| Beaufort And Me |
At the recent Nefesh Israel Conference, a woman gave two thumbs up, smiled and said, "'Beaufort' made it; we're on the 'short list.' " I knew her to be his Mom, Mrs. Tzippi Cedar, an experienced psycho-drama therapist in her own right and mother of Yoseph Cedar. The son is the co-writer and director of the film, "Beaufort" - one of this year's four Academy Award nominees for Best Foreign Language film. This is Israel's first such achievement in 27 years._option_option_option
In a recent televised interview, when he was awaiting the news from Hollywood, one saw a kippa-clad Cedar in a large book-filled room with numerous awards - many of them heavy in weight - safely placed high up on a bookcase, to keep them from being damaged and to "protect" his children from hurting themselves. "Heavy" as well, are the topics that Cedar raises in his eloquent films. "Beaufort" is the story set in 2000, of a group of Israeli soldiers stationed in an outpost in Lebanon, prior to the withdrawal of forces. This is a film that evokes in the audience, an almost visceral experience of the idealism, fear, boredom, ardor, frustration, honor, bravery and zeal of Eretz Israel's young men. The film portrays the raw emotions of the soldiers amid existential questions that arise during the Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat service - taking place under fire - for those men who are davening and those that are not. The audience feels the charged atmosphere surrounding the soldiers as they endure the ever-present challenges they face while being deployed as the "last" Israeli presence on this Crusader-built fortification. When I saw the film, I was reminded of my own "visit" to Beaufort during Sukkot of 1982, during a hiatus in the fighting, months after it was first captured by Israel during the first war in Lebanon. It was on the strangest "road-trip" I had ever been on. It all started in shul over the chagim period. My Dad z'l was chatting with some minyan buddies over the month-long shul-going time. Everyone was speaking about the war -Operation Shalom Hagalil - that has become known as The First War in Lebanon. It began with the constant shelling of Kiryat Shimona and consequent entry into Lebanon by Israel in June of 1982. It was now October and Israel and its Lebanese ally, Tzalal -the South Lebanese Army, were in charge. One of the several "shul-buddies" was from the Foreign Ministry, another from the Tourist Ministry and the group of them decided that a "tourist" visit (in this case, American businessmen) to Lebanon to see what was really going on, would help Hasbara - the explanation - of Israel's position regarding the war, that they could bring back with them when they returned to the States,. "It was safe", they said and to prove it, they added, "You can even bring your wives." My Mom didn't want to go, so once I was offered the extra seat I said, "sure, I'll go." There were seven of us in a Ministry of Tourism car with "grapes" on it. (The insignia of the Ministry of Tourism is a picture of two of the advance investigative team, returning from their reconnaissance of the Promised Land, carrying a huge cluster of grapes on a stave of wood.) We drove up the Arava road to Kiryat Shimona, slept overnight and went on in the morning. Our first stop on the Lebanon side was Beaufort Crusader Fortress. As a citizen of Israel, and not just an ordinary tourist, I knew about the fierce battle to capture Beaufort and the "psychological" effect this achievement was supposed to incur in the enemy. The ostensibly "unattainable" fortress flying an Israeli flag meant that the most difficult and fortified position was ours. The fact that there was a tremendous amount of political and press machination, mainly the report that Beaufort was captured "without losses to our side" versus the true facts which later came out - the loss of six fighters among them the legendary commander of the Sayeret, Major Goni Hernik - made seeing this fortress an emotional sight. The matrix of tunnels (like a bitter honeycomb) rendered the description of the difficulty of clearing the spaces from hidden enemy a reality. We continued up to Baalbeck, to eastern Beirut, a beautiful if not lawless territory even then, and on down to Sidon and Tyre, then home to Rosh Hanikra. A number of images are etched in my mind. At each roadblock (and there were many) it was hard to tell which of the soldiers were ours and which were Tzalalniks, as Israel provided the uniforms for both sides; · The "lawlessness" was obvious by the fact that there were many expensive brands of cars with no license plates identifying them or their country of origin (we were told by our tour leader that the cars were probably stolen in their country of origin and driven over-land through Turkey, sold on the way or in Lebanon); The sight of a 12 or 13-year-old with two bandoliers crossing his little body, shooting birds as he stood next to us overlooking the valley of Baalbeck, and among the thoughts running thru my mind, was that he could just as easily have shot us; · Seeing a flatbed truck with a sukka built on it and Lubavitch Chassidim offering Israeli soldiers at checkpoints an opportunity to eat in the sukka and Bentch Lulav; More poignantly, seeing an army bus on it's side and IDF soldiers putting on their helmets and flack-jackets going to help their comrades-in-arms who had been shot by snipers, and we, following the shouted orders of the officer, turning down the next street only to see another Israeli soldier totally oblivious to what had transpired, "thumbing" a lift; And then there was Beaufort, where its tunnels and stone walls echoed with the pain of so many that were lost for a "psychological" victory. * * * * * On February 24th, Oscar Night in Hollywood, the co-writers Ron Leshem and director Yosef Cedar, will be in the audience among the four nominees for Best Foreign Language Film. War, is so complex; the least one can say is that it is, at the same time, awful and awe-inspiring. "Beaufort" captures this.
Originally published in the Jewish Press on February 20, 2008. |
