Israpundit The “Exodus” revisited

By Ted Belman for Israpundit

Last night my daughter took me to see the movie Exodus with Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint. It was a featured movie in the Jerusalem Film Festival that was ongoing. When she was 8 years old she read Exodus by Leon Uris but had never seen the movie produced by Otto Preminger.

This was a very special showing. Israel had been without a copy of this film for showing for many decades and MGM was happy to rectify the situation. They sent their Senior Vice President to introduce the film. A number of people who were on the Exodus in real life were in the audience and acknowledged. Ruth Gruber was also there to offer some anecdotes.. Ruth was an international correspondent at that time and is now in her nineties. But that hasn’t slowed her down. She recently published two books. She told of sitting at Ben Gurion’s bedside as he was dying and she asked him if there would be peace. He replied, not in her lifetime but in her daughter’s. Well she said it looks like his prophecy didn’t pan out and she expressed he hope that maybe in her grand daughter’s lifetime. But time is running out.

Then there was a professor who explained what had to be explained. Evidently Uris was very unhappy with the movie version because he had dealt with reality and Preminger had made a propaganda film. Apparently, PC was alive and well then as now. Preminger had nice things to say about the Brits, the Arabs and of course the Jews. He tried to show that peace was possible and that Allah should be respected. He highlighted the Balfour Declaration but made no mention of the Mandate. He went so far as to bury an Arab and Kitty, who was murdered by an Arab, in the same grave to enable Ari ben Caanan (Newman) to make a speech about how nice it was that they could find peace together in death.

Israel: A Nation Is Born
Five Part Historic Documentary

This visual anthology chronicles Israel's struggle for birth, survival, and independence: from the 1917 signing of the Balfour Agreement to the Arab/Israeli peace talks of 1992. An educational treasure of rare archival footage.