VALLEY PATRIOT EXTRA
Jewish Film Festival Shows
Movie Tribute to Yoni
TOM
DUGGAN
Last month the Merrimack Valley Jewish
Federation held a Jewish Film
Festival at Osgood Landing in North
Andover, attracting more than 150 people
from around the area.
The film festival’s feature
presentation “Follow Me, The
“Yoni” Netanyahu Story,”
left many in attendance with tears in
their eyes as they left the theater at
Osgood Landing.
Yoni Netanyahu was the older brother of
current Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin
Netanyahu and a legendary hero in Israel.
Netanyahu, then a commander in the
Israeli army, “was killed at the age
of 30 leading the 1976 hostage rescue
mission at the Entebbe Airport in Uganda.”
In the film “Follow Me”,
co-directors Jonathan Gruber (Jewish
Soldiers in Blue and Gray, NYJFF 2011)
and Ari Daniel Pinchot (Producer, Paper
Clips) present a moving portrait of Yoni’s
life through his own poetry, prose and
letters. Ultimately a portrait of a young
country through a young man, the
documentary also features rarely seen
footage of the 1967 war and the Entebbe
raid itself, as covered by American news
legend Walter Cronkite.
Laura Rodman, president of The Merrimack
Valley Jewish Federation said that she
found herself not only choked up during
the film, but became a bit emotional just
talking about it afterwards with The
Valley Patriot.
“I first saw the rough cut last
November and I’m all choked up now
the way I was then,” she said.
“The fact that they were able to use
all that footage, both the personal
footage and the war scenes, everything
about it was so authentic it has to move
anyone who sees it.”
Rodman, lives in Nashua NH and originally
hails from Brooklyn NY, and is in her
first year as president of the
organization. She said she saw “Follow
Me” at the General Assembly of the
Federation of North American Jewish
Federation convention last November and
knew right away that the film needed to
be showed in Merrimack Valley.
“It shows how a man in the army
… of any army, can be so poetic and
speak so beautifully and really have two
different lives. It just blows my mind,
that’s the only way I can put it.”
Laurie Tishler Mindlin, who has been the
Executive Director of the Merrimack
Valley Jewish Federation for five years,
told The Valley Patriot that seeing the
film is very important not only for Jews
but for everyone.
“I thought it was very important to
show this film now because I think that
today people don’t have heroes. They
don’t have people to look up to, to
live up to, to learn about and to aspire
to be like them. I think today people
struggle with a passionate commitment to
Israel. This film shows that.”
Mindlin said that the movie reflects a
time when people came together and
supported Israel and cared for the State
of Israel .
“And what’s really no
difference today is that people so
urgently want to wipe Israel off the map.
But there isn’t the support for
Israel today that there used to be. That
is why it was important to show it now.”
Mindlin said she also saw the rough cut
of the movie last November with Laura
Rodman and added, “I previewed it
again a few days ago I thought it was
very moving, very moving.”
“This film was very well put
together,” she continued. “This
was years and years of going through
footage, hours and hours of film to edit.”
“Next month it’s in a couple of
festivals across the country and then
after that it will be opening in New
York, Los Angeles, Toronto and southern
Florida. Depending on how that goes it
will be opening in other smaller
communities. I think Boston is a second
tier community but we expect it will be
shown there later this year.”
Mindlin said that even though “Follow
Me” is a Jewish story “I think
a lot of non-Jewish people will want to
come and see this. It is universal
though, everyone who sees this will
benefit from it.”
With more than 150 people turning out for
the festival, Mindlin said that she was
very happy with the turnout. “We
would always like to have more people,”
she said. “But I am very happy that
so many came out to see this.”
“The Jewish federation provides a
variety of experiences throughout the
world and various different people from
different backgrounds might come to a
Jewish film festival that might come to a
family concert and so we are happy to
provide something for all aspects of the
community.”
Colonel Sam Poulten, owner
of WCAP radio and a resident of
Chelmsford was also on hand for the
festival and spoke to the audience prior
to the movie presentation.
On stage he recounted how he was in
Israel with Yoni one day when Yoni tried
to convince him to move to Israel.
“We were walking about 4AM, he was
in the lead as he always was, and we were
with another Israeli soldier at the time.
He said ‘look at what is going on in
the United States how can you live in a
country that is so violent and has so
much racial unrest?” The audience
burst into laughter. “Then he
stopped and told us to ‘only step
where I step and only move where I move.”
When I asked him why he said “explosives”.
The audience roared with laughter again.
Poulten recounted how Yoni was his
inspiration to join the US Army and added
“what I learned from Yoni is that if
I didn’t do it, someone else was
going to have to. And if everybody does a
little bit, nobody has to do a lot.”
Poulten said in 1976 he and his wife Gail
were celebrating the bicentennial “when
the news came to us in our hotel room
about the raid on Entebbe and we were
elated like everyone else was. The news
said there was only one fatality and we
were celebrating such a great victory…
until we learned that the one was Yoni.”
The festival also featured a comedic film
by Yisrael Campbell, a Philadelphia born
Catholic who converted to Judaism.
For more information on the Merrimack
Valley Jewish Federation you can visit
them on-line at: http://www.mvjf.org/
Colonel Sam Poulten, owner
of WCAP radio and a resident of
Chelmsford was also on hand for the
festival and spoke to the audience prior
to the movie presentation. 
