Imad Mughniyeh, a founder and principal of Hezbollah, lived and died by the sword. A notorious terrorist, he masterminded a string of suicide bombing attacks in the 1980s and 1990s that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Americans, Israelis and Argentinian Jews and the kidnapping of Westerners in Lebanon. Before the September 11, 2001 […]
Israel is riven by profound political fault lines pitting Jewish liberals and moderates against conservatives and ultra-nationalists and secular Jews against haredim. Israelis are a fractious lot, though they tend to be united in times of emergencies and wars. These tensions emerge in The Lesson, a thoughtful, jolting and disturbing six-part Israeli drama directed by […]
Matchmaker and dating coach Aleeza Ben-Shalom offers sound advice to her Orthodox, Conservative and Reform clients: “Date them until you hate them,” “Never give up,” and abide by the golden rule that “too much analysis leads to paralysis.” Ben-Shalom, an American who lives in the Israeli town of Pardes Hanna with her husband and five […]
Antwerp, the world’s diamond capital, looms large in Netflix’s crime thriller, Rough Diamonds, a joint production from Israel and Belgium. The diamond trade in rough and polished stones in Antwerp is dominated by ultra-Orthodox Jews. The Wolfsons, a fictitious haredi family, are at the center of this intriguing, mostly satisfying eight-part series, which unfolds in […]
Jews who survived the Holocaust tended to be physically and mentally strong, adept at a certain skill, amazingly resourceful, or simply lucky. David Wisnia, who owes his survival to a fine singing voice, is one such person. Sara Taksler explores his unusual story in How Saba Kept Singing, a PBS documentary. A melange of on-camera […]
Varian Fry, the first American to be designated as a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem, is at the core of Transatlantic, a seven-part Netflix series. A Harvard University graduate and a journalist, Fry was one of the founders of the Emergency Rescue Committee. It was founded in New York City in 1940 with the aim […]
Rama Burshtein-Shai is back for an encore. Her last major production, Fill the Void, was a finely-crafted feature film about haredi Jews in Jerusalem. Fire Dance, an eight-part TV series, covers much of the same social and religious ground, but it is set in Tiberias. It will be screened online by the Toronto Jewish Film […]
Israel’s complex and protracted conflict with the Palestinians often seems like a stubborn political and armed struggle defying resolution. Indeed, it may well continue to fester and explode for decades to come. Tangled Roots, a six-part Israeli television series now available on the ChaiFlicks streaming platform, delves into this messy imbroglio with honestly, clarity and […]
A meandering but satisfying melange of drama, romance, sex, politics, intrigue and violence, The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem is set in Turkish and British Mandate Palestine from 1917 to 1942. Now available on the Netflix streaming platform, this 20-part Israeli series is based on a novel by Sarit Yishai Levi. It gets off to a slow […]
At a fraught moment when racial tensions in the United States are flaring yet again, Netflix is currently offering viewers You People, a romantic comedy set in Los Angeles that addresses this endemic issue. The central characters are not only white and black, but Jewish and Muslim. Quite a combustible combination, one would think. Ezra Cohen […]