Mohamed Mod Helmy is a unique individual, having been the only Arab to be honored as a righteous gentile by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. The award was conferred on him posthumously a few years ago, but Helmy’s family, being anti-Israel, declined to accept it on his behalf. Finally, his aged nephew accepted it, […]
Luis Ismael’s feature film, Sefarad, pays Arthur Carlos de Barros Basto the recognition he so richly deserves. Basto, raised in a Catholic household in Portugal, discovered his family’s Jewish ancestry as his grandfather lay dying. Compulsively drawn to these roots, Basto converted to Judaism in Morocco when he was a young man. Later, while serving […]
Amos Oz, the great Israeli writer, died four months ago, before the release of Yonathan and Masha Zur’s biopic, Amos Oz: The Nature of Dreams, which will be screened at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival on May 9. Their vivid and wide-ranging documentary, supplemented by file footage, presents Oz in various modes. He’s a keen […]
Aficionados of Yiddish language and culture will be drawn into Uri Barbash’s affectionate biopic of one of the greatest Yiddish poets of the 20th century, Avraham Sutzkever, who died in Tel Aviv in 2010 at the ripe old age of 96. Black Honey: The Life and Poetry of Avraham Sutzkever, which will be screened at […]
The 1942 Warner Brothers film, Casablanca, is a Hollywood classic. Starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, this romantic drama won Academy Awards for best picture, best adapted screenplay and best director. Michael Curtiz, who directed it, was a Hungarian Jew who had a long list of movies to his credit, from The Adventures of Robin […]
Inspired by a true story, Trevor Nunn’s espionage drama, Red Joan, unfolds, in part, against the backdrop of two major events — World War II and the Cold War — and is set in Britain and Canada. The central character, Joan Stanley, is modelled after Melita Norwood, the longest-serving Soviet spy in Britain. Recruited in 1937, […]
Giorgio Treves’ sobering documentary, 1938-Different, which will be screened at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival on May 3 and May 6, lays bare the devastating impact of fascism on the Jewish community in Italy. In 1938, Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime enacted antisemitic laws that rendered 45,000 Italian Jews second-class citizens. The German invasion of Italy […]
Femme fatale Lauren Bacall was a star during Hollywood’s golden age in the 1940s. Strikingly beautiful, with a slim figure, a long mane of hair, seductive eyes and a low, husky voice which could set hearts aflutter, she was a complete unknown when she starred opposite Humphrey Bogart, her future husband, in the 1944 film To […]
Eighty years ago next month, the St. Louis, a luxury German passenger liner carrying more than 900 Jewish refugees, left the port of Hamburg bound for Havana, Cuba. The passengers, possessing valid Cuban visas, expected to be admitted to Cuba, but their hopes were cruelly dashed. The Cuban government turned them away and the vessel […]
Sami Alkolombris, a Bulgarian Jewish baker from Jaffa, earned a small fortune and achieved a measure of fame in Israel by selling mouth-watering boreks, or bourekas, a flaky Middle Eastern/Balkan pastry made of phyllo dough and filled with stuffings ranging from salty cheese and spinach to potatoes and meat. Sami initially sold his wares from […]