Parents' Guide to Above and Beyond

Actual wartime footage, 1948 newsreel film, some recreations, and, most prominently, a series of interviews with the actual participants provide a clear picture of an important event in the history of the State of Israel and a tribute to the American men who risked their lives in support of its rebirth in ABOVE AND BEYOND. After the United Nations voted in 1947 to partition Palestine, with room for both a Jewish homeland and an Arab state, a combination of neighboring countries, including Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq, refused to honor the terms set forth. War erupted in the spring of 1948. The Jewish populace, both native to the area and refugees from Europe's Holocaust, was eager, committed, and ready to defend their land but had scant resources, little equipment, few weapons, and no air power or military expertise. It was David (600,000 Jews) versus Goliath (50 million Arabs) again. Enter a "coalition of the willing," mostly young American men who were up for the challenge of fighting on the side of their Jewish brethren, using their wartime air force expertise, clandestine acts (smuggling, lying, circumventing the law), and amazing bravado to prevent another Jewish catastrophe in the making. ABOVE AND BEYOND is the story of these men.