Strength of character, resilience and courage were often the hallmarks of Holocaust survivors. These were the vital qualities that enabled them to overcome daunting disadvantages and challenges. Oziac Fromm was one such survivor. Left to fend for himself at the tender age of twelve, following the murder of his parents and sister, he survived for […]
Jean Renoir’s rousing anti-Nazi drama, This Land Is Mine, was a boilerplate propaganda film intended to whip up patriotic fervor and strengthen U.S. public support for the ongoing war against Germany. During its production, the German army was still in conquest mode. But when the picture was released in May 1943, the tide had turned, […]
Francois Truffaut’s feature film, The Last Metro, was released in 1980, eleven years after Marcel Ophuls’ past-breaking documentary, The Sorrow and the Pity, opened in theaters in France. In his stunning movie, Ophuls exposed the crimes of the collaborationist Vichy regime, which allied itself with Nazi Germany and betrayed French Jews in the name of […]
Family dynamics can be confusing and confounding. Almog Avidan Antonir’s feature film, Trust, which will be available on ChaiFlicks and streaming platforms such as iTunes, Amazon Prime and Google Play from February 27 onward, makes this point abundantly and painfully clear. The Abelmans, a splintered Jewish family, are brought together in Los Angeles for the […]
Viewers are treated to a marvellous culinary adventure in Tran Anh Hung’s The Taste of Things, an ode to haute cuisine. Scheduled to open in Toronto and Vancouver on February 16, this French film, with English subtitles, stars Juliette Binoche as an innovative cook and Benoit Magimel as a master chef. It is set in […]
Upon arriving at Ben-Gurion Airport on the night of December 30, 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the convicted spy Jonathan Jay Pollard was greeted on the tarmac by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was wearing a long black coat and a mask. Before formally acknowledging Netanyahu, Pollard made a slight motion with […]
Three years into World War II, with German armies still on the march and intent on conquering the European continent, RKO Radio Pictures released Once Upon A Honeymoon, a romantic drama with dark overtones screened on the Turner Classic Movies channel recently. Directed by Leo McCarey and starring that inimitable Hollywood pair, Cary Grant and […]
Italian novelist Primo Levi theorized that ordinary people are more likely to commit atrocities than supposed monsters. As Levi, a Holocaust survivor, aptly observed, “Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.” Martin […]
One survey after another confirms that most married Jews in the United States are in mixed marriages partnered with non-Jews. This trend emerged in the 1960s and has become an unstoppable force as America grows more diverse and complex in terms of its multiracial composition. It goes without saying that a mixed marriage is at […]
They are a minority-within-a-minority. Regardless of where they live, Hasidic Jews dwell on the periphery of societies, hewing to changeless values and norms and uncompromisingly refusing to blend into their surroundings. Hasidim are the subject of A Life Apart, an intriguing documentary by Menachem Daum and Oren Rudavsky now available on the ChaiFlicks streaming platform. […]