Another Road Home

"I don't believe in home," Israeli author Amos Elon declares in his daughter Danae's documentary. Her moving film follows her search for Mahmoud "Musa" Obeidallah, the Palestinian man her parents hired to care for her as a child in Jerusalem. Danae, who now resides in New York, seeks out some of Musa's eight sons, who have also emigrated and live in New Jersey. They are like shadow siblings to her; during their childhood, their father spent most of his time with her, earning money to send them abroad to study. Her own father was busy writing. Born in Vienna, raised in Palestine, and now residing with his wife in Tuscany, he's long been an outspoken critic of the Israeli occupation. Politics hover at the edges of even the most affectionate encounters among Danae, her parents, and the Obeidallah family. Amos Elon's negativity regarding the future of the Jewish state mars the film, yet Another Road Home moves beyond dark predictions. "From the milk we drank together, something of my blood, my life is in you," Musa tells Danae. And in that fact, there's hope. (NR)