Another Road Home

We went to see the movie Another Road Home at the wonderful Eveningstar Cinema in Brunswick. We hadn't really planned to see a movie tonight, this was a complete impulse move as we were driving by. "Another Road Home is on in 15 minutes!" "What's it about?" "I dunno - I remember thinking that it sounded good...." "Well, let's go check it out." (It turns out that I had other priorities tonight, but it was a good decision to go.

Another Road Home is a documentary about Israeli filmaker Danae Elon's quest to reconnect with Musa Obeidallah, a Palestinian man who worked for Elon's Jewish parents in Jerusalem for 20 years. Elon's father Amos Elon, a historian and sharp critic of Israel's policies regarding the Palestinians, was less a figure in Danae's formative years than Musa, who worked 18 hours a day in the Elon home and was Danae's primary caregiver during her youth. After Danae Elon moved to the US to study filmmaking in 1991, her parents moved their primary residence from Jerusalem and eventually lost contact with Obeidallah. After 9/11, Danae asks her mother if Musa was still alive, and her mother replied, "Yes. I would have heard if something had happened to him," although she could not specify who would have informed her.

And so it is that Danae Elon begins her quest for Musa. Locating a Palestinian within Israel promises to be a daunting task, so Danae tries another tact - Paterson, New Jersey. Obeidallah had sent all eight of his sons to study in the US, to acquire an education that they could not be afforded in Israel, and the Elons were aware that many of the sons had lived in Paterson, which has a large Palestinian population, and that one of them had owned a grocery on Main Street. And so it is that Danae heads to Paterson where, after a relatively short search, she finds someone who knows one of Musa's sons. He remembers Danae and a reunion follows shortly.

There are many poignant moments in the movie. Among Musa's children, Danae was closest in age with Naser, who now is opening a pharmacy in Paterson. Musa often brought Naser to the Elon house with him, and Naser and Danae were friends. Naser now has many questions for Danae - questions which, given the many awkward silences in her responses, the filmmaker wasn't prepared to be asked. Naser is direct: "What did you think of me, this Arab in your home? What did you think of my father?" Danae doesn't really answer. Later in the film she admits that she wasn't entirely sure what she was looking for when she started her search. I believe that she doesn't have an answer for Naser because, in those years, she was just a kid, who probably didn't fully understand the Israel - Palestine conflict. Her parents, after all, were obviously sympathetic toward the Palestinians, so she would not have thought of the Obeidallah family as lesser people than her own. Naser, however, was very much aware of the class differences, having to face them every day. "When I came over, I remember that you used to have a guitar that you would play with. Obviously they were giving you these things in school. My school didn't have any guitars. You had lots of books on the shelves. My school didn't have all of these books." Danae doesn't have an answer to Naser's queries.

Many telling moments involve Amos Elon. Noted as a critic of Israel's policies regarding the Palestinians, Amos Elon nonetheless is obviously nervous about being reunited with the Obeidallah family. I believe that this is because he is a well-off Jewish man, and thus sees himself as a potential target of the Palestinian people. He asks if any of Musa's son's have beards, which would be an indication that they are fundamentalist Arabs and, therefore, potentially terrorists. He admits being skeptical that there can ever be peace between Israel and Palestine (which, interestingly, both families acknowledge as the same geographic location), due to the years of hatred and bloodshed between the people. He offers that relationships between the Arabs and Jews are "painful". There can be no social relationship, because the conflict between the people must always be acknowledged. He stopped calling Musa six years earlier, because he sensed a hesitance in Musa's voice, as if he were somehow withdrawing from the relationship. I believe that it was Amos Elon who became uncomfortable being friends with an Arab, but feels the need to rationalize the decision by attributing the withdrawal to Musa Obeidallah. Amos and Beth Elon (who grew up in the US) are very intelligent people who are sympathetic to Palestine, yet even they have difficulty in dealing with the war between their people.

After Musa learns that his family and the Elon family have been reunited in the US, he decides that he must visit. Here is where we start to learn about the harsh realities facing the Palestinians. Because he is not Jewish, Musa may not fly out of the Jerusalem airport. Instead he must drive to Jordan. There are many checkpoints in Israel, and Palestinians are often detained for being Palestinians. What should be a one-day trip turns into a four-day ordeal. When he arrives in Maryland (where his eldest son lives), he is nonetheless in good spirits. He is happy to see his family, and he is happy to see Danae. He is reunited with Amos and Beth in New York, and he obviously still has much affection for his former employers. But his strongest feelings are obviously for Danae, whom he considers his own daughter (in fact, he may have known her better than his own children when she was growing up). Musa is in sharp counterpoint to Amos' contention that Israelis and Arabs can't socialize, even asking at one point to not speak of politics because he simply wants to enjoy the company of his friends.

Musa Obeidallah turns out to be the real star of this film, and a true joy to watch. He is a very giving man. He thinks nothing of traveling for four days, sometimes sleeping on floors, to get to the US. "I did it to see you," he tells Danae. He worked 18 hour days to afford to send his sons to the US to be educated, so they can have a better life than he does. (His daughters have remained in Israel and married.) His sons, in turn, have honored him by becoming very successful, one a pharmacist, one an engineer, another a graphic designer. Five of the sons continue to live in the US, and while they don't appear to have plans to return to Israeal any time soon, all feel strongly connected with their homeland. They all own houses in Israel (Palestine, as they refer to it), and though they may never set foot in those houses, it is how they stay connected to their homeland. And despite the fact that their lives have been forever affected by the Israel - Palestine conflict, they all warmly welcome their Jewish friends into their homes.

I have never been a scholar of the war between Israel and Palestine, so I learned a lot from this film. One thing that I have sorta been aware of is the nature of this dispute - basically land was taken from the Palestinians and given to the Jews, with the full blessing of the west. The Palestinians are understandably not fond of this arrangement, yet the US media always portrays them as the bad guys. I'm not sure that's necessarily the case. When Musa returns to Israel, accompanied by Danae, we see barbed-wire fences and concrete barricades. Israeli soldiers at checkpoints sometimes turn routine stops into several hour interrogations simply because the Palestinians can't be trusted. (There are many parallels to this in many societies, obviously, but it still doesn't seem right). It's sad to me that these kinds of conflicts must persist for so long, with no real hope of reconciliation. The source of the reconciliation can be found in the person of Musa Obeidallah, because he realizes that, at the core, people are people. He treats everybody kindly because he sees the person, not the nationality. This enables this simple man, with a sixth-grade education, to trust the Elon family because they are his friends. Too many others would distrust them because they are Jews, with no regard for what they stand for as individuals. It's a a lesson that I hope Danae and her family learned, and that I hope more of us can learn, too.