“Sunshine” revisited

Caution: Movie spoiler

Back in 1999, the Cap’n and I saw the film “Sunshine” in the movie theater.  It tells the multi-generational story of a Hungarian Jewish family’s rise from provincial distillers to movers and shakers in the nation’s many disparate governments.  In the film, each generation finds itself limited by its Jewishness and is persuaded first to change its name, then its religion, and finally abandon its identity as Jews altogether.

The tale of assimilation disturbed us the first time around, but this time even more so from our standpoint as ex-Diaspora-dwellers.  The Sonnenschein family’s loyalty to the Austro-Hungarian emperor, then the Socialists, (taking a break from loyalty during the Fascist government), then the Communists proves unfounded in every case, and only one character, Valerie (in the second generation of the film’s focus), manages to stay true to her identity as a Jew and remain aloof from disappointed loyalties.

I don’t love to think about anti-Semitism.  I don’t like to think of its still flourishing, or lurking under the surface in contemporary societies.  But the anti-Semitism that exists in so much of Western society these days, especially on liberal college and university campuses (wearing the thin cloak of “anti-Zionism”), proves the point made by Alvin Rosenfeld, the Irving M. Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies and professor of English at Indiana University, that “Nazism was defeated in Europe nearly 65 years ago.  Anti-Semitism was not.”  (Rosenfeld is founder and director of the new Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism at Indiana University.)  This makes the claims that so many have made in the last century—that Berlin was the New Jerusalem, that Hungary was the Promised Land, that Jews have found their last, best home in America—all the more unsettling.  There may not be Crusaders marching across the countryside with their priests’ exhortations to “kill a Jew and save your soul” running through their heads, or goose-stepping Brownshirts chanting “Juden raus” down the city streets, but it is clear from the sorts of guest speakers invited to university campuses (David Irving, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad) that the hatred and lies used to perpetuate anti-Semitism are just as protected as the truths of what happened in Operation Cast Lead, if not more so.

In that kind of climate, Jews can’t help but wonder what it takes to garner acceptance.  Some, as ignorant about Israel as the average American, hop on the bandwagon and denounce the Jewish State.  Others, believing the canard that Israel is the greatest threat to world peace, blame Israel (and by extension, the Jews) solely for Middle East unrest, the Palestinian “refugee crisis,” stealing land rightfully belonging to Arabs, and worldwide terrorism.  Still others find their support for Israel flagging in the face of the constant barrage of hatred and libel, and just don’t have the strength to fight it anymore.

Jews have always been suspected of dual loyalty.  I think it was Alan Dershowitz in his book Chutzpah who described being asked by more than one person, “If the US and Israel went to war, whom would you support?”  In some sense, it puts even more pressure on Jews to support and be active in their Diaspora societies, to show their loyalty to their host country.  In every case I’ve ever heard of, that participation and patriotism has been genuine, and one always hopes and expects that it will be taken as such.

And yet, it isn’t always.  It seems a small step for the second generation in “Sunshine” to change their last name from Sonnenschein to Sors, and the glee with which they skip down the stairs of a government building after officially making the change shows that they believe that will be all that will be asked of them for acceptance and promotion in Hungarian society.  But then the next generation rises, and a young fencer cannot even win a match against a Gentile, much less fence in the most exclusive club, without converting to Catholicism.  When he makes the change, he is greeted by the General who directs the exclusive Officers’ Fencing Club who tells him, “You made the right choice; assimilation is the only possible way.”  This Sors’s single-minded pursuit of success (and total lack of connection to his Jewishness) becomes apparent when he discusses a letter he has received from one of the fencing coaches who has fled to Algiers after the rise of the Fascists.  Here is the conversation between him and the General:

“He’s a traitor, sir.”

“It’s not that simple.  The Baron’s wife is Jewish, so his children are considered Jews.”

“He’s a traitor, sir.”

“Anti-Semitism is the creed of resentful and unsuccessful people.  It’s a shared madness which the Baron couldn’t accept.  But we have.  The worst thing about anti-Semitism is that it’s a philosophy of philistines.  It’s in bad taste.  I don’t know how much longer I can go along with it.”

In the very next scene, the Sors family sits around the radio listening to the new “racial laws” of Hungary, desperate to find grounds on which they themselves are exempt from the new legalized exclusion and persecution of Jews.  As disgusting and irrational as the laws themselves are, the family’s belief that they are safe because of their service to the country is just as irrational.  In their own way, they too have accepted the racial laws.  Rather than view the Big Picture and ask themselves, “What the hell happened to this country we thought was so great?” they wring their hands and look for any way they can to try to stay true to a country that no longer appreciates them, and perhaps never did.

Of course, their exemptions and safety are short-lived.  Shortly before the fencing champion is rounded up and sent to Auschwitz, he has a final conversation with the General, who says, “Sors, something I once said to you—that assimilation was the right choice.  I want to ask your forgiveness for having said that.  I was profoundly wrong, and I apologize.”  That the Gentile General can bring himself to apologize for having encouraged Sors to do what thousands of Jews had to do to participate fully in European society is marvel enough.  And yet, knowing Sors as the viewer does, he would never cling to something as meaningless and inconvenient to him as his Jewishness just for its own sake.  His ambition was too great, and his attachment to Torah too little.

By the end of the Communist era, the family is decimated, their generations of heirlooms and possessions looted, lost, or hauled away with the trash.  All that remains to the last living member is a letter written by his great-grandfather containing his ethical will, describing his creed of justice, humility, and Jewish identity.  In it Emmanuel Sonnenschein has written, “Never give up your religion—not for God; God is present in all religions.  But if your life becomes a struggle for acceptance, you’ll always be unhappy.  Religion may not be perfect, but it is a well-built boat that can stay balanced and carry you to the other shore.  Our life is nothing but a boat adrift on water balanced by permanent uncertainty.”

The movie ends on a note of hope as the last living member of the family returns to the government office to change his name back to Sonnenschein.  He is unlikely ever to be as religious as his forebears, or to desire the power and possessions they once enjoyed, but armed with his great-grandfather’s prayers for his son, he once again has a sense of who he is, and what his life is a part of.  For years he has made himself into what others expected or wanted him to be.  The viewer gets the sense that he needs only his own acceptance now, and not that of others.

While a great story, and beautifully acted and filmed, “Sunshine” depressed the Cap’n and me even more than last time we watched it.  Not for ourselves—we are happily installed in the great Zionist Paradise, get all our holidays off without being snarled at by secular Jewish bosses who say, “Well, I’M working on Yom Kippur.  Don’t see why you can’t,” spend a fraction of tuition of our Diaspora friends, and live a stone’s throw from the holiest city on Earth.  But thinking of our friends whose kids in college and university are subject to disgusting anti-Semitic bias from fellow students and professors, who themselves are professors and make a concerted effort not to get drawn into discussions that are heated and unproductive, and who are so used to the vicious anti-Israel (and anti-Semitic) articles published by The Boston Globe and The New York Times that they’re surprised to see anything published at all that is fair to the Jews, we find ourselves incredibly grateful that the REAL Jerusalem is within our grasp, that the Promised Land is ours once again, and that the Jews’ last, best home is once again the one given us by Hashem Himself.

Advertisement