BLUE BOX
\nYes Docu
\nReviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten
\nDirector: Michal Weits
\nScreenwriters: Michal Weits, Marie-Jos\u00e9e Cardinal
\nCast: Michal Weits, Gidi Weitz, Nir Weitz, Nitan Weitz, Rami Weits, Stav Weitz, Yehiam Weitz. Voice of Dror Keren.
\nScreened at: Critics\u2019 link, NYC, 10\/15\/21
\nOpens: November 4, 2021<\/p>\n
Some time after he was born in 110 B.C.E. Hillel, my Hebrew namesake, said: \u201cIf I am not for myself, who will be for me?\u201d This explains, in large part, the need for Jews in various dangerous parts of the world to commit to the establishment of a Jewish state, one that would be free from persecution by groups who would do so whenever the nationalist bug hit them. If Jews could be in the majority of their own state, they could not be oppressed by others who would greatly outnumber them. Fine, so far. But Hillel also said \u201cIf I am for myself only, what am I?\u201d Therein lies the controversy that oversees the story of Israel from before its birth in 1948 through 1967. <\/p>\n
According to some of the younger generation of director Michal Weits\u2019 family, when Jews were at work becoming the majority of their Middle East land, they oppressed the diminishing minority, the Arabs. Using funds raised in the Diaspora, the Jewish National Fund, or JTF, collected money used to buy the land of Arab settlers who were not, as the myth would have it, lazy. They were at work on the land, the same as the Jews, but JTF money sent to Israel bought land from its rich owners\u2014absentee landlords who lived in capitals of other Middle Eastern countries. The Arabs may not have even known the identities or locations of their absentee landlords, yet they were told to clear out by the new Jewish owners. Evicted like the folks in America, when particularly large-scale evictions took place. What happened, to them, where they went to live, who knows? We know only that when masses of Arabs in Palestine fled or were forced out during the eight-month independence war, they wound up in refugee camps in Jordan, miserable places, \u201cshitholes\u201d as a former U.S. president would say.<\/p>\n
The title \u201cBlue Box\u201d is based on the slotted receptacles, called in Yiddish \u201cpushke,\u201d with which I went around in my Borough Park neighborhood, holding out the box and pleading \u201cPlease help the Jewish National Fund.\u201d Borough Park in Brooklyn during the 1940\u2019s was maybe 80% Jewish and people dropped their quarters, receiving symbolic flowers from me for their lapels. I hope the money wound up where it was supposed to go and not into the pockets of corrupt people like Russell Robinson chief executive officer of JNF-USA and his chief financial officer, Mitchel Rosenzweig. Anyway, enough went where it was supposed to go. As a result, Jews acquired 361 square miles of land with another 310 square miles acquired by other Jewish organizations and individuals.<\/p>\n
What stands out in this film, which offers archival film of Arabs working the land before being ejected and meetings of the various Zionist Congresses in Europe, is that it makes the international into the personal. Director Michal Weits treats us to information not widely known about the role of her great-grandfather Yosef Weitz, who was like the right-hand man of Israeli\u2019s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. She motivates discussions from Weitz\u2019s descendants about the ethics of great-grandad, the younger members being to the left of the old-timers, one of whom said to the director, \u201cYou were not there in 1948 or you would not be critical of the great Yosef.\u201d Really? True, Jews went through hell during the War of Independence, but the people they ejected had lived on the Palestinian land for generations were mostly absent from the Arab Liberation Army. They were too busy fleeing from the war to take up arms like their brethren in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Fair enough. It\u2019s easy to sit in your Fred Friar Handicraft armchair, smoking a big Cohiba Havana cigar and nursing a 23-year-old Pappy Vanwinkle bourbon, and spouting leftist viewpoints when you have no more than an intellectual concept of what the Jews had to go through.<\/p>\n
At least Weitz, who goes along with the plan, believed that the ejected Palestinians should be paid. Weitz became frustrated when those above him said, \u201cThe problem will go away on its own.\u201d If you believe that, then you trust the Taliban in Afghanistan will join NATO and hire Thomas Jefferson\u2019s own great-great-grandchildren to draw up a constitution.<\/p>\n
The film does not take us forward, really, from 1967 when the Israeli government went further by encouraging Jews to settle in the Palestinian West Bank, which is now land occupied by the Israeli Defense Forces. The situation at present has been covered extensively by the press and also by films like Shimon Dotan\u2019s 2016 doc \u201cThe Settlers.\u201d Anyone alive today who follows international politics should be aware of the tense situations resulting from the occupation. However, \u201cBlue Box\u201d stands out in going farther back in history to focus on the politics of the heretofore little-known Yosef Weitz. The director proves herself an interviewer on the level of a Barbara Walters.<\/p>\n
82 minutes. \u00a9 2021 by Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online<\/p>\n
Story \u2013 A-
\nActing \u2013 B+
\nTechnical \u2013 B+
\nOverall \u2013 B+<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BLUE BOX Yes Docu Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Michal Weits Screenwriters: Michal Weits, Marie-Jos\u00e9e Cardinal Cast: Michal Weits, Gidi Weitz, Nir Weitz, Nitan Weitz, Rami Weits, Stav Weitz, Yehiam Weitz. Voice of Dror Keren. Screened at: Critics\u2019 link, NYC, 10\/15\/21 Opens: November 4, 2021 Some time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":192674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2021-11-17T07:01:18Z","apple_news_api_id":"468508b4-0571-4371-8122-443c7a6e10fc","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2021-11-17T07:01:18Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ARoUItAVxQ3GBIkQ8em4Q_A","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"middle","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":["https:\/\/news-api.apple.com\/sections\/a256d957-d5f8-3bec-b93f-7f862cadbf92"],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,4],"tags":[37682,44977,44979,38870,37756,21666,44978,21023],"class_list":["post-192317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","category-reviews","tag-arabs","tag-blue-box","tag-jewish-national-fund","tag-jews","tag-occupation","tag-palestine","tag-purchase-of-land","tag-real-estate"],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n