Noel Debre’s French-language movie, A Nice Jewish Boy, deals candidly and fearlessly with a topic that some might prefer to sweep under the rug — the antisemitism that seethes in the “projects” of Paris, the ethnically Arab/Muslim neighborhoods populated by a dwindling number of Jews. This somber film premieres on VOD and all leading digital […]
Alex Kurzem was a very, very unusual Holocaust survivor. He survived as a mascot in a Latvian police unit that had been implicated in the mass murder of Jews. Dan Goldberg, an Australian journalist, tells his amazing story in The Jewish Nazi?, a documentary that will be available on major digital platforms from September 12 […]
Gentrification refreshes and livens up a neighborhood, but often displaces residents who cannot afford far higher rents. Jaffa, a southern extension of Tel Aviv, finds itself exactly in this position today, judging by Jaffa: A Guide To Gentrification, a film by Osnat Trabelsi, Karen Shayou and Lavi Vanounou. It is now available on the ChaiFlicks […]
Canonized by the Vatican in 1992, five decades after he was murdered in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, the Franciscan priest Maximilian Kolbe was by all accounts a saintly man and a proud Pole. He was incarcerated in Auschwitz in May 1941, when virtually all of its inmates were Polish political prisoners and its image as […]
David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister and longest-serving one until Benjamin Netanyahu eclipsed his record, is the subject of Yariv Mozer’s reverent documentary, Memories of Ben-Gurion, which is now available on the Izzy streaming platform. Mozer, in this occasionally engaging 54-minute film, does not even attempt to paint a comprehensive portrait of Ben-Gurion, who was […]
I last saw Judgment At Nuremberg years ago, when I was a teenager. Some films age badly, but after watching it again recently on the Turner Classic Movie channel, I can confidently say that it stands the test of time. It is a fine film that deals accurately and seriously with a historically important subject. […]
Michael Curtiz’s classic, Casablanca, was released by the Warner Bros. studio in 1943 following its premiere in the previous year. Despite the passage of eight decades, it is remarkably fresh. I watched it on the Turner Classic Movies television channel, and it remains as vital and engaging as it was when I last saw it […]
Montreal comedians Eli Batalion and Jamie Elman are like fish out of water in Sweden. The zany performers, who specialize in Yiddish-inflected humor, landed in Stockholm last May with little or no knowledge about Sweden. They were laser-focused on learning about a small Scandinavian Jewish community that keeps a very low profile. Their explorations unfold […]
Harry Rasky describes Nobody Swings On Sunday as a “memory” movie. Rasky’s bitter-sweet documentary, to be screened at the ongoing Toronto Jewish Film Festival, is an assemblage of his boyhood memories of Toronto in the 1930s and 1940s. Released in 2003, it is based on his eponymous memoir, which was published in 1980. Rasky (1928-2007), […]
It’s the “last remnant” of old Toronto, according to former Toronto mayor John Sewell. Kensington Market, a throwback to the 1920s and 1930s, is a vibrant reminder of what parts of Canada’s largest city looked like about a century ago. Exuding color, character and charm, and located within a small area bounded by College, Spadina, […]