Civil wars in various parts of Africa and Asia have set off the mass movement of refugees to Europe in the past two decades. Jacques Audiard’s drama, Dheepan, which won the Palme d’Or prize at 2015 Cannes Film Festival and which opens in Canada on May 13, focuses on three Sri Lankans who escape to France as Sri Lanka’s […]
Category: Arts
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Abba Eban: A Biography
Abba Eban has been dead for 14 years but his name still resonates. Eban was unquestionably Israel’s most eloquent foreign minister, defending the Jewish state at the United Nations and other international forums. Hailed abroad as the Voice of Israel, he was regarded far less admirably at home. Although his contemporaries in Israel’s Labor Party […]
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Natasha: A Film By David Bezmozgis
Canadian short story writer/novelist David Bezmozgis draws on his Russian Jewish background for inspiration. Born in Latvia when it was still part of the now-defunct Soviet Union, he arrived in Toronto with his parents when he was six years old, joining the growing Russian diaspora in Canada. Although Bezmozgis has forged his reputation on the […]
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The Meddler
Lorene Scafaria’s feature film, The Meddler, is burdened with a misleading title. One might assume it’s about an unpleasant person who makes other people uneasy or miserable, but it’s actually about a guileless and needy widow with a sunny disposition whose chief ambition is to help her fellow human beings. Marnie (Susan Sarandon), still grieving […]
As usual, the Toronto Jewish Film Festival — which runs from May 5-15 — has a great lineup of movies this year. A sampler: Uri Barbash’s Kapo in Jerusalem (May 9 and 15) is shot through with moral ambiguities. Bruno Kaminski (Gil Frank), a Holocaust survivor in Israel, is accused of having committed reprehensible […]
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Roman Vishniac Rediscovered
Roman Vishniac (1897-1990) is remembered as the sharp-eyed observer who produced a priceless trove of some 15,000 photographs documenting Jewish life in Eastern and Central Europe before the Holocaust. Assigned to this prescient project by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, he poured body and soul into it. From 1935 to 1938, he travelled far and […]
When Paul Refsdal, a Norwegian journalist, visited Syria in 2014 and 2015, he embedded himself with Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda, the jihadist organization synonymous with Islamic extremism, death and destruction. Refsdal was canny enough to persuade two suicide bombers to submit to interviews. Both were waiting to blow themselves up. Their […]
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Norman Lear Changed The Face Of Television
Norman Lear is 93 now and can look back at an astonishing and perhaps unparallelled career in television. At one point in the 1970s, six of the 10 top shows on American TV networks had been developed by him. He was the king of the situation comedy. With hits like All in the Family, Maude, Good […]
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My Nazi Legacy
How do sons come to terms with their fathers’ crimes? My Nazi Legacy, which will be broadcast on the PBS network on Monday, May 2 at 10 p.m. (check local listings), examines this difficult and morally-charged issue through the eyes of two men whose fathers were certified Nazi war criminals. Hans Frank was the governor […]
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Rabin In His Own Words
Erez Laufer’s biopic, Rabin In His Own Words, humanizes the late Israeli prime minister. Rabin, shy and reserved, invariably projected coolness and aloofness in public appearances. But in this film, scheduled to be screened at the Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto on May 2, May 3 and May 6, Rabin comes off as a […]