The ultra-Orthodox Jews of Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood are an island onto themselves. Fanatically observant and utterly disdainful of Israeli secular society, they’re intensely insular and obsessively self-absorbed. To the vast majority of Israelis, these pre-modern Jews are virtually strangers. They may as well be Martians, but they’re Israelis. Shtisel, an Israeli television drama which […]
Adolf Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun, committed suicide in their Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945 as the Red Army advanced into the German capital. Hitler’s ignominious death was confirmed by German radio and by Marshall Georgy Zhukov, the commander of Soviet forces in Germany. Since then, the circumstances surrounding Hitler’s demise have […]
I read Gerald Durrell’s autobiographical novel, My Family and Other Animals, long ago, but its masterful portrayal of a British family on the Greek island of Corfu in the second half of the 1930s remained vividly fixed in a corner of my mind. So I was glad to learn that The Durrells in Corfu, a […]
It’s one of the most secretive and repressive societies on the face of the earth. Welcome to Saudi Arabia. The totalitarian nature of the Saudi regime is graphically exposed in Saudi Arabia Uncovered, a British documentary now available on the Netflix streaming network. The footage was shot by Saudi dissidents and British photographers with hidden […]
Deep in the vast Amazon rainforest are Indians living primitive lives in complete isolation. Totally untouched by modernity, they resemble our Stone Age ancestors. According to experts, several thousand such Indians belonging to a multitude of tribes have yet to make contact with the outside world. Once in a blue moon, explorers report sightings of […]
The much anticipated second season of Narcos, the taut crime thriller set in Colombia, is now available on the Netflix streaming service. In a word, it’s scintillating. It lives up to expectations. Focusing on the real-life narco-terrorist Pablo Escobar and the Medellin drug cartel he controlled with an iron fist, Narcos has all the elements of […]
Waitstill and Martha Sharp were relief workers from the United States who risked their lives to help victims of Nazism. Recruited by the American Unitarian Association, they rescued hundreds of Jews and Christian anti-Nazis from the jaws of death. Their selflessness, dedication and courage, the stuff of legend, is recounted in Defying the Nazis: The […]
The summer Olympic Games of 1936 in Berlin set a precedent for future Olympics. In terms of packaging and presentation, they would be a vehicle for slick propaganda — a projection of German national pride and glory. Daniel Kontur’s 44-minute documentary, Hitler’s Olympics, which is now available on the Netflix streaming service, deftly explores this […]