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 […]
The fourth season of Fauda is back on Netflix, and that’s good news. Until now, this scintillating Middle Eastern thriller pitted an Israeli special forces team against Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip affiliated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of which reject Israel’s existence. The latest installment, which is partially set in […]
Conspiracy theories have spanned the centuries, feeding human impulses like jealousy, anger, insecurity and fear and often causing needless death and destruction. This explosive topic is explored in “Conspiracy,” the first episode of Lewis Cohen’s Truth & Lies, a six-part television series on TVO and tvo.org that starts on January 17 at 9 p.m. and runs […]
Warsaw 1942. The third season of Wartime Girls, an atmospheric and suspenseful Polish television series that will be available on the ChaiFlicks streaming platform starting on January 12, takes place in that fateful year. It unfolds in Polish, German and English and revolves around three young Polish women from different socio-economic and religious backgrounds. Ewa […]
Bernard (Bernie) Madoff was the ultimate fraudster, a revered Wall Street trader and investment advisor who bilked his clients to the tune of $64 billion. Madoff’s epic Ponzi scheme, which went bust during the great financial crisis of 2008, is the subject of Joe Berlinger’s fascinating four-part Netflix series, Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street. […]
Loneliness, a soul-crushing phenomenon, is the theme that drives Significant Other, an Israeli TV series now available on the ChaiFlicks streaming platform. Created by Dana Modan and Assi Cohen, and directed by Ram Nehari, this comedic-infused drama revolves around an unmarried middle-aged woman (Modan) and a newly divorced man (Cohen) in Tel Aviv who yearn […]
Julia Haart, the central character in the Netflix reality series My Unorthodox Life, finds herself at loose ends in the first of nine episodes of the second season. Haart, in the first season, reinvented herself when she filed for divorce and abruptly abandoned her ultra-Orthodox lifestyle in the Jewish enclave of Monsey, New York. Eight […]