Several months before the United States entered World War II, following Japan’s destructive bombing raid on Pearl Harbor, the German-American director Ernst Lubitsch started production on a new feature film, To Be Or Not To Be. An unrelentingly dark satire on Nazi Germany recently broadcast on the Turner Classic Movies channel, it was released on […]
Randol (Randy) Schoenberg’s obsessive quest to plumb the depths of his family’s history led him and his son on a journey of discovery in Europe. Their eye-opening trip is the subject of Matthew Mishory’s absorbing documentary, Fioretta, which will be screened in its world premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival on September 30. Shortly afterward, […]
Ruth Gruber was an amazing and accomplished person who blazed new paths at a time when women were expected to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. A photojournalist, author and humanitarian, she is the subject of Bob Richman’s documentary, The Extraordinary Journey Of Ruth Gruber, which will be re-released on VOD and leading digital […]
Exactly a year after World War II ended with Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender, a major Hollywood studio released Berlin Express, a a fairly competent thriller set in Frankfurt and Berlin. Distributed by RKO Radio Pictures, and directed by Jacques Tourneur, it was the first movie filmed on location in postwar Berlin. With only a year […]
Women comprise slightly more than 50 percent of Israel’s population, yet they have been woefully underrepresented in the Knesset and in senior civil service positions. Full gender equality is something that women in Israel still aspire to after 75 years of Israeli statehood, according to The Elected, a three-part series that starts on the ChaiFlicks […]
Israel was once inextricably associated with the kibbutz, a collective farming commune based on egalitarian values and dedicated to the proposition that Israel should be a Jewish socialist state. For decades, this model worked harmoniously, but in the last few decades it has gradually broken down, radically changing the complexion of the kibbutz. Toby Perl […]
The yawning divisions between secular and religious Jewish Israelis run deep and may even be unbridgeable. This unsettling schism manifests itself in practically every nook and cranny of Israeli life, as Avi Nesher suggests in his newest movie, The Other Story, which is now available on the ChaiFlicks streaming platform. The film is centered around […]
When Fred Zinnemann’s murder mystery, Eyes in the Night, was released early in 1942, the United States had already entered World War II as a combatant and fears about the presence of Nazi spies on American soil were on the uptick. Zinnemann was well into his illustrious career when he directed this black-and-white feature film, […]
Decades ago, explicit racism in public places was a common and acceptable phenomenon in the Canadian province of Ontario. Jews, in particular, were impacted by this odious practice, which affected employment, housing and recreational facilities. Impacted by this variant of antisemitism, Jews created their own ecosystem of neighborhoods, jobs and resorts. The Monteith Inn, situated […]
The past never dies, always ready to burst out of our subconscious with all its granular details. Summer Vacation, a short Israeli film by Tal Granit and Sharon Maymon, expertly addresses this theme. Currently being presented online by the Toronto Jewish Film Foundation, it is set on a quiet beach on the Mediterranean Sea as […]