Like everyone else who watched his popular CNN television program, Parts Unknown, I was shocked by Anthony Bourdain’s suicide last June. Sadly, he was only 61. A celebrity chef of partial Jewish ancestry, he brought a palpable sense of joie de vivre to his vivid presentations. Whether in Burma, Canada, Israel, Spain, China or Thailand, he delved […]
Adolf Eichmann, a major German war criminal who orchestrated the deportation of more than 400,000 Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz in 1944, was brought to justice in 1960 when the Mossad abducted him in Argentina and flew him to Israel to stand trial for crimes against humanity. Operation Finale, an original Netflix production directed by Chris […]
On the face of it, the eugenics movement in the United States seemed like a positive thing. Reaching its apex of popularity in the first third of the 20th century, it garnered the support of notable Americans such as Theodore Roosevelt, the former U.S. president; John Harvey Kellogg, the health reformer and inventor of the […]
Martin Himel’s latest documentary, Follow the Money, provides an unsettling glimpse into the unholy alliance between Islamic militias and organized crime. It will be broadcast in Canada on Vision TV on Monday, October 8 at 9 p.m. A Canadian journalist based in Israel, Himel uses his investigative skills to unearth disturbing information. He delves into the […]
Ashraf Marwan was an enigmatic figure. He was the son-in-law of an Egyptian president, yet he appeared to betray his country by spying for Israel, Egypt’s arch enemy. Nonetheless, the Egyptian government hailed him as a hero after his death. So was Marwan really a double agent? Ariel Vromen, the director of The Angel, a Netflix […]
Margaret Mitchell, the unknown novelist who achieved celebrity with her first and only book, Gone With the Wind, is the subject of a fascinating documentary due to be broadcast by the PBS network on September 11 and 18 (check local listings). Margaret Mitchell: American Rebel, an American Masters production, charts her ascent from obscurity to fame in a […]
Iraq has only now begun to recover from one of the most unstable periods in its turbulent modern history. From almost the moment the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, a nation-wide insurrection, spearheaded by Islamists and nationalists, broke out. American forces eventually crushed the rebellion, which consumed countless lives. With the withdrawal of U.S. […]
Iran is constantly in the news, yet it remains opaque and enigmatic. Thomas Erdbrink, one of the last foreign journalists reporting from Iran, rips off the veil, to some extent at least, and explores it in Our Man in Tehran, a two-part, four-hour documentary to be broadcast by the PBS network on August 13 and […]
The inimitable Phil Rosenthal is back for a second season on Netflix with his entertaining food/travel show, Somebody Feed Phil. He describes himself as a foodie, but he’s really a gourmand rather than a gourmet. Jokey and light, he’s the polar opposite of the late Anthony Bourdain. An indefatigable kibitzer with a gift of the gab […]
The Israeli thriller Fauda, which started on Netflix in 2015, is back again for a second season, and it’s every bit as good as the first one. Unfolding in Hebrew and Arabic, it focuses on an Israeli army undercover unit charged with flushing out terrorists in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since […]