L IFESTYLE /C ULTURE
‘Upheaval’ Captures Menachem Begin’s Essence
FI L M
ANDY GOTLIEB | JE MANAGING EDITOR
IF “UPHEAVAL: Th e Journey
of Menachem Begin” had
been a Netfl ix-commissioned
documentary, we’d be subjected
to six one-hour episodes with
countless repetition, speculation
and other means of fi ller.

And considering that it now
takes Hollywood nearly three
hours to tell the back story of
Spiderman, Batman or even
the third-tier superheroes,
“Upheaval” is a breath of fresh air.

Clocking in at a spare
one hour and 26 minutes,
“Upheaval” smartly tells the
epic life story of the seminal
Israeli leader. Director Jonathan
Gruber eff ectively mixes new
interviews, with notables such
as former Israeli ambassadors
to the United States in Michael
Oren and Ron Dermer, and news
footage with archival accounts
of Begin’s (and Israel’s ) history
with no wasted motion.

“Upheaval” begins with a
montage of accounts of recent
antisemitic attacks around the
world as a way to show that
Begin’s lifelong struggle to provide
security for Jews continues today.

That theme continues
18 JUNE 3, 2021
Menachem Begin speaking before a crowd from the Northern
settlements at a ceremony held near the “Lion” Memorial at Tel Chai.

Menachem Begin at his fi rst meeting with Egyptian President Anwar
Sadat at the Egyptian Embassy in Washington, D.C.

through the fi lm’s fi nal moments.

“Begin’s Israel is an Israel of
proud Jews who are not going
to take antisemitism any more,
but are going to unite and fi ght,
and that’s a power lesson from
Begin’s life,” former vice presi-
dential nominee and U.S. Sen.

Joseph Lieberman said.

Gruber follows a conven-
tional chronological format in
detailing Begin’s career.

Born in Brest, Belarus,
Begin’s Zionism is established at
an early age when he meets Ze’ev
Jabotinsky, who espouses the
love and need for a Jewish state.

Begin soon leads Betar, a Zionist
a bit more depth — even 10
minutes — would have been
helpful. As you’d expect, Begin’s upset
1977 election as leader of the
Likud Party and the subsequent
peace talks with Egypt occupy a
signifi cant chunk of the movie.

While those events are
familiar and well-documented,
the fi lm’s account is far from
rote, with archival footage
conveying a lot of meaning in
short snippets.

“Th e real prize is peace itself,”
Begin says over the telephone to
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat
while discussing their winning
of the Nobel Peace Prize.

At perhaps the height of his
powers, Begin establishes the
Begin Doctrine — sort of a
“do unto others before they do
unto you” — in 1981 with the
bombing of Saddam Hussein’s
unfi nished nuclear reactor.

“Israel has nothing to apolo-
gize for,” Begin defi antly said.

“We decided to act now before
it’s too late.”
Unfortunately for Begin, the
beginning of his end was near.

Th e 1982 Lebanon War became
his Waterloo (or Vietnam).

While Minister of Defense
Ariel Sharon is oft en blamed for
extending the confl ict far beyond
its original scope — and for the
Israel Defense Forces not doing
enough to prevent the Sabra
and Shatila massacre — Begin
Courtesy of Abramorama / Chananya Herman. 3/16/81
youth movement Jabotinsky
founded. Around the same time, he
meets Aliza Arnold, who he
marries at 19. She becomes the
rock in his life.

During World War II, Begin
is arrested for “Zionism,” as he
describes it, and, without being
tried, ends up in a Siberian
gulag. He gets a reprieve of
sorts when Germany invades
Russian, as he’s conscripted to
fi ght the Nazis.

Upon arriving in Palestine
in 1942, Begin immediately
begins to chafe against the
British mandatory government,
proclaiming a revolt two years
later and going underground.

Th e fi lm continues through
events leading to Israel’s 1948
founding, exploring the confl ict
between the more hardline
Begin and his rival, Israeli
founder and fi rst Prime Minister
David Ben-Gurion, who was
more conciliatory.

Begin didn’t want to accept
reparations from Germany, but
Ben-Gurion thought the money
would help build for Israel —
and wins that battle.

If there’s any drawback to
the fi lm, it’s at this point, which
largely skips over the next 29
years, noting that Begin spent
that time in the opposition,
largely with the Herut party
he formed. Granted, more
important moments await, but
JEWISH EXPONENT
Courtesy of Abramorama / Photographer Ya’acov Sa’ar. 4/25/79
took responsibility, as well as the
political hit.

Between that and his wife
dying in November 1982 while
he was away on a visit to the
United States, Begin was never
the same. Plagued by depression
and his own health issues, he
resigned in August 1983, staying
mostly secluded until his death
at 78 in 1992.

While Begin earned his
reputation as a hardliner, the
fi lm reminds us that nothing
is ever as simple as it seems,
pointing to his willing-
ness to transfer control of
the Sinai as a way to broker
peace with Israel, as well as
his advocacy for inclusiveness
that included Israeli Arabs and
his support for the immigra-
tion of Ethiopian Jews, Russian
Jews and the Vietnamese boat
people. Ultimately, his goal was
the same as nearly everyone’s
else’s: peace
“Peace is the beauty of life. It
is sunshine. It is the smile of a
child. Th e love of a mother. Th e
joy of a father. Th e togetherness
of family ...” he said.

The virtual premiere of
“Upheaval” is at 8 p.m. on June
7 with a Watch Now @ Home
cinema release on June 9. Visit
upheavalfi lm.com for details. ●
agotlieb@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0797
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



T orah P ortion
CAN DL E L IGHTIN G
Real, But Not True
BY CANTOR JULIE NEWMAN
Parshat Shlach
MY COUNTY will soon stop
sending out the daily messages
about the county’s COVID
rates that many of us have
gotten daily since March 2020.

It has felt like a solid piece
of information that I could
count on.

Watching the numbers of
COVID cases dropping recently
literally makes me breathe
easier. But it hasn’t always been
so over the past 14 months. As
the pandemic grew, the rising
numbers in the report could
make my breath catch and
my heart feel squeezed. That
was the lens through which
I saw this year’s news, which
regularly included heart-
breaking headlines reporting
stories of violence and injus-
tice, provoking feelings of
worry and powerlessness.

In Parshat Shlach, the
Israelites experienced heart-
breaking headlines. As they
prepared to enter the land
of Canaan, Moses sent one
man from each tribe, “men
of stature,” to scout the land.

Their instructions were to get
June 4
June 11
8:08 p.m.

8:12 p.m.

information about the people,
the towns and the land. They
were to “see the land, what it is
like and the people that dwell
in it.”
But having lived through
the trauma of Egypt and the
miracles of the Exodus, what
lens would they see through
in judging whether the people
there were “strong or slack, few
or many”? Or whether the land
was good or bad and whether
the towns were open settle-
ments or fortresses? They were
to evaluate whether the land
was “fat or lean,” and if there
were trees. And finally, they
were to “muster their strength”
to bring back a sample of fruit,
this being the season of the
first ripe grapes.

We are told that after 40
days they brought back that
sample of fruit, a giant cluster of
grapes carried on a pole by two
men. They also brought back
their headlines. They acknowl-
edged to Moses that the land
was indeed “flowing with milk
and honey.” But that news was
overshadowed by their conclu-
sion that they couldn’t go up
against these mighty people
and large fortified towns. And
although Caleb, one of the
scouts, strongly contradicted
the majority opinion, he didn’t
deny the substance.

The majority then doubled
down, emphasizing the feeling
of menace from “men of huge
measure,” from a land that
“consumes all who dwell in it”
and even the danger from sons
of giants. They finish with a
statement of utter powerless-
ness, saying “we were in our
own eyes like grasshoppers and
so we were in their eyes.”
Rashi, the great medieval
commentator, saw this bad
report, this “dibah,” as a lack
of faith. But couldn’t they have
just been responding to being
at their emotional limit and
overwhelmed? When people
are overstressed, our minds
are just bad at discerning
between real and imagined
danger. We have learned that
unprocessed fear that operates
outside of our conscious-
ness can shape our beliefs,
decisions and actions. Were
the people of Canaan a truly
outsized danger or were they
imagined monsters? Did the
land truly “consume all who
dwell in it,” or were the scouts
unconsciously consumed
with fear?
The great Chasidic master,
the Maggid of Mezritch, taught
that the scouts had fallen prey
to a distorted perception about
themselves, the land and its
inhabitants. Put another way,
their feelings were real, but not
true. What of the Israelites, who,
upon hearing these headlines,
wept loudly and bitterly into
the night? In their terror, they
blamed and complained. They
wished aloud that they had
died in Egypt. They lashed out
and threatened to stone Caleb
and Joshua, the only other spy
to return with a positive report.

When fear feels like too
much or when we feel unsafe,
we can be pushed outside of
what psychiatrist Daniel Siegel
calls our “window of toler-
ance,” where fear and anger
can take over. We can harm
ourselves (go back to Egypt) or
others (stone Joshua and Caleb)
as we look for any way to not
feel that fear and uncertainty.

We can be cut off, separated,
from our own wisdom, faith,
resilience and strength.

Yet Joshua and Caleb
remained connected to their
inner resources. They were able
to respond to the Israelites’ fear
and despair with reassurance
and compassion. We all have
different capacities in different
situations. (The health care
heroes of the COVID-19
pandemic have surely shown
that.) The result of this sorry
episode was that a whole
generation of the Jewish people
would die in the wilderness,
cut off from their relationship
with God, from their promised
land, by fear.

How can I avoid being cut
off, by the fears of our own
time? How do I get back in
touch with my own inner
resources when reading or
hearing whatever the headlines
bring? I begin by finding a
feeling of safety. Connecting to
something I can count on. By
becoming aware of my breath.

By feeling my feet on the floor.

By knowing that my fear may
be real, but not true. This can
be faith, and a prayer. l
where the educational center for
children was able to comfort-
ably host around 70 parents
and children for lively Kabbalat
Shabbat services in the alley
behind the building. They’d been
hosting children inside on and
off for parts of 2020 and 2021,
but as Makom founding director
Beverly Socher-Lerner put it,
“this school year has been what
I’m lovingly calling the pivot
Olympics.” Rising and falling
infection rates have guided the
decision making of Makom’s
leadership, and they will continue
to be sensitive to the numbers.

What that means practi-
cally is that Makom will take
baby steps on the way back to
normalcy. For a recent Kabbalat
Shabbat celebration, attendees
were given grape juice and
popsicles as they left the alley.

Next: serving food while people
are still together, outside.

“When we did suddenly
see 70 people in the back of
Makom, we weren’t like, ‘Oh,
no, this is a lot of people,’”
said Amanda Phillips, Center
City director of Makom.

“But rather, ‘This is such an
exciting opportunity that we
now have and [for] everyone to
feel comfortable and safe doing
so.’” The next steps will come
as new guidelines from public
health bodies are released.

Beth Sholom Congregation
recently hosted its first indoor,
in-person cultural event since
March 2020. Congregants who
wished to attend an a cappella
show from the group Six13 were
required to show proof of vacci-
nation, which they were more
than happy to do according
to Robin Minkoff, executive
director of the synagogue.

“They want to return to
normalcy,” Minkoff said, “with
respect for both the law and
whatever Beth Sholom chooses
to do regarding this pace of
reopening.” But an in-person, indoor,
masked event doesn’t just
happen because the synagogue
decides that it’s time. It also
needs enough Beth Sholom
congregants — “a rising ground-
swell” of them, in Minkoff’s
words — who are enthusiastic
about doing so. l
Cantor Julie Newman is president
of Tiferet, a Jewish spirituality
project, and spiritual leader of
Chavurat Shirah, an independent
minyan. This column was provided
by the Greater Pittsburgh Rabbinic
Association. In-person
Continued from Page 13
At “Pathways to Israel — Mind,
Motion and Munchies,” masks
will still be required, but as
with Adath Israel’s barbecue,
the presence of refreshments
will make 100%, wire-to-wire
compliance impossible.

Though indoor events
without masks are likely to be
beyond the pale “for a while,”
Blake said, it’s an exciting
time for CBENT. Communal
gatherings that seemed out of
reach for a year are becoming
possible again.

That’s been the case at
Makom Community, too,
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JUNE 3, 2021
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