The white slavery trade in the early 20th century robbed thousands of Polish Jewish women of their dignity, freedom and self-worth. Thousands were lured to Brazil and Argentina on the false pretence that they would have a far better life abroad, only to discover to their bitter anguish that they had been tricked and assigned […]
At the age of 16, citizens of the now-defunct Soviet Union received their official identification card. This was usually seen as a festive and significant event, a giant step forward into adulthood. One’s “nationality” was inscribed on the fifth line of this document. In a multicultural country with 100 nationalities, you could be Russian, Ukrainian, […]
Nazi-looted paintings turn up in the most surprising of places. In Pascal Bonitzer’s French-language movie, Auction, which will be screened at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival on June 2, a canvas by the Austrian Expressionist painter Egon Schiele is found in the home of a young factory worker who has no idea of its intrinsic […]
He discovered them in 1961 in The Cavern, a dingy nightclub in the British port of Liverpool. The four scruffy young men he heard singing that night impressed him, and under his tutelage, they achieved astonishing success. The Beatles, arguably the most successful band in musical history, rose to stardom thanks in no small part […]
The Voice of Israel, or Kol Israel, broadcast special radio programs to the Arab world from the late 1940s onward. Mostly hosted by Arabic-speaking Iraqi Jews superbly acquainted with Arab culture, they were quite popular, judging by the stream of appreciative letters from Arab listeners that landed in an Israeli postal box in Geneva, Switzerland, […]
Marco Carmel’s bitter-sweet movie, Arugam Bay, is set in an idyllic corner of Sri Lanka to which surfers gravitate. It’s where three Israelis go on vacation to chill out and reminisce about an old friend who has passed. It will be screened on June 1 at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, which runs from May […]
The first group of Jews to be transported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in Poland consisted of 999 women from Slovakia. Their gruesome story unfolds in Heather Dune Macadam’s empathetic documentary, 999: The Forgotten Girls, which is scheduled to be screened at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival on May 31. Slovakia, a province of Czechoslovakia, […]
Foreign intrigue suffuses Background To Danger, a 1943 Warner Bros. Pictures movie directed by Raoul Walsh. Recently screened on the Turner Classic Movies channel, this taut espionage thriller unfolds primarily in Turkey but also in Syria and Nazi Germany at the height of World War II. Turkey, one of several neutral countries that stayed out […]
Regardless of whether you’re a gourmet or a gourmand, Food, Inc. 2 may very well interest you. This hard-hitting documentary, a sequel directed by Robert Kenner and Melissa Robledo and scheduled to open in theaters in Canada on April 19, examines the food industry in all its perfect and imperfect permutations. As they point out, […]
How loyal are Israeli Arabs to Israel? It’s a compelling question that has yet to be settled conclusively because this is a devilishly complicated issue. Since the Muslim and Christian Arab citizens of Israel are essentially Palestinians, the descendants of the 160,000 Palestinian Arabs who remained in the country after Israel’s War of Independence in […]