The Zionist Idea

I thought Colliding Dreams was excellent, and incredibly engaging. (Didn't look at my watch once!) It was really well balanced with a diversity of voices and opinions and tons of important, and frequently eye-opening, information.

I was particularly fascinated to learn about the roots of Zionism and the goals and dreams of the early settlers. And of course the arc of those dreams is so complex and the current situation so seemingly intractable that one leaves the film with both heartbreak and hope, but above all with the sense of the urgency with which answers must be found.

This is an important movie--rich, informative, and absorbing.

Colliding Dreams is an excellent guide through the fraught aspirations and drives which have shaped Zionism and which flow from it. The complex history is presented with sympathy for all and a clarity and balance that allow the viewer to come away empowered to engage, at least, in informed listening. The film contains fascinating historical footage and nuanced and candid interviews with experts, historical actors and contemporaries with many different perspectives. As a result the viewer gains a layered and deepening understanding as the story moves from the roots of Zionism through Israeli history to the current wave of religious Zionism. While commentators, above, who want be proved right may be disappointed, viewers wanting to see how successive hopes have been fulfilled or foundered and what the costs have been are rewarded.

As someone who has no conflict of interest AND who is very familiar w the topic (watched every israel/Palestine doc I know of; from highly partisan borderline propaganda docs on both POVS to every PBS frontline on the issue to docuseries from the 50s and 60s) this is the most balanced documentary I've seen by far. Contributors are all impressive ppl and both sober/thoughtful in their commentary. Also, as the history of zionism/Jewish immigration to Palestine is chronologically told from both POV relevant impartial context accompanies each major event/conflict. Context extremely important to understanding decisions made (and how simultaneously occurring global events/attitudes influenced those decisions) EXAMPLE 1948 War and David Ben Gurions decision not to let Palestinians back to their homes who fled country.

At first glance from today's perspective that seems extremely harsh and inhumane. But, when the context is added that it's only a couple years after World War II and in Europe at the same time millions of people are forcibly migrated into the new post World War II nation state borders. For example, Germans who previously lived in Poland on the Danzig corridor or in Czechoslovakia in the sudetenland all we're forced to migrate into Germany. And non-germans no longer feel comfortable being minorities in other Nations.

It doesn't justify or rationalize not letting 700,000 people back to their homes after a war that last few weeks but it does give very necessary concurrently occurring Global events that give some substantiation as to why such a seemingly harsh policy was enacted. Because it was occurring at the same time in Europe with other ethnicities and because of the enormous trauma the Jewish population just endured and their understandable reaction to want to only be around other Jews.

I am never surprised when intelligent films like Colliding Dreams—which approach polarizing subjects with grace and balance—are slammed in reviews. It seems that some people think that if a movie presents points of view that are different from theirs, or makes you a little uncomfortable by challenging your own prejudices, that makes it a bad film. In fact, the opposite is true.

Colliding Dreams will, if you let it, see historical Zionism and today's Israel from many perspectives—supporters, detractors, those who have lived it and those who fought it, those who study it and those who shaped it. It is precisely this diversity of opinion—presented in an incredibly coherent and affecting narrative—that makes it a great film.

In this film we meet Israelis who have incredible histories, and through them we, as American viewers, come into deeper contact with the history of Israel. We start to feel a relationship with these speakers, without knowing, for most of the film, where they are on the political spectrum. The impossibly complex story of Israel is told through the personal stories of the speakers, and also from footage of the events. It becomes a very powerful telling and I think that everyone who sees the film will feel the the greatness of the country and the extreme difficulties of it's internal conflicts and divisions. The filmmakers made excellent choices of who to interview; there are some great people on screen. I wish this film could be seen by so many people who know only one side of the issues of the other. The filmmakers have done their best to balance a number of perspectives.