Ari Ben Canaan Quotes in Exodus (1960)

[Jewish Ari Ben Canaan is masquerading as a gentile British officer named Bowen]

Maj. Caldwell: [about Jews] They look funny too. I can spot one a mile away.

Ari Ben Canaan: [pointing at his eye] Would you mind looking into my eye, sir? It feels like a cinder.

Maj. Caldwell: Yes, certainly.

[Caldwell looks into Ben Canaan's eye]

Maj. Caldwell: You know, a lot of them try to hide under gentile names, but one look at their face, you just know.

Ari Ben Canaan: With a little experience, you can even smell them out.

Maj. Caldwell: I'm sorry Bowen, I can't find a thing.

Ari Ben Canaan: This is Taha, Mukhtar of Abu Yesha. And this is Karen, Secretary of the Rooms Committee, Bungalow 12, Gan Dafna. We have no Kadi to pray for Taha's soul. And we have no Rabbi to pray over Karen. Taha should have lived a long life, surrounded by his people and his sons. And death should have come to him... as an old friend offering the gift of sleep. It came, instead, as a maniac. And Karen, who loved her life, and who lived it as purely as a flame, why did God forget her? Why did she have to stumble upon death so young? And all alone? And in the dark? We of all people... should no longer be surprised when death reaches out to us. With the world's insanity and our own slaughtered millions, we should be used to senseless killing. But I am not used to it. I cannot and will not get used to it. I look at these two people, and I want to howl like a dog. I want to shout 'murder', so that the whole world will hear it and never forget it. It's right that these two people should lie side by side in this grave, because they will share it in peace. But the dead always share the earth in peace. And that's not enough. It's time for the living to have a turn. A few miles from here, there are people who are fighting and dying, and we must join them. But I swear, on the bodies of these two people, that the day will come when Arab and Jew will share, in a peaceful life, this land that they have always shared in death. Taha, old friend, and very dear brother. Karen, child of light, daughter of Israel. Shalom.

[last lines]

Ari Ben Canaan: Taha, old friend, and very dear brother; Karen, child of light... and daughter of Israel: Shalom.

Ari Ben Canaan: A year is a long time in the life of a pretty woman. Have you found another man?

Kitty Fremont: Nothing serious.

Ari Ben Canaan: Why not?

Kitty Fremont: Many reasons. One is that my husband's work took up his whole life and I presume that's good or at least most men seem to think so. But I think that a man whose work is his whole life is only half a man.

Ari Ben Canaan: And you want a whole one?

Kitty Fremont: Exactly. The other half of his life must be a woman, what else?