"The Catskill Mountains with Arabs": Pluralizing the Meanings of Melville Shavelson's Cast a Giant Shadow (1966)

Abstract

ABSTRACT:Cast a Giant Shadow (1966) has usually been viewed by scholars as part of a group of pro-Israeli Hollywood films, such as Exodus (1960), that delivered to their viewers a heroic "new Jew" who was perceived as the antithesis of the Jewish Holocaust victim. Its writer-director-producer, Melville Shavelson, believed that the film was a failure, yet he chose to return to the story of its making in subsequent publications and to its themes in books and a television film. By analyzing these works, this article constructs additional contexts for understanding Cast a Giant Shadow. These include the film's relation to the US war in Vietnam, its significance for the Israeli film industry, and especially its role in exploring American Jewishness and its complex and shifting relationship to Israel.