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Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
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Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
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January 30, 2012
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Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
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Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
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Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
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January 12, 2012
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David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
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January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
July 2, 2009
/ 10 Tamuz 5769
Up, up, and aliya
By
Abe Novick
While Obama is watching Up this summer with Sasha and Malia, he can brush up on his history
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
It's often during summer when we travel with a purpose to find some sense of the past, to capture a moment lost in time that we once cherished, or to seek out some distant place we've never ventured.
However, given the economic reality, many of us, myself included, will just have to find that fulfillment in other ways. And luckily, movies are a way to come as close as possible to that other world.
Enter Pixar, which has brought us everything from Toy Story and Finding Nemo to The Incredibles all with their amazing CGI technology that's provided children with highly imaginative stories, while giving adults films that aren't just kid stuff.
Last year's Wall-E took Pixar to a new dimension, touching Upon themes of environmental apocalypse while wrapped in a form of animation that was all too human.
Now with Up, while it's not as down in its dire warnings of an end-of-days disaster, it presents a single man at the end of his own.
If Wall-E was "Chaplinesque" in it's portrayal of Eve and Wall-E gliding through space, then Up stands like Buster Keaton in The General.
Up is about the life of Carl Fredricksen, who we see from childhood grow Up to marry his boyhood sweetheart, but throughout their simple lives, never ventured forth on the trip they'd dreamed of taking. There was always some reason to break the bank and spend the money on something other than their wish.
Eventually, life catches Up with Carl and right at the point when he's about to be removed from his home and sent off to the retirement home, he unleashes enough helium balloons to lift his house out of it's foundation and floats down to South America.
I know it sounds silly and far-fetched (how such a plot ever made it past a first pitch to a Hollywood producer, is hard to fathom.) Yet, amazingly, it works.
It works because it taps into a core of our being that tells us, while we may not be able to go home again, we all have a desire to find that sense of place where we think we belong.
While watching the movie and reflecting on Carl, I couldn't help but think of the land of Israel and the lifelong pull that it has had on our people over thousands of years and in the last century, since the time of Theodore Herzl.
With the legitimacy of Israel being questioned by some, a rise of anti-Semitism around the globe and an effort on the part of the Obama administration to push for a peace, it's worth revisiting modern Zionism and Up may actually be a good jumping off point.
In his speech in Cairo, Obama falsely linked the state of Israel to the Holocaust using it as reason for its establishment. However, Herzl, who died on July 3, 1904 revived the movement of modern Zionism after The Dreyfus Affair and long before WWII. It was in the 1890's when he witnessed mass rallies in Paris following the Dreyfus trial and mobs chanted "Death to the Jews!" It was then that he came to believe the Jews must get out of Europe and create their own homeland.
Can Obama, who spoke eloquently of hearing the call to prayer in Muslim countries, place himself in the shoes of Jews from around the world today, who are still rooted somehow to the land of Israel? Can he understand that its dust somehow courses through our veins and is a part of our DNA?
For many, Israel stands like the image Paradise Falls does for Carl and his wife Ellie.
But while many of us won't be traveling to Israel this summer or to places that are lifelong destinations, we will keep dreaming of them.
So perhaps, while Obama is watching Up this summer with Sasha and Malia, he can brush up on his history. He can explain to them the importance of following a dream, and that the word Aliyah literally means to "ascend" or go "Up".
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JWR contributor Abe Novick is a columnist for the Jewish Times and his work can be found at www.abenovick.com
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© 2009, Abe Novick
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