Blue Box is a thought-provoking documentary film directed by Michal Weits, exploring the complex legacy of her great-grandfather Joseph Weitz and his role in the acquisition of Palestinian lands for Jewish settlement. The film delves into the controversial history of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and its Blue Box campaign, which raised funds internationally to purchase and afforest land in Palestine.
The documentary takes its title from the iconic blue collection boxes used by the JNF to gather donations from Jewish communities worldwide. These donations enabled the organization to acquire and develop Palestinian Arab lands from the 1930s through the early years of Israeli statehood.
Michal Weits uses her great-grandfather’s extensive personal diaries, spanning 5,000 pages and covering about 80 years of history, as a primary source for the film. Through these writings, archival footage, and interviews with family members, she uncovers the moral dilemmas and conflicting emotions Joseph Weitz experienced as he orchestrated the land acquisitions that would shape modern Israel.
The film presents a nuanced portrait of Joseph Weitz, known both as the “Father of Israel’s Forests” for his role in the country’s afforestation efforts, and more controversially as the “Architect of Transfer” for his involvement in displacing Arab communities. Weits grapples with her family’s legacy and the broader implications of these historical actions on the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Blue Box has received critical acclaim for its brave and authoritatively documented account of this pivotal period in Israeli history. The film challenges viewers to confront uncomfortable truths about the founding of Israel while offering a deeply personal perspective on a family’s connection to these momentous events.
"the moral dilemmas and conflicting emotions Joseph Weitz experienced as he orchestrated the land acquisitions that would shape modern Israel."
Quite frankly, this man could have ended his 'moral dilemmas' but not doing colonial land acquisition. Why should anyone care about his diary? This is the kind of man I fervently hope dies a horrible death.
Perfect ! I am doing the first News Roundup of the year and this will fit in wonderfully. My theme is moral compasses, fascism, and settler colonialism.
USA is a state built by settler colonialism, violence, and oppression. The U.S. polity has been trying to rid itself of Indigenous nations since the first settlement. Is there is actually any hope for redemption of the USA without a moral compass after almost 249 years?
Exactly the same case in Australia, where the aboriginals used controlled fires for millennia, lived in equilibrium with nature, but didn't build stuff. All the British settlers saw was "terra nullis", started building and planting anywhere they fancied, worked hard to tame the land to their liking, imported flora and fauna destructive to the local ecosystem,.....and then they had to build rabbit proof fences across the continent, and scratch their heads every time fires destroyed everything they built.
The "savages" watched on in disbelief and dismay.
To this day the Australia government refuses to include aboriginal elders to guide them with fire management, even after the apocalypse of 2019-20, which burned a whooping 24 million hectares and killed or displaced 1,5 billion animals.
While the whole nation watched in helpless heartbreak, our prime minister was sipping cocktails in a Hawaii resort, and vehemently denied he was on holidays up until his photos on the beach were published, whereupon he hastily returned to forcibly shake the hands of people who had lost everything and who cried en masse "FUCK OFF MORRISON!!!", which became a national chant.
They had cut funding to the fire department previously, and insurance companies refused to compensate for "natural disasters".
Thank you for the additional information! I remember the fires in 2019. While the government was screaming about China the entire countryside was burning. Same thing happened in Spain recently, the king made a PR visit to the site of the floods, spent a few moments there, and then went back to his palace. People pelted him with rocks and they were right. I remember Morrisson trying to hug victims of the fire while getting yelled at.
I feel this weird itch to stress that the Eucalyptus are innocent in this. They are not 'destructive species'. Humans make them destructive. They are beautiful, tough creatures, evolved to withstand fire and drought. I like Eucalyptus. I just don't like them as instrument of colonialism
I have a strained relationship with the eucalyptus because they make gum out of it and I really don't like it 😤😂
Well, they are destructive in Palestine in the same way that rabbits are destructive in Australia, not having any natural predators or any natural method to control their population. It doesn't help that millions have been planted of course, if there were only a few trees here and there it would likely not have such an impact.
It was a huge thing last year when Hezbollah rocket impacts created wildfires in the north, 'Israelis' were quick to point to the environmental crisis... and then they were quickly reminded these fires happened because they planted millions of trees not suited to the local climate that spontaneously combust when the sun lingers on a little too long at noon.
More seriously, have you tried exiting the app completely and reopening it? If it still doesn't work, I might suggest uninstalling the app and reinstalling from the app store. Unfortunately I can't help more as I'm not involved with the app development! These are generally recommended steps when coming across a bug on any app.
Haha I promise I had nothing to do with it... or did I? 😂
I've also had issues with the Substack app at times. I think they don't have a huge team behind it so we're bound to run into some issues. Even as writers there are functionalities we know not to touch otherwise it could lock us out of our account 😵💫
I have a bonus newsletter coming out in 5 hours and my usual ones are otherwise on Sundays!
We had a fire in Talent and Phoenix, Oregon just a few years ago that burned cars the same way. Burn temps in some parts of these towns were estimated at 1600 and we also saw melted hub caps. We also had dry offshore winds much like the Santa Ana’s we knew when we in CA — not straightforward winds, but swirly shifting ones that blew embers all o er the place. Large areas of green and many many homes and businesses burned to the ground. We’re still recovering. This was a year after the Camp Fire in Paradise, CA and a week or two before the same thing happened in Canada. People were coming up with similar stories to account for the seemingly “unnatural” spread of the fire but we all saw the huge glowing embers floating in the wind. No exotic energy weapons required, just hot dry conditions and strong offshore winds. And, in our case, an idiot who attempted to burn the body of someone they’d killed — in a dry brushy area — during these conditions. At least that’s the official narrative. The point being that people always look for someone or something to blame other than Western civilization’s short-sighted and obviously ineffective approach to…civilization.
Trees aren't full of petrol fuel. I don't even understand what point you're trying to make now but it's okay. I don't really care to continue this conversation.
Great article . So many unforeseen consequences.
Blue Box is a thought-provoking documentary film directed by Michal Weits, exploring the complex legacy of her great-grandfather Joseph Weitz and his role in the acquisition of Palestinian lands for Jewish settlement. The film delves into the controversial history of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and its Blue Box campaign, which raised funds internationally to purchase and afforest land in Palestine.
The documentary takes its title from the iconic blue collection boxes used by the JNF to gather donations from Jewish communities worldwide. These donations enabled the organization to acquire and develop Palestinian Arab lands from the 1930s through the early years of Israeli statehood.
Michal Weits uses her great-grandfather’s extensive personal diaries, spanning 5,000 pages and covering about 80 years of history, as a primary source for the film. Through these writings, archival footage, and interviews with family members, she uncovers the moral dilemmas and conflicting emotions Joseph Weitz experienced as he orchestrated the land acquisitions that would shape modern Israel.
The film presents a nuanced portrait of Joseph Weitz, known both as the “Father of Israel’s Forests” for his role in the country’s afforestation efforts, and more controversially as the “Architect of Transfer” for his involvement in displacing Arab communities. Weits grapples with her family’s legacy and the broader implications of these historical actions on the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Blue Box has received critical acclaim for its brave and authoritatively documented account of this pivotal period in Israeli history. The film challenges viewers to confront uncomfortable truths about the founding of Israel while offering a deeply personal perspective on a family’s connection to these momentous events.
"the moral dilemmas and conflicting emotions Joseph Weitz experienced as he orchestrated the land acquisitions that would shape modern Israel."
Quite frankly, this man could have ended his 'moral dilemmas' but not doing colonial land acquisition. Why should anyone care about his diary? This is the kind of man I fervently hope dies a horrible death.
Thank you for sharing!
Perfect ! I am doing the first News Roundup of the year and this will fit in wonderfully. My theme is moral compasses, fascism, and settler colonialism.
USA is a state built by settler colonialism, violence, and oppression. The U.S. polity has been trying to rid itself of Indigenous nations since the first settlement. Is there is actually any hope for redemption of the USA without a moral compass after almost 249 years?
Thank you Carina! 2025 feels like the year of decolonization... somehow I can feel it.
🙏 Brutality hardly triumphs if it fails to obtain a certain moral consensus, if civilized men recognize it for what it is.
Exactly the same case in Australia, where the aboriginals used controlled fires for millennia, lived in equilibrium with nature, but didn't build stuff. All the British settlers saw was "terra nullis", started building and planting anywhere they fancied, worked hard to tame the land to their liking, imported flora and fauna destructive to the local ecosystem,.....and then they had to build rabbit proof fences across the continent, and scratch their heads every time fires destroyed everything they built.
The "savages" watched on in disbelief and dismay.
To this day the Australia government refuses to include aboriginal elders to guide them with fire management, even after the apocalypse of 2019-20, which burned a whooping 24 million hectares and killed or displaced 1,5 billion animals.
While the whole nation watched in helpless heartbreak, our prime minister was sipping cocktails in a Hawaii resort, and vehemently denied he was on holidays up until his photos on the beach were published, whereupon he hastily returned to forcibly shake the hands of people who had lost everything and who cried en masse "FUCK OFF MORRISON!!!", which became a national chant.
They had cut funding to the fire department previously, and insurance companies refused to compensate for "natural disasters".
Sounds familiar?
Thank you for the additional information! I remember the fires in 2019. While the government was screaming about China the entire countryside was burning. Same thing happened in Spain recently, the king made a PR visit to the site of the floods, spent a few moments there, and then went back to his palace. People pelted him with rocks and they were right. I remember Morrisson trying to hug victims of the fire while getting yelled at.
I feel this weird itch to stress that the Eucalyptus are innocent in this. They are not 'destructive species'. Humans make them destructive. They are beautiful, tough creatures, evolved to withstand fire and drought. I like Eucalyptus. I just don't like them as instrument of colonialism
I have a strained relationship with the eucalyptus because they make gum out of it and I really don't like it 😤😂
Well, they are destructive in Palestine in the same way that rabbits are destructive in Australia, not having any natural predators or any natural method to control their population. It doesn't help that millions have been planted of course, if there were only a few trees here and there it would likely not have such an impact.
It was a huge thing last year when Hezbollah rocket impacts created wildfires in the north, 'Israelis' were quick to point to the environmental crisis... and then they were quickly reminded these fires happened because they planted millions of trees not suited to the local climate that spontaneously combust when the sun lingers on a little too long at noon.
This was one of my source for this essay, it's an interesting read: https://slowfactory.earth/readings/green-colonialism-in-palestine/
Substack app is stuck at Critical Resist. Can’t get back to homepage. Arrow doesn’t work. Help!
You're stuck forever reading me now 😂
More seriously, have you tried exiting the app completely and reopening it? If it still doesn't work, I might suggest uninstalling the app and reinstalling from the app store. Unfortunately I can't help more as I'm not involved with the app development! These are generally recommended steps when coming across a bug on any app.
Thanks for getting back to me. Somehow it straightened out. I’ll look forward to reading you in the future and assume this won’t happen again!
Haha I promise I had nothing to do with it... or did I? 😂
I've also had issues with the Substack app at times. I think they don't have a huge team behind it so we're bound to run into some issues. Even as writers there are functionalities we know not to touch otherwise it could lock us out of our account 😵💫
I have a bonus newsletter coming out in 5 hours and my usual ones are otherwise on Sundays!
Never had this issue before. Regardless, I look forward to the newsletter.
Just like in Lahaina, the fires are 'unnatural':
LA burned so hot to the point of melting the aluminum in cars - but trees and shrubs unscathed.
https://substack.com/@justgene/note/c-85592525
Satellite footage shows all three major fires in Los Angeles, California starting at the same time.
https://substack.com/@davenarby/note/c-85266794
Directed Energy Weapons plus accelerants.
I think it just means that trees have evolved to withstand fire but cars haven't.
LOL
660’C or 1200’F to melt aluminum
We had a fire in Talent and Phoenix, Oregon just a few years ago that burned cars the same way. Burn temps in some parts of these towns were estimated at 1600 and we also saw melted hub caps. We also had dry offshore winds much like the Santa Ana’s we knew when we in CA — not straightforward winds, but swirly shifting ones that blew embers all o er the place. Large areas of green and many many homes and businesses burned to the ground. We’re still recovering. This was a year after the Camp Fire in Paradise, CA and a week or two before the same thing happened in Canada. People were coming up with similar stories to account for the seemingly “unnatural” spread of the fire but we all saw the huge glowing embers floating in the wind. No exotic energy weapons required, just hot dry conditions and strong offshore winds. And, in our case, an idiot who attempted to burn the body of someone they’d killed — in a dry brushy area — during these conditions. At least that’s the official narrative. The point being that people always look for someone or something to blame other than Western civilization’s short-sighted and obviously ineffective approach to…civilization.
Oil burns at 2000C.
The flash point, or the temperature at which wood will burst into flame, is 572°F (299°C).
Trees aren't full of petrol fuel. I don't even understand what point you're trying to make now but it's okay. I don't really care to continue this conversation.