Guest Post: From Exodus to Munich: How Did We Get Here?

Two movies could not be more different. Both are about Israel. Both are about heroism and love. They should be similar, two stories on the timeline of Jewish history and yet, these movies are from alternate universes.

Probably few people my age (or younger) know that in 1960, Exodus was a Hollywood blockbuster, starring the biggest movie stars of the day, Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint.

A movie I had to see

I didn’t expect much from Exodus, old movies are slow and often the sets are bad and the acting or choice of actors unrealistic. At the same time, I knew this was a movie that was a huge hit that inspired many. Why would Hollywood produce a movie about Jews returning to their homeland to establish the State of Israel? What was in it that made the movie such a success?

Watching the movie, I found myself laughing, getting choked up and nearly bursting with admiration for these brave and wonderful people. MY people, rising from the ashes of their families murdered in the concentration camps, returning to our homeland, landing in Haifa, where I live today.

And then a sickening sensation washed over me, one that left me in utter shock.

I have never seen a movie like this before

This is the first, the only movie I have ever seen that has empathy (rather than sympathy), not for the Jewish victim but for the Jewish survivor – admiration for the people who had been to hell and back, that had more spirit than anything else and were willing to do whatever it takes to be free in the land of their ancestors.

It is the first time I have seen Jews that were smart, even cunning but not conniving. They were justified in doing whatever necessary to free themselves and their people. Here, angry Jews are understood, not condemned. They had much to be angry about.

It is the first time I have seen antisemitism portrayed as both rampant and utterly unacceptable, an attitude that is both ridiculous and inhumane.

Here non-Jews declared themselves Zionists and found themselves cheering for Jews who attain Zion.

Right and wrong are very clear. There is no doubt as to the righteousness of Jewish struggle for freedom. There is no doubt that Jews belong in the Jewish historical, ancestral homeland – then called Palestine, universally understood to be Zion, what would be Israel. The Jews are the heroes of this film. Anyone assisting them on the path to freedom is “the good guys”, anyone preventing this is inhumane, immoral and on the wrong side of history.

It is shocking to watch this and it is sickening that this is shocking.

I grew up in an alternate universe.

I was born into a post-Munich world. The Munich Massacre happened in 1972. Steven Spielberg’s movie was released in 2005.

Jews are often portrayed in films and tv shows but never like in Exodus. Never. Jews are one-dimensional characters. They might be funny, smart or successful but they are often pathetic, whiny, conniving and “money-grubbing”. The Jewish mother from Boca Raton, the Jewish gangster, the neurotic Jewish friend, the Woody Allen Jew.

The most popular, most sympathetic depiction of Jews in films are of the Jewish victim. Holocaust movies: Schindler’s List. The Pianist. Life is Beautiful. They are full of sympathy for the suffering Jew, the dead Jew. Jewish victims are easy to pity.

Jewish heroes are somehow unpalatable.

Modern movies, including Israeli movies, show conflicted Jews. Jews (especially Israelis) who are strong but feel bad about it. The IDF soldier that does not want to fight, is afraid or doesn’t want to “hurt the poor Palestinian” is a particularly popular character.

Steven Spielberg did a deep service to the preservation of Jewish heritage by creating the Shoah Foundation and documenting the testimonials of Holocaust survivors. His movie, Schindler’s List, has become a staple in teaching children about the Holocaust. I’m sure, when he chose to create Munich, he did not intend to create a film filled with poisonous, anti-Israel propaganda. And yet, shockingly, that is exactly what he created.

I never experienced the world that produced Exodus. In that world, right and wrong were very clear. Morality was a call that all people needed to follow. Jew-hate was wrong. The spirit of the Jewish people was something to admire.

The world I grew up in is completely different. History is turned upside-down and morality has somehow become relative.

Palestine always meant the land where Jews belong, Zion. But in the post-Munich world, Zion has been replaced with Palestine and Palestinians are battling the Zionists who would “steal their land”.

Black is white. Up is down. Day is night. How, for the love of God, did we get here??

In Spielberg’s Munich, the atrocities of Black September are horrible but also somehow understandable. At the very least, they are to be expected. After all, who wouldn’t fight to get back his father’s olive trees?

In Spielberg’s Munich, the heroic Jews who sacrificed their own safety and, in some cases, their lives, to announce to the world that Jewish blood is precious and cannot be stolen without retribution – they are the killers, the “butchers”. They are conflicted, questioning their own morality, even questioning their Judaism.

It is the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, the people who came to Israel on the Exodus, the Haganah and the Etzel who vowed that Jews would never again be led to the slaughter. In Munich Jews were slaughtered, on German soil and AGAIN, the world remained silent. It was the Jewish Nation reborn who vowed that Jewish blood would never again be shed indiscriminately. The message had to be sent in no uncertain terms.

Do you really think for a moment that those sent to eliminate the perpetrators of the Munich massacre were conflicted? Today it is politically incorrect to say that they knew the righteousness of their cause.

Instead, in Spielberg’s Munich, defenders of Jews, upholders of the battle cry “Never Again”, doubt. They discuss the “cycle of violence” and how Israel “didn’t take the land by being nice.” Other Israelis in the movie explain that the Holocaust legitimizes using any means to fight Israel’s enemies. The Holocaust. Not that Jews have the right to live free, like any other nation on earth. Not that Israel is a sovereign nation that should not come under attack by terrorists. Not that terrorists slaughtering athletes at the Olympic games, a symbol of peace between nations, is utterly wrong. According to the movie script, the Holocaust is the justification for Israel to butcher Palestinian murderers.
This is one of the most anti-Semitic lies ever spewed. This is the “narrative” of Israel’s enemies:

“Israel is doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to Jews.”
“Israel is using the Holocaust as an excuse to commit crimes against Palestinians.”
“Israel was created on Palestinian land because of the Holocaust.”

I grew up in a post-Munich world. We are so used to hearing these lies that a glimpse into the world that created Exodus is shocking to the core.

It is truly an alternative universe.

The “post-fact” world didn’t begin today. The moment when the atrocities of Black September ceased to horrify was the moment the universe inverted and began to eat itself. We have become so used to this reality that even those of us who fight it are becoming numb at the extremities and are ceasing to notice that we are ourselves being eaten. Our identities have been inverted, our history stolen and perverted in order to make sure we have no future.

Facts still matter.

Exodus is the truth, not Munich. Moral relativism is a lie, the existence of right and wrong, good and evil is the truth.

The Jewish people returned to our ancestral homeland because it is our homeland. We did not return because of the Holocaust, we returned DESPITE the Holocaust.

Israel by any name was always Zion. Palestine meant Zion and Zion meant land of the Jews.

The defenders of Israel are good and righteous. They never had any desire or intention to hurt innocent people. There is no joy in eliminating the enemy – it simply necessary.

Israel has a sacred duty to defend herself and her people. No one else will. Like any other sovereign nation on earth, Israel has a right to live free and without fear.

Why are these simple truths not obvious? How come, when it comes to Jews, suddenly reality is inverted? How did good become bad, right become wrong?

From Exodus to Munich, how did we get here? More importantly, how do we go back?

19 thoughts on “Guest Post: From Exodus to Munich: How Did We Get Here?”

  1. Spielberg is a typical galut Jew who loves the image of the Jew as a powerless victim but despises the self-assured Jew who knows how to defend himself. Think Woody Allen vs Gal Gadot

  2. How did we get here? I personally expect the biggest contributor to that is the Soviet Union. They groomed the Arab terrorists with the narrative of an innocent David against the monstrous Goliath of Israel and the West. And the Western Left swallowed that poison pill even to their own detriment. So too portraying the West as colonialist and racist criminals (while the Soviets conquered, subjugated, and discriminated without guilt or second-guessing themselves).
    The Soviets knew they didn’t have a leg to stand on according to Western moral principles, so they sought to muddy the waters, and they succeeded. They knew that Western military might was formidable, so they sought to make the West distrustful of their own power; they succeeded in this as well on the Left. Their success in these matters has outlived the Soviet Union itself as a political entity.
    And when did the Soviets really kick their anti-Israel propaganda into high gear? To my understanding it was a reaction to Israel’s victory in 1967. That we were blessed to trounce the Soviet clients so utterly and so quickly was taken by Russia as a personal insult (and probably was thought to be a serious blow to their geopolitical street cred). Much of the anti-Israel morass that we know today stems from those times.
    How do we get back? For Jews, learning our own history in detail is the best answer. For the West, and those ignorant Jews to slavishly follow its whims, it must remember the principles on which America and the overall modern Western world were built. Liberty, equality, justice, and freedom. It must remember that, yes, there is value in post-modernist relativism, but there is nevertheless a point where one draws a line. There is right and wrong, and it is proper to stand up and defend that which is right. Jews living free in their ancient homeland is right. Arab invaders using terrorism and slaughtering innocents to reconquer that land is wrong. And yes, here too, the West needs to be willing to brush up on recent history and escape the whirlpool of ignorance that fuels the unreal Arab narrative. But this is a choice the often superficial and materialistic Western world must make on its own. For the most part, the West (whose soul is dominated by the Left side of the political spectrum) is enjoying being drunk on anti-Israel poisons and shows no signs of climbing onto the reality water wagon any time soon.
    What can we Israeli Jews do about this? Stand strong, proclaim the truth, and set the example of what could and should be. We can’t force anybody else to listen though. We can only hope we can inspire others with our example. Yet, the fact that Israel’s society is indeed unsure of itself and divided on even these most fundamental issues is a big part of why we fail in this.

    1. This comment should be written across the sky in letters of flame visible from anywhere in the world – yes, and at its full length! You are wise and eloquent.

      1. Too long for letters of flame. If legible from anywhere it would have to occupy the whole sky, and the world turns. Besides many people are not literate in English, or even in their own languages.

        However, a very good comment.

  3. For another movie depiction of strong, brave Jews, I recommend the only “Holocaust movie” I can stomach: Defiance. Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber as the heroic Bielski brothers make a very bracing contrast to the helpless Jewish victim seen far too often.

    1. ahad_ha_amoratsim

      The movie Defiance also reflects Hollywood assumptions. The book gives a better picture of what happened. As one example, you won’t learn from the movie that before the war, all of the Belsky brothers were active in the Zionist youth group Betar, which taught self-defense to its members and got in street brawls to defend Jews against anti-Semites of all kinds, not just Nazis. (The guy who developed Krav Maga was a member of Betar.) And the conflict between the cheder teacher (i.e. religion) and the partisans was purely a Hollywood invention.

      1. The conflict between the religious teacher (or any of the religious Jews) and the partisans may not have been in the book, but those situations definitely existed. I have spoken to someone who survived with his brother in the forest, and, while now he seems to have the greatest respect for religious Jews, he did say stuff like that while they were busy praying, they could have got them all killed.

      2. Note that Betar was part of the Revisionist movement, led by Jabotinsky, which issued in the Irgun, and Likud, now the natural ruling party of Israel.

    2. ahad_ha_amoratsim

      I’d also add to films made in the late 1970’s- Entebbe and Operation Thunderbolt, both about Israel’s 1976 rescue of Jewish hostages taken on the Air France flight from Arab terrorists and elements of the German Red Army Faction.

  4. ahad_ha_amoratsim

    The movie Exodus does not begin to do justice to the book. And for a real eye opener about how things have changed, look at 1949’s Sword in the Desert, about smuggling Jews into the land in 1947. When the film opened in London in 1950, there were demonstrations, disturbances, and a bomb threat because of its accurate portrayal of the British actions against the Jews, and the UK banned the film after less than two weeks.

    1. The American Nazi Party was also very salty over Exodus as well. The British Empire, to its eternal shame did all that it could to stop Israel before it could form proper.

      John Baggot Glubb is perhaps one of the biggest historical villains in that time period, alongside Gamal Nasser…

  5. Norman_In_New_York

    Hollywood is dying. Comic books are the main source of movie scripts. Audiences have grown weary of overpaying for the empty headed dreck the studios put out.

    The history of the revival of the Jewish nation in its historic homeland needs to be told again, not only to correct widespread ignorance, but because it seems fantastic, yet it is absolutely true. From the visionaries of the 1890’s to the reclamation and development of the cherished homeland to the defense of the nation and how nonstop enmities generated technology that beats science fiction, this is one heck of a story that deserves to be told, and a reading of the Bible shows that these things are in remarkable keeping with biblical prophecies.

  6. “Munich” was a remake of a cable movie – based on a discredited book by George Jonas called “Vengeance” – made in 1986 with Steven Bauer, Michael York, Rod Steiger, and Colleen Dewhurst (in a small part as Golda Meir) called “Sword of Gideon”. Both films bore no resemblance to the true facts of the Munich Massacre and the Israeli revenge that followed. The idea of 5 Israelis traveling through Europe to kill terrorists is absurd, in reality they would make their “hit” and then be pulled in from the “Cold” and another team would be dispatched.

    1. How Mossad went after those monsters was still pretty good. If those fiends didn’t fear the boogeyman before, they certainly did after…

  7. Don’t be so hard on “Munich”. Sometimes it helps to look for the positives in a situation.
    There’s a scene in “Knocked Up” where the guys are sitting around talking about “Munich” and how much they love it… because Eric Bana’s so badass. Seth Rogen says something to the effect of: usually in movies Jews are getting their asses kicked, in “Munich”, we’re kicking ass. And then, quote, “If any of us get laid tonight, it’s because of Eric Bana in ‘Munich’.”
    https://youtu.be/0b5RMpAXf7w

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