In 1959 in France, Dora and her six-year-old daughter were arrested for vagrancy. To the detective that held her identity papers in his hand, the solution was simple. They were penniless, unwanted, itinerant, and Jewish: they had to be shipped back to the promised land. And so Dora and Josi started their new life in Israel - a place of sun-baked sand and pomegranate juice, of sweet oranges and of peppermint tea from silver teapots. But this fresh start came at a price.
Dora, always convinced that she was the victim of some kind of conspiracy, was persecuted for her foreign-ness and her eccentricity. As she tried to create a home of their tiny asbestos hut, their few possessions began to disappear. Worse were the cat-calls in the street and the constant threat of physical violence. Entirely ostracized from their community, it was Dora and her daughter against the world. The years passed, and love - and a family of her own - drew Josiane to Australia. The contact between mother and daughter was reduced to erratic phone calls from wherever Dora, by this time homeless, managed to find a place to sleep. Occasionally a gift would arrive accompanied by a frenzied letter showing Dora's slipping grasp on the world. Josiane struggled to come to terms with the truth - that the mother who loved and cherished her so had become a bag lady.
Full of warmth, humour and heartbreak, 'Dora B' is a portrait of an inspiring and unusual woman - and a true story of a mother's self-sacrificing love.
