Erno “Zvi” Spiegel is an unsung hero of the Holocaust — a nearly forgotten Hungarian Jew who saved young Jewish twins in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in Poland from looming death. An inmate in the camp since May 1944, he worked for Josef Mengele, the German physician who conducted gruesome medical experiments on twins he […]
Iran’s ballistic missile attacks against Israel on June 7 and June 8 were stunning yet not surprising. Iran — Israel’s arch enemy and Hezbollah’s chief ally in the Middle East — attacked Israel in retaliation for an Israeli air strike in Dahiyeh, a suburb south of Beirut and a Hezbollah stronghold. Israeli aircraft bombed Dahiyeh […]
Prime Minister Mark Carney finally delivered a long overdue public statement on the unsettling spike of antisemitic incidents in Canada. On June 1, in a candid speech at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto, he condemned these assaults, acknowledged that the Jewish community faces “a surge of antisemitism to levels not seen in the postwar period,” […]
Sharon Angelhart’s Hebrew-language movie, Cuz You’re Ugly, is a closely-observed character study of an obese and unattractive young woman who craves intimacy and recognition. It will be screened at the forthcoming Toronto Jewish Film Festival, which started on June 4 and runs until June 14. In the opening moments of this Israeli feature film, Avigail […]
Oliver Kolker’s Spanish-language movie, I Had The Heart, engages all the senses. A drama from Argentina with pronounced musical elements, it takes place in Buenos Aires as a handicapped mechanic rises to stardom as a tango singer. It will be screened at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, which gets underway on June 4 and runs […]
Grossinger’s, the renowned Borscht Belt resort, is lovingly profiled in a nostalgic documentary by Paula Eiselt. We Met At Grossinger’s will be screened at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, which runs from June 4-14. A year-round destination whose clientele was comprised almost entirely of Jews, Grossinger’s was located in the majestic Catskill Mountains, a Jewish […]
One of the most unusual episodes in the annals of the Arab-Israeli conflict took place in the early 1980s when the former queen of Jordan was directly drawn into the mechanics of a prisoner exchange between Israel and the Palestinians. Duki Dor’s intriguing documentary, Royal Swap, lays it out in voluminous detail. It will be […]
Neta Shoshani’s substantive documentary, 1948 — Remember, Remember Not, delves into the tumultuous events that led to the first Arab-Israeli war nearly 80 years ago. Based on personal letters, diaries and file footage, and supplemented by on-camera interviews, it will be screened at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, which runs from June 4-14. It is […]
Hans Rosenthal was a beloved superstar on West German television from 1971 to 1986. His popular and lucrative quiz show, Dalli, Dalli, was watched by millions. In 1978, he faced an agonizing dilemma. His boss wanted him to host Dalli, Dalli on November 9. This was no innocuous date. It coincided with the show’s seventh anniversary […]
Mothers pamper their children, but the single mom in Netalie Brown’s Israeli feature film wins first prize in this category. Anat (Dana Ivgy) is so protective of her son, Ido (Ben Sultan), that she threatens to emasculate him. Her obsessive actions unfold in Oxygen, a competently-crafted movie due to be screened at the Toronto Jewish […]