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No. 50: Exodus

Zionist agitprop

by
Marc Tracy
December 07, 2011
(20th Century Fox)
(20th Century Fox)

1960, dir. Otto Preminger. Remember when Ari Ben-Canaan mocks the British officer who doesn’t recognize that he’s Jewish, which he doesn’t because Ben-Canaan is played by Paul Newman? Or when Ben-Canaan ends up with the comically Aryan Eva Marie Saint character? Or when the grizzled Menachem Begin stand-in convinces the activist that he learned to use explosives not in the ghetto but in the camp? Exodus will never cease to make up people’s minds about Zionism, even if, on certain souls, the agitprop is bound to backfire.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.