As the art houses that were prevalent across America slowly disappeared and commercial theaters remained reluctant to exhibit subtitled movies, it became harder and harder to see Israeli movies here. In the rare case when an Israeli film found its way to a movie house in New York, usually it was there and gone a week later.
With that truth in mind, an enterprising Meir Fenigstein, the drummer from the legendary Israeli band Kaveret, started the Israel Film Festival in New York. The festival began in the 1980s and over the years it has expanded to Los Angeles, Miami, and Chicago. But the festival, which had been an annual occurrence in New York, eventually lost steam and started fading.

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