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Health & Fitness

"The Other Son," And What It Taught Me

I watched a movie called, "The Other Son" recently. This is what it taught me

I was supposed to watch “Lincoln,” but it was sold out. The theater was small, and they only had one other show playing at the time, “The Other Son.” My mom bought my brother and I tickets to that, and without knowing anything about the movie, we watched it.

“The Other Son” is about two boys, Joseph and Yacine. Joseph is Jewish, and lives in Tel Aviv, and Yacine is Arab, and lives across the border, in Palestine. In Israel, like South Korea amongst others, there is a mandatory military draft when one turns 18. While preparing Joseph’s papers to be cleared for the draft, the doctor realizes something. Joseph’s blood type is not the same as his parents, and thus is not genetically related to them at all.

What ensues is a story about two teenagers being switched at birth, by a nurse’s mistake. “The Other Son” was done in Hebrew and French, but had English subtitles, of course. Joseph and Yacine crossed the Israeli-Palestine border many times to see each other, and to try and gain the acceptance and approval of the other family, their actual biological one. What would you do, if you found out that your whole life was a lie, and you actually belonged across the border, on the enemies side?

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Israel and Palestine, right now, are just about at war with eachother. A cease-fire was put into effect, but people are still getting shot anyway. In the spirit of Thanksgiving and the holidays, I ask that we all take a moment to be thankful that a war isn’t being fought on our land right now. How frightening to think that a war could be fought on our land, the Land of the Free? After watching this film, I realized I was so thankful that America is not being burdened by war on our own turf. Take a moment and think about what you are grateful for, and be glad.

Happy beginning of the holdays, everyone.

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