Morris (Moe) Berg was an anomaly in the best sense of the word. Wielding brains and braun, he was an intellectual, a professional athlete and coach, and a spy. Call him a Renaissance Man, if you will. It would not be far-fetched to say he was the most unusual person ever to play Major League […]
The German word “zeitgeist” denotes the spirit of an era and could easily apply to Nazi Germany’s genocidal project to exterminate European Jews during the Holocaust. In just six short years, from 1939 to 1945, the deranged leaders of what had been a cultured and civilized country embarked on an unprecedented campaign of ethnic cleansing […]
Alfred Ker, the prominent German Jewish theater critic and essayist, was hounded out of Germany after the rise of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime. He never returned, migrating from one country to the next with his family and living out the rest of his life in Britain, his adopted homeland. Ker’s daughter, Judith Kerr, became a […]
Ty Roberts’ 12 Mighty Orphans, which opens in Canada on August 6, is an uplifting account of triumph over adversity. Inspired by true events, and taking place in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1938, it reaffirms the adage that a lot can be wrung from little. A football coach arrives at an orphanage and, against all odds, […]
A classic of the Israeli cinema, Eran Riklis’ Cup Final is still as fresh and relevant as it was in 1991, the year of its release to critical acclaim. Currently being presented online by the Toronto Jewish Film Foundation, Cup Final is a reference to the much anticipated World Cup match that would determine the […]
The Debt, a thriller directed by John Madden, seamlessly blends two interlocking themes: the Holocaust and vengeance, as exacted by Israel’s external intelligence agency, the Mossad. Now available on Netflix, it flits between the mid-1960s and the late 1990s and is set in Israel, East Berlin and Kiev. The plot is familiar, reminiscent of Israel’s […]
Dror Moreh’s intensely engaging documentary, The Human Factor, bores into the decade-long period from 1990 until 2000, when the possibility of a peace agreement between Israel and its Arab neighbors seemed attainable. In his 108 minute film, which will be available on VOD platforms later this year, he focuses on Israel’s negotiations with the Palestinians […]
Francois Ozon’s languorous coming-of-age French movie, Summer of ’85, has a very familiar ring to it. In every respect, it resembles Call Me By Your Name, released a few years ago. If I were to go one step further, I would say it could be classified as a credible knockoff of Call Me By Your […]
With immigrants from all corners of the world pouring into Canada in the decades after World War II, Toronto was in desperate need of new residential housing. The construction industry met the challenge, erecting some 500,000 rental apartment units from 1952 to 1975. Virtually all of them were built by Jewish builders, a few of […]
Peter Mostovoy’s bitter-sweet autobiographical movie, The Red Scarf, exposes the hypocritical pretensions of a society that celebrated egalitarianism and brotherhood but that denied equal opportunities to one of its national minorities. It will be screened online by the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, which runs from June 3-13. Mostovoy, a cinematographer and director, is a distinguished […]