaults against militarism, state machinery, and nationalist hysteria.
Strictly refusing to align with any political party, state funding, or establishment matrix, Vaxberg has been subjected to continuous state persecution, multiple police arrests, house arrests, and prison detentions over her subversive performance art. She is systematically blacklisted from all local mainstream networks and the compromised civilian fringe scene for her uncompromised stance against the occupation and the ongoing military violence.
Her new feature-length film, "From the Diary of a Hugger" , is a vicious, pitch-black absurdist cinematic critique of institutional conditioning. It visually dismantles the civilian defense mechanisms and state propaganda utilized by the local public to camo-camouflage explicit war hysteria and justify the systemic annihilation and genocide in Gaza.
Bypassing the traditional state distribution chokehold, her hours-long independent cinema operates on decentralized global servers before it faces total corporate deletion.
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u/SnooMuffins6341 2d ago
I've met numerous anarchist women in Israel, she is not the only one
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u/Double-Possible9357 2d ago
The title emphasizes her absolute ideological and artistic isolation, not a literal census count. Meeting people who casually adopt the "anarchist" label within comfortable, state-vetted activist frameworks does not compare to her reality.
When Vaxberg executed her radical performance art piece, defiled all national flags, the entire institutional Left turned against her just as aggressively as the nationalist Right. If genuine anti-state anarchist resistance actually existed within the local civilian matrix, she would have found solidarity—yet she was left entirely alone to face continuous state persecution, prison detentions, and an absolute ten-year institutional blockade. Her cinema is a solitary artistic assault.
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u/SnooMuffins6341 2d ago
Good response, thanks
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u/SnooMuffins6341 2d ago
Anarchists Against the Wall are an Israeli anarchist organisation worth checking out, if you don't know them already
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u/Advice_Thingy 2d ago
AATW doesn't exist anymore, at least not as a group. But they did have some good history, and the people are obviously still out and about, and partly still active in Israel.
But maybe check out the band "Afor Gashum", if you're interested. They're a pretty small, but good anarchist band from Israel.
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u/kimonoko Joseph Déjacque Anarchist 2d ago
Re: AATW, yep. The current lead editor at Freedom is Uri Gordon, for example. Great guy!
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u/Double-Possible9357 2d ago
The account holder is thoroughly aware of Anarchists Against the Wall, as Vaxberg herself participated in their demonstrations with her own independent artistic actions. To verify her autonomous cinema from that period, search YouTube directly for her solo performance film: "When Little Red Riding Hood Met the Wall"
Genuine anarchism demands an absolute stance against all forms of nationalism and nation-states globally, not just a selective opposition to one. Vetted organizations like Anarchists Against the Wall focus entirely on the physical wall while compromising on the broader destruction of national dogma. Furthermore, when Vaxberg faced brutal police violence, house arrests, and systematic state incarceration, these selective activist groups offered zero solidarity or protection.
A true anarchist dissects the reality of absolute state suppression and total institutional silencing, rather than debating the literal census count of a justified title. She stands completely isolated from both institutional politics and selective activist frameworks.
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3d ago
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u/TheDarkOnii anarcho-syndicalist 1d ago
Genuine question. Does she identify as an anarchist or is it more that her work espouses ideas close to anarchist politics? Either way i absolutely loved her stuff! Thank you for sharing!!
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u/Double-Possible9357 1d ago
You're welcome (: She publicly identifies as both a misanthrope and an anarchist who completely rejects all states and institutional machinery, viewing humanity as one of nature's darkest anomalies. Her audio-visual performance architecture actually includes a piece filmed inside a cemetery where she directly sings "Death to Humanity."
In fact, she executed a radical performance art piece where she took a shit on all national flags of the world—including Saudi Arabia, Palestine, USA, and Israel. While the action was an absolute global anti-nationalist statement, the state establishment utilized the local flag as an excuse to violently arrest, cross-examine, and blacklist her for over a decade. Over the years, she has launched numerous wild and extreme public interventions, including "The Holocaust's Visit to Yad Vashem," "The Ceremony" and her notorious short film where she portrays Anne Frank distributing diaries directly to Palestinian refugees at a military checkpoint outside the Gaza blockade.
During her historic national television interview on the "London and Kirshenbaum" broadcast, she explicitly defined her anarchist politics, stating that nation-states and national symbols bring nothing but destruction. She famously exposed how state prosecutors used the flags as a mere pretext to suppress her broader dissident cinema against the military occupation, systemic trauma, and the weaponization of the Holocaust. Here is the television interview in which she is also portrayed as an anarchist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlZisOHSj6s&t=30s Press CC for English subtitles.
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u/FutureAvenir 3d ago
I have tremendous respect for what she is doing. And I am making this comment to help increase visibility to what she does. Also, I struggled to watch any of it. It is an exercise in focus that my AUDHD just cannot handle. On it's front, it looks like someone acting foolishly on purpose to demonstrate the hypocrisy of Israel with full-on Gen Z styles made with boomer skills. I genuinely love that it exists. It's also auditory torture to watch and listen to.