Despite her status as one of America’s greatest movie critics, Pauline Kael was regarded as a persona non-grata by certain Hollywood movers and shakers. Diverging from mainstream tastes, she would pan popularly acclaimed films such as The Sound of Music, Lawrence of Arabia and West Side Story, thereby enraging high-powered film executives, who barred her from […]
David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first premier, once joked that Golda Meir was “the only man” in his cabinet. Hard-working, persistent and outspoken, Golda was one tough lady who commanded respect. The only Israeli woman ever to be prime minister, she had sharp elbows and could not be pushed around. Forty one years after her death at […]
The central Polish city of Lodz was a thriving hub of Poland’s Jewish community before the Holocaust. Its story is told, in part at least, through one of its former residents, Lilka Elbaum, who lived in postwar Lodz until 1968. What most reminds her of her birthplace is an unremarkable still life painting that adorned […]
Yuval Adler’s spy thriller, The Operative, turns on Israel’s shadow war with Iran, its strongest and most resourceful enemy. Now available on the Netflix streaming service, it stars Diane Kruger as a Mossad agent who’s sent to Tehran to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program. An Israeli-German co-production, this somber film unfolds in Germany, Israel and Iran in […]
Martin Scorsese has translated his fascination with the American Italian mafia into memorable movies like Goodfellas and Casino, both of which were rich in atmosphere, dialog and character. His latest film in the genre, The Irishman, based on Charles Brandt’s book, I Heard You Paint Houses, conforms to this winning formula, and is now available on the […]
An assortment of stereotypes pop up in Michael Stein’s farce, The Awakening of Motti Wolkenbruch, which is now available on Netflix. Unfolding in a smattering of German, Yiddish and Hebrew, this light, amusing film lampoons two well-worn tropes — the overbearing Jewish mother trying to rein in her rebellious son, and the young Jewish man lusting […]
Ira Sachs’ drama, Frankie, which opens in Canada on November 8, stars Isabelle Huppert as a famous French actress who invites her family, an ex-husband and a friend to Portugal for what may be a final summer vacation. This appealing film, set in the wooded mountains and sandy beaches of the rustic resort of Sintra, […]
Canadian poet, novelist and essayist Margaret Atwood once said, “I never thought I’d be a popular writer. I only wanted to be a good one.” Several decades on, Atwood has achieved not only popularity but admiration as a stylist. Thanks to her prodigious body of work — 17 books of poetry, 17 novels, 10 works of […]
They’re the last of the Holocaust survivors — the Jewish boys and girls who survived the genocidal Nazi onslaught and are now in the final years of their long lives. Maxwell Smart, Rose Lipszyc and Helen Yermus, all Canadian citizens, witnessed the destruction of their respective Jewish communities in Poland and Lithuania. Seventy four years after […]
It’s 1989 and Ethiopia is being torn apart by a civil war. The country has sunk into the slough of violence and despair and people, particularly Jews, are desperate to leave. Fig Tree, directed by Israeli/Ethiopian filmmaker Aalam-Warqe Davidian, is set during this tumultuous period. Premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, Fig […]