This past Friday I was invited to the Denver Jewish Film Festival at Cherry Creek. Film festivals and anything that gets too artsy and hipster are not my scene, but I wanted to hang out with the person who invited me (my friend's mom), so I decided that I would go. Going into the films, all I knew is where it was and that there were going to be two short films shown.
I was really blown away by the movies. The first movie was called Cohen on the Bridge and detailed Operation Entebbe in 1976 when an Air France flight bound from Tel Aviv to Athens to Paris was intercepted by two German and two Palestinian terrorists and flown to Uganda. Idi Amin was in power and the Jewish passengers were separated from the non-Jewish passengers. In the end they were saved by the elite Israeli Defense Force, the Mossad, and most of the hostages were saved. This was a story that I had never heard before, never even heard mentioned. Normally I would have been annoyed by the nature of the movie- a very hipster, very comic book-esque black and white film, but I was highly engrossed in this story. The thing that impacted me the most was the fact that there was a Holocaust survivor among the hostages and I can't imagine living through a situation like that again, in fact I can't imagine anything more horrifying than that.
The next film was Ammon's Journey, a french film that was partly in French, English and Hebrew, detailing a Ammon, who is a luthier (a person who makes violins) and painstakingly took it upon himself to refurbish violins from Holocaust victims in the second world war. He repaired the violins that were played as a distraction, abusively, for hours on end at Auschwitz. The journey took us from Paris to Austria to Norway and finally to Jerusalem, where these instruments were played at a special concert at the wailing wall. The movie highlighted the beauty and the pain of Ammon as he came to grasps of the horror and elegance of these musicians (including his own father) during one of the darkest times in Jewish history. It was again a documentary, something I normally do not enjoy, but found myself engaged in his story all the same.
During the brief time that I was at the festival, I was again reminded at the time I spent at Yad Vashem, somewhere that I have been trying to decide exactly how to incorporate into a blog post for quite a while. Yad Vashem houses the holocaust museum in Jerusalem. It is a free museum, that exists for many historical reasons and to help validate to anyone curious, why Israel exists as a Jewish state. I have honestly never felt such a dichotomy of horror and hopefulness as I stepped out of this museum in January 2011. I learned and saw things about the Holocaust, which in my mind was already so repugnant, that made me sick to my stomach. I will never forget seeing actual footage of Holocaust survivors and victims proceeding with their daily, atrocious life, side-by-side Nazi propaganda of what the ghettos looked like in actuality. This combined with endless photos, knowledge about death marches, the room of names of millions of victims, understanding the prejudice and racism faced by survivors after the war, was so overwhelming I was unsure of how to cope. The hopefulness lied in what my friend, Josh, described as one of his favorite views in Israel at the end of the museum as you exited. There was an amazing view, at sunset no less, of Israel and Jerusalem, which left me feeling slightly hopeful, and definitely more understanding of the validity and purpose for Israel as a nation.
As a non-Jewish person I think sometimes it is easy to dismiss the atrocities committed on this religious group of people and only see Israel for the strife and conflict it creates in the Middle East. As I learn more, see more, I understand more why Israel exists, and why it should exist. I've never been that curious about history, but I feel a new wonder and found intrigue to learn more about the history of the Jewish people and the country that I have recently fallen in love with.
I said this in the last post, but I am excited about the cultural growth that I am able to achieve, not only abroad, but in my own country. Being stranded here the last three weeks (I have my passport back finally!!!), had really made me expand my openness to experiencing new cultures and doing things that I may not have been as excited or willing to do before.
I was really blown away by the movies. The first movie was called Cohen on the Bridge and detailed Operation Entebbe in 1976 when an Air France flight bound from Tel Aviv to Athens to Paris was intercepted by two German and two Palestinian terrorists and flown to Uganda. Idi Amin was in power and the Jewish passengers were separated from the non-Jewish passengers. In the end they were saved by the elite Israeli Defense Force, the Mossad, and most of the hostages were saved. This was a story that I had never heard before, never even heard mentioned. Normally I would have been annoyed by the nature of the movie- a very hipster, very comic book-esque black and white film, but I was highly engrossed in this story. The thing that impacted me the most was the fact that there was a Holocaust survivor among the hostages and I can't imagine living through a situation like that again, in fact I can't imagine anything more horrifying than that.
The next film was Ammon's Journey, a french film that was partly in French, English and Hebrew, detailing a Ammon, who is a luthier (a person who makes violins) and painstakingly took it upon himself to refurbish violins from Holocaust victims in the second world war. He repaired the violins that were played as a distraction, abusively, for hours on end at Auschwitz. The journey took us from Paris to Austria to Norway and finally to Jerusalem, where these instruments were played at a special concert at the wailing wall. The movie highlighted the beauty and the pain of Ammon as he came to grasps of the horror and elegance of these musicians (including his own father) during one of the darkest times in Jewish history. It was again a documentary, something I normally do not enjoy, but found myself engaged in his story all the same.
During the brief time that I was at the festival, I was again reminded at the time I spent at Yad Vashem, somewhere that I have been trying to decide exactly how to incorporate into a blog post for quite a while. Yad Vashem houses the holocaust museum in Jerusalem. It is a free museum, that exists for many historical reasons and to help validate to anyone curious, why Israel exists as a Jewish state. I have honestly never felt such a dichotomy of horror and hopefulness as I stepped out of this museum in January 2011. I learned and saw things about the Holocaust, which in my mind was already so repugnant, that made me sick to my stomach. I will never forget seeing actual footage of Holocaust survivors and victims proceeding with their daily, atrocious life, side-by-side Nazi propaganda of what the ghettos looked like in actuality. This combined with endless photos, knowledge about death marches, the room of names of millions of victims, understanding the prejudice and racism faced by survivors after the war, was so overwhelming I was unsure of how to cope. The hopefulness lied in what my friend, Josh, described as one of his favorite views in Israel at the end of the museum as you exited. There was an amazing view, at sunset no less, of Israel and Jerusalem, which left me feeling slightly hopeful, and definitely more understanding of the validity and purpose for Israel as a nation.
As a non-Jewish person I think sometimes it is easy to dismiss the atrocities committed on this religious group of people and only see Israel for the strife and conflict it creates in the Middle East. As I learn more, see more, I understand more why Israel exists, and why it should exist. I've never been that curious about history, but I feel a new wonder and found intrigue to learn more about the history of the Jewish people and the country that I have recently fallen in love with.
I said this in the last post, but I am excited about the cultural growth that I am able to achieve, not only abroad, but in my own country. Being stranded here the last three weeks (I have my passport back finally!!!), had really made me expand my openness to experiencing new cultures and doing things that I may not have been as excited or willing to do before.
No comments:
Post a Comment