DOCSLIB.ORG

O Jerusalem’: Worth a 2Nd Look (By T

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
O Jerusalem’: Worth a 2Nd Look (By T ‘O Jerusalem’: Worth a 2nd look (by T. Mitchell) What follows is a survey of films about the first Arab-Israeli war (1947-48) by Dr. Thomas Mitchell, an independent scholar who often contributes to this blog and to ISRAEL HORIZONS magazine: Last fall when the 2006 French film O Jerusalem came to the theaters I looked forward to seeing it. The book by that name by Dominique Lapiere and Larry Collins was one of my favorite books when I was an undergrad in Jerusalem, along with Dan Kurzman’s Genesis 1948. But because of the bad reviews of the film on this blog and in the NY Times, I decided to give it a pass and catch it when it came out on DVD. I was glad that I took a second look at it, courtesy of Netflix (a great source for independent films on the Arab-Israeli conflict). The film is a fictionalized version of the book with a rather contrived story of friendship between an American Jewish volunteer, Bobby Goldman, and a Palestinian Arab of the al-Husseini clan. I ignored the background story and concentrated on the battles: a bomb attack on Abu Musa’s (Abdel Khader al- Husseini) headquarters, Kastel, Deir Yassin, Latrun, the building of the “Burma Road” and the Arab attempt to break into the Jewish Quarter. It covers the period from the UN partition vote of November 29, 1947 to the surrender of the Old City in May 1948. Of these the best portrayed are probably the bombing of the Arab headquarters and the battle for Kastel. Kastel was an Arab village on the road to Jerusalem that dominated the road and was named for the old stone fortress that nominated the small village. Yitzhak Rabin’s Harel Brigade was responsible for capturing it. Abu Musa was killed in this battle, although in reality his death was not accurately portrayed in the film. He was shot at a distance by a Jewish machine gunner when he prematurely entered the village that the Hagana was in the process of vacating. [Kastel and the death of Abu Musa turned the tide against the Palestinians in the “civil war” phase of Israel’s independence war, which lasted for nearly a half a year before Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948 and was invaded by the regular armies of the neighboring Arab states.—Ed.] Latrun is probably better done in the 1965 movie Cast a Giant Shadow. But what is worth seeing here is how Ben-Gurion threw newly-arrived immigrants, most of whom did not speak Hebrew and had no military background, into the fighting with only a few hours training because he was desperate for manpower. This has been written about and shown in Israeli films, but few American Jews are aware of this. The main problem with O Jerusalem, directed by veteran French director Elie Chouraqui, is that it is very low budget. His actors are not superstars and his battle scenes show a shortage of extras. I also noticed that the Hagana soldiers carrying either bolt-action rifles or Thompson submachine guns. While the former look accurate, the Hagana used a homemade version of the British Sten sub-machine gun, as carried by Paul Newman in Exodus, built in underground factories. This is a sign that it is easier to acquire Thompsons for the movie than Stens six decades after the war. I have seen the war previously in five films: three from Hollywood, two of which were made in 1965, and two Israeli films. The Hollywood films were Judith and Cast a Giant Shadow. Judith starred Sophia Loren as a Jewish Holocaust survivor married to a Nazi working as an adviser to the Syrian army and was set during the Syrian invasion of the Galilee in May 1948. It was shot near Kibbutz Mazzuva and I met at least one kibbutznik who served as an extra for the battle scene while doing his national service in the IDF. The next movie, Cast a Giant Shadow, was the true story of a Jewish judge and colonel in the Army Reserve who volunteered to help out the Hagana during the siege of Jerusalem. He arrived in Israel just after independence and served as a general in the Hagana for about three weeks before being accidentally killed by a Jewish sentry because he (Mickey Stone) did not know Hebrew and could not correctly respond to the challenge. This was a big budget movie and had a star-studded cast including Kirk Douglas, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Yul Brenner, and Frank Sinatra. I suggest renting this along with O Jerusalem so that you can see how the Battle of Latrun is portrayed in both films. The third American film was a TV miniseries from the mid-1990s about an SS lieutenant who somehow managed to worm his way into the Irgun in 1947 posing as a Holocaust survivor. He then became a career IDF officer. I found the film to be utterly preposterous. The two Israeli films on the war were a black and white movie from the 1960s, whose name I don’t recall, that was a compilation of several short stories from the war. The other Israeli film is Amos Gitai’s Kedma (2004), which also tells the story of the Battle of Latrun. This is from the point of view of a group of Holocaust survivors who arrive in Israel a week before independence and have to make their way through British patrols only to be immediately thrown into the battle. It could also be profitably rented with the other two for a Latrun night. But in my opinion is inferior to them. This film features a script in several languages with subtitles and is also a low-budget film. My other qualm with O Jerusalem is that its portrayal of Deir Yassin was not very able. The Hagana commander arrives at the scene and finds a few Arab bodies laying around and is informed by the Irgun/Etzel commander that the attackers broadcast a message to evacuate the village but that the armored car broadcasting the message fell into an anti-tank ditch. There is no mention of how many were killed and under what circumstances. But we can see that the Hagana was not responsible for the massacre. It is as if the director wanted to avoid the whole controversy about the massacre but still be able to say that he mentioned it in the film..
Load more

Recommended publications
  • About the War of Independence
    About the War of Independence Israel's War of Independence is the first war between the State of Israel and the neighboring Arab countries. It started on the eve of the establishment of the state (May 14, 1948) and continued until January 1949. The war broke out following the rejection of the United Nation's Partition Plan, Resolution 181 of the General Assembly (November 29, 1947), by the Arab states and the Arab Higher Committee. The representatives of the Arab states threatened to use force in order to prevent the implementation of the resolution. Stage 1: November 29, 1947 - March 31, 1948 Arab violence erupted the day after the ratification of Resolution 181. Shots were fired on a Jewish bus close to Lod airport, and a general strike declared by the Arab Higher Committee resulted in the setting fire and the plundering of the Jewish commercial district near the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem. There were still 100,000 British troops stationed in Palestine, which were much stronger than both Arab and Israeli forces. Nevertheless, the British policy was not to intervene in the warfare between the two sides, except in order to safeguard the security of British forces and facilities. During this period, Arab military activities consisted of sniping and the hurling of bombs at Jewish transportation along main traffic arteries to isolated Jewish neighborhoods in ethnically mixed cites and at distant settlements. The Hagana, the military arm of the organized Yishuv, (the Jewish community of Palestine) put precedence on defensive means at first, while being careful to restrict itself to acts of retaliation against perpetrators directly responsible for the attacks.
    [Show full text]
  • 1948 Arab‒Israeli
    1948 Arab–Israeli War 1 1948 Arab–Israeli War מלחמת or מלחמת העצמאות :The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence (Hebrew ,מלחמת השחרור :, Milkhemet Ha'atzma'ut or Milkhemet HA'sikhror) or War of Liberation (Hebrewהשחרור Milkhemet Hashikhrur) – was the first in a series of wars fought between the State of Israel and its Arab neighbours in the continuing Arab-Israeli conflict. The war commenced upon the termination of the British Mandate of Palestine and the Israeli declaration of independence on 15 May 1948, following a period of civil war in 1947–1948. The fighting took place mostly on the former territory of the British Mandate and for a short time also in the Sinai Peninsula and southern Lebanon.[1] ., al-Nakba) occurred amidst this warﺍﻟﻨﻜﺒﺔ :Much of what Arabs refer to as The Catastrophe (Arabic The war concluded with the 1949 Armistice Agreements. Background Following World War II, on May 14, 1948, the British Mandate of Palestine came to an end. The surrounding Arab nations were also emerging from colonial rule. Transjordan, under the Hashemite ruler Abdullah I, gained independence from Britain in 1946 and was called Jordan, but it remained under heavy British influence. Egypt, while nominally independent, signed the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 that included provisions by which Britain would maintain a garrison of troops on the Suez Canal. From 1945 on, Egypt attempted to renegotiate the terms of this treaty, which was viewed as a humiliating vestige of colonialism. Lebanon became an independent state in 1943, but French troops would not withdraw until 1946, the same year that Syria won its independence from France.
    [Show full text]
  • Published by the Jewish Federation of Greater Binghamton Volume L, Number 7 BINGHAMTON, NEW YORK Happy Passover
    March 26-April 8, 2021 Published by the Jewish Federation of Greater Binghamton Volume L, Number 7 BINGHAMTON, NEW YORK Happy Passover 5781 - 2021 Page 2 - The Reporter March 26-April 8, 2021 Opinion A meltdown at The New York Times By David Suissa “Every serious moral philosophy, every decent legal system, But when we become afraid to even mention a word to (Jewish Journal via JNS) – When the top editor of the and every ethical organization cares deeply about intention. describe something, when we’re petrified that the cancel world’s newspaper of record flips and flops and flips again It is the difference between murder and manslaughter. It is mob will come after us and our livelihood, I’d say we’re on a subject as sensitive as the use of the N-word, you an aggravating or extenuating factor in judicial settings. due for a sober reckoning, or at least some candid analysis. know things are getting messy at The New York Times. It is a cardinal consideration in pardons (or at least it was As Columbia linguistics professor and author John And when a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist claims that until Donald Trump got in on the act). It’s an elementary McWhorter wrote on Substack, “My own observation the paper “spiked” his column on the subject, well, it just aspect of parenting, friendship, courtship and marriage.” of this sort of thing… is that the people hunting down gets messier. The columnist added: “A hallmark of injustice is indif- McNeil are swelling with a certain pride in claiming that This sad story started when longtime New York Times ference to intention.” ‘We decide what we will tolerate,’ as if this constitutes science reporter Donald McNeil was accused in 2019 of What I find especially noteworthy about this brouhaha what Black nationalists would term ‘self-determination.’ using a racial slur while on an overseas trip chaperoning is how tedious it is.
    [Show full text]
  • Israel a History
    Index Compiled by the author Aaron: objects, 294 near, 45; an accidental death near, Aaronsohn family: spies, 33 209; a villager from, killed by a suicide Aaronsohn, Aaron: 33-4, 37 bomb, 614 Aaronsohn, Sarah: 33 Abu Jihad: assassinated, 528 Abadiah (Gulf of Suez): and the Abu Nidal: heads a 'Liberation October War, 458 Movement', 503 Abandoned Areas Ordinance (948): Abu Rudeis (Sinai): bombed, 441; 256 evacuated by Israel, 468 Abasan (Arab village): attacked, 244 Abu Zaid, Raid: killed, 632 Abbas, Doa: killed by a Hizballah Academy of the Hebrew Language: rocket, 641 established, 299-300 Abbas Mahmoud: becomes Palestinian Accra (Ghana): 332 Prime Minister (2003), 627; launches Acre: 3,80, 126, 172, 199, 205, 266, 344, Road Map, 628; succeeds Arafat 345; rocket deaths in (2006), 641 (2004), 630; meets Sharon, 632; Acre Prison: executions in, 143, 148 challenges Hamas, 638, 639; outlaws Adam Institute: 604 Hamas armed Executive Force, 644; Adamit: founded, 331-2 dissolves Hamas-led government, 647; Adan, Major-General Avraham: and the meets repeatedly with Olmert, 647, October War, 437 648,649,653; at Annapolis, 654; to Adar, Zvi: teaches, 91 continue to meet Olmert, 655 Adas, Shafiq: hanged, 225 Abdul Hamid, Sultan (of Turkey): Herzl Addis Ababa (Ethiopia): Jewish contacts, 10; his sovereignty to receive emigrants gather in, 537 'absolute respect', 17; Herzl appeals Aden: 154, 260 to, 20 Adenauer, Konrad: and reparations from Abdul Huda, Tawfiq: negotiates, 253 Abdullah, Emir: 52,87, 149-50, 172, Germany, 279-80, 283-4; and German 178-80,230,
    [Show full text]
  • Goldring, Aryeh Born on 26Th May 1926 in Pietrakov-Tribunelski
    Goldring, Aryeh Born on 26 th May 1926 in Pietrakov-Tribunelski, Poland Made Aliya in 1945 Joined the Palyam in 1947 This is the Way it Was I went through the Holocaust during the Second World War and came out of the embers of the concentration camps and the extermination camps. When I was still a boy I was freed from the Buchenwald concentration camp by the American Army on the 11 th April 1945 and several months later made Aliya to Palestine via France on the ship, “Mataroah”. I was sent to the agricultural boarding school for boys of the Youth Aliya at Magdiel. I studied there for two years until 1947. In 1947 I volunteered for the Palmach – Palyam together with my friend Reuven Shadmi. We joined the 10 th Company of the 4 th Battalion. Toward the end of 1947, when fighting and riots began, we were sent to the Negev where we took part in the fighting, while protecting the Negev settlements. The settlements lived under conditions of virtual siege. I am a graduate of the 9 th course for small boat commanders in Caesarea and when that ended, was attached to the scientific branch for two months. I participated in the battles for Latrun, helped the artillery, (6” mortars), and protected convoys on the road to Jerusalem and on the Burma Road. At one stage at the end of 1947 I, and my whole outfit, went to protect the water line to the Negev, in the area of Dorot, Ruchama, etc. Afterwards we were moved to Beit Eshel and Nevatim.
    [Show full text]
  • ABOUT the BOOK: This Novel Is the Story of Two Great Loves. the First Is
    A PIGEON AND A BOY By Meir Shalev Translated by Evan Fallenberg First publis hed in Hebrew by Am Oved, 2006 English translation published by Schocken, 2007 Study guide by Ilana Kurshan ABOUT THE BOOK: This novel is the story of two great loves. The first is the love between a young pigeon handler nicknamed the Baby, and a Girl (as she is known) who works in a Tel Aviv zoo, set in 1948 during Israel’s War for Independence. The second love, which unfolds a generation later, is that between a middle- aged Israeli tour guide named Yair Mendelsohn and his childhood friend Tirzah Fried, who serves as his contractor after his mother bequeaths him money to build a new house apart from his wife. The two loves—past and present—are intertwined with one another from the book’s opening pages, when Yair hears about the young pigeon handler from one of his American clients. The climax of the novel, the pigeon handler’s final hopeful dispatch, brings together this sweeping story about wandering passion and the longing for home. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Meir Shalev was born in 1948 on Nahalal, Israel’s first moshav, to a family of writers. He studied psychology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. One of Israel’s most celebrated novelists, his books have been translated into more than twenty languages and have been bestsellers in Israel, Holland, and Germany. In 1999 the author was awarded the Juliet Club Prize (Italy). He has also received the Prime Minister’s Prize (Israel), the Chiavari (Italy), the Entomological Prize (Israel), the WIZO Prize (France, Israel, and Italy), and for A Pigeon and a Boy, the Brenner Prize, Israel’s highest literary recognition.
    [Show full text]
  • Affect and Cultural Change: the Rise of Popular Zionism in the British Jewish Community After the Six Day War (1967)
    AFFECT AND CULTURAL CHANGE: THE RISE OF POPULAR ZIONISM IN THE BRITISH JEWISH COMMUNITY AFTER THE SIX DAY WAR (1967) JAMIE HAKIM A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the University of East London for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy September 2012 Abstract In current Jewish Studies scholarship there is a broad consensus that the Arab-Israeli war of June 1967 caused both an intense emotional response in Britain’s Jewish community and a change in the relationship this community had with the State of Israel. What this scholarship has yet to provide is either a detailed account of the ways that the June 1967 war impacted on this community or a sustained theorisation of how the intensity generated by a world-historical event might bring about change. This thesis attempts to address these gaps by interviewing twelve British Jews who lived through their community’s response to the war and supplement this data with original archival research, adding detail that is currently missing from the historical record. It then interprets this data using a cultural studies approach grounded, primarily, in the thought of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. In using this approach this thesis reveals that it was the intense affectivity generated by the Zionist representation of the war as the ‘Six Day War’ that caused the community to change in the post-1967 conjuncture. It then identifies these changes as cultural – occurring on the planes of identity, representation, everyday life, cultural practice and, most crucially, affectivity. In revealing the centrality of affect in the impact of the war on the British Jewish community, this thesis argues that the hegemonic form of Zionism that emerges within that community after 1967 is ‘Popular Zionism’, defined as an intensely charged affective disposition towards the State of Israel that is lived out in the cultural identities, everyday lives and cultural practices of British Jews.
    [Show full text]
  • Elle Flanders
    WHAT ISN’T THERE IMAGING PALESTINE Elle Flanders A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN VISUAL ARTS YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO MAY 2014 © Elle Flanders, 2014 i Abstract What Isn’t There is a research project that considers the possibility of creating an image of Palestine by documenting the 418 Palestinian villages that were erased with the establishment of the State of Israel. The work has taken many forms over a twenty-year period including: photography, film, sound and installation. At the heart of this project is a set of interwoven questions: Is an image of Palestine possible and what would constitute such an image? how do we consider the image if, as I argue, the realms of politics and art are not separate? in a world saturated by mediated images, what are the interventions we can make as artists not only to make meaning, but to make meaning matter? The film installation accompanying this dissertation is a four-screen film projection situated in an outdoor urban garden. The installation immerses the viewer in fifteen distinct landscapes that were once the locations of Palestinian villages. While these sites often contain little that reveal their origins, the placement of the installation, the repetition and juxtaposition of images all point to the imaging of Palestine. ii For my love, Tamira, who has traveled the land with me and knows it now as I do. iii Acknowledgments To acknowledge is to accept or admit the existence or the truth of something.
    [Show full text]
  • Accepted Manuscript Version
    Research Archive Citation for published version: Tony Shaw, and Giora Goodman, ‘Hollywood’s Raid on Entebbe: Behind the Scenes of the United States-Israel Alliance’, Diplomatic History, dhx090, December 2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/dh/dhx090 Document Version: This is the Accepted Manuscript version. The version in the University of Hertfordshire Research Archive may differ from the final published version. Copyright and Reuse: © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] Content in the UH Research Archive is made available for personal research, educational, and non-commercial purposes only. Unless otherwise stated, all content is protected by copyright, and in the absence of an open license, permissions for further re-use should be sought from the publisher, the author, or other copyright holder. Enquiries If you believe this document infringes copyright, please contact the Research & Scholarly Communications Team at [email protected] Hollywood’s Raid on Entebbe: Behind the Scenes of the United States-Israel Alliance One by one, the camera settles on their frightened faces. At first, the hostages in the cramped, humid airport terminal thought it was just another announcement, something to relieve their boredom almost. But as the hijackers’ body language changes and the movie’s mournful soundtrack builds, it quickly dawns both on the hostages (and the audience) just what’s happening: Thirty years after the Second World War, and in the middle of Africa, the Jews are being selected, just like during the Holocaust.
    [Show full text]
  • Liberation of Jerusalem
    Liberation of Jerusalem On November 29, 1947, it was decided in the UN Partition Plan that Jerusalem would be under international control. However, when the War of Independence broke out, both sides – the Jews and the Arabs – tried to take control of the city. The Arab forces blocked the passage to Jerusalem to Jews, and cut off the water supply to the city. Only convoys of armored vehicles succeeded, at a heavy cost in human lives, in breaking through to the city and bringing supplies to its residents. On May 14, 1948, upon the departure of the British from the country, the Israeli forces began to take over compounds held by the Mandatory government. On May 18, the Arab Legion reached Jerusalem and entered the Old City. On May 19, a Palmach force managed to enter the Jewish Quarter through Zion Gate and bring supplies and reinforcements, but on the next day the Arab troops took control of the Zion Gate area again, and the siege on the Jewish Quarter resumed. On May 28, the Jewish Quarter fell into the hands of the Jordanians, its defenders were taken prisoner and its synagogues were demolished. On June 1, 1948, Burma Road was opened, and the siege on Jerusalem began to weaken. Jerusalem was divided for 19 years; Israel held the western part of the city, while Jordan held its eastern part, containing the Old City, including the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. Mount Scopus – the site of Hadassah Hospital, the Hebrew University and the British military cemetery – remained an enclave under Israeli control in the eastern part of the city.
    [Show full text]
  • War in Palestine 1948: Strategy and Diplomacy / David Tal
    WAR IN PALESTINE 1948 Strategy and Diplomacy CASS SERIES:ISRAELI HISTORY, POLITICS AND SOCIETY Series Editor:Efraim Karsh This series provides a multidisciplinary examination of all aspects of Israeli history, politics and society, and serves as a means of communication between the various communities inter- ested in Israel:academics, policy-makers, practitioners, journalists and the informed public. 1. Peace in the Middle East: The Challenge for Israel, edited by Efraim Karsh. 2. The Shaping of Israeli Identity: Myth, Memory and Trauma, edited by Robert Wistrich and David Ohana. 3. Between War and Peace: Dilemmas of Israeli Security, edited by Efraim Karsh. 4. US–Israeli Relations at the Crossroads, edited by Gabriel Sheffer. 5. Revisiting the Yom Kippur War, edited by P. R. Kumaraswamy. 6. Israel: The Dynamics of Change and Continuity, edited by David Levi-Faur, Gabriel Sheffer and David Vogel. 7. In Search of Identity: Jewish Aspects in Israeli Culture, edited by Dan Urian and Efraim Karsh. 8. Israel at the Polls, 1996, edited by Daniel J. Elazar and Shmuel Sandler. 9. From Rabin to Netanyahu: Israel’s Troubled Agenda, edited by Efraim Karsh. 10. Fabricating Israeli History: The ‘New Historians’, second revised edition, by Efraim Karsh. 11. Divided Against Zion: Anti-Zionist Opposition in Britain to a Jewish State in Palestine, 1945–1948, by Rory Miller. 12. Peacemaking in a Divided Society: Israel After Rabin, edited by Sasson Sofer. 13. A Twenty-Year Retrospective of Egyptian-Israeli Relations: Peace in Spite of Everything, by Ephraim Dowek. 14. Global Politics: Essays in Honour of David Vital, edited by Abraham Ben-Zvi and Aharon Klieman.
    [Show full text]
  • Timeline for War of Independence
    Timeline for War of Independence 1918-1948 British Mandate in Palestine 1937 Peel Commission report on partitioning Palestine November 29 1947 United Nations votes on Partition Plan, to create a Jewish and an Arab state November 30 War of Independence Breaks out, local AraBs fight Attacks on convoys to Jerusalem, Gush Etzion, communities in the Galilee January 16 1948 Massacre of the thirty-five en route to Gush Etzion FeBruary 22 Ben Yehuda Bombing March 11 Jewish Agency Bombing April 2 Beginning of Castel Battles Late April Haganah takes Haifa May 10 Haganah takes Tzfat May 13 Gush Etzion falls May 14 /5 Iyar 5740 British High Commissioner leaves Palestine, Israel declares statehood May 15 AraB nations declare war on Israel, KiBButz Nirim holds off Egyptian attackers May 28 Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem falls, IDF officially formed May 29 Egyptians turned Back at Ad Halom June 1 After repeated failures to take Latrun, Israel constructs the Burma Road September Battles over in Jerusalem March 10 1949 Haganah takes the Negev till Eilat, the war is over November First soldiers interred in new Mount Herzl cemetery First Years: Challenges and Triumphs The Law of Return 1950 Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an Oleh. Aliyah shall Be By Oleh's visa. An Oleh's visa shall Be granted to every Jew who has expressed his desire to settle in Israel, unless the Minister of Immigration is satisfied that the applicant -- is engaged in an activity directed against the Jewish people; or is likely to endanger puBlic health or the security of the State.
    [Show full text]