Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, a persona non-grata in the Soviet Union until the late 1980s, looms large in Trotsky, an eight-part Russian television series released last year to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Now available on the Netflix streaming network, Trotsky is an ambitious, finely-crafted period piece featuring a stellar cast. […]
Netflix’s eight-part comedy series, The Kominsky Method, created by Chuck Lorre and starring Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin, chronicles the perils of aging in the entertainment industry, which values the vitality, spunk and effervescence of youth. Douglas portrays Sandy Kominsky, a washed-up actor who ekes out a living as an acting coach in Los Angeles. […]
Long before the emancipation of women in Western societies, Gertrude Bell led the way forward as an historian, political analyst, administrator, archeologist, writer and photographer. She was surely was one of the most influential females of the 20th century. T.E. Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia, hailed her as “a wonderful person.” D. G. Hogarth, […]
Dramatic reunions are the stock-in-trade of We’ll Meet Again, the PBS series hosted by Ann Curry. In the latest installment, Surviving the Holocaust, which will be broadcast on Tuesday, November 20 at 8 p.m. (check local listings), two Jewish men discover the power of friendship. Benjamin Lesser, a Polish Jew from Krakow, is a survivor […]
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 […]