Lior Raz, the actor who played the Israeli army commando Doron Kavillio in Fauda, reinvents himself credibly in Netflix’s new nine-part series, Hit & Run, which unfolds in Israel and the United States. He portrays Segev Azulai, an Israeli tour guide whose second wife, Danielle Wexler (Kaelen Ohm), is killed in a hit and run […]
Evan Oppenheimer’s The Magnificent Meyersons introduces viewers to an upper middle-class Jewish family in New York City struggling with practical and philosophical questions. It unfolds during the course of a day, at the end of which an important figure from the past emerges, much to everyone’s surprise. The movie has no coherent plot, being composed […]
Rabbi Chaim Bruk is proud to be a missionary. “I’m God’s salesman,” he says jauntily in The Rabbi Goes West, a documentary by Amy Geller and Gerald Peary. “I’m trying to sell Judaism.” Their interesting film will be screened on Zoom by the Uptown Jewish Film Festival in New York City on Sunday, August 15 […]
Israel is carefully considering its options following the latest attack by Iran on a cargo ship plying the waters of the Middle East. The Israeli government can opt for diplomacy, armed conflict or the status quo to deal with this serious and recurring problem. The Mercer Street, a 600-foot-long oil tanker, was attacked on July 29 […]
Climate change is likely to cause severe repercussions in the Middle East in the future. It could exacerbate water shortages, result in failed crops, drive displacement in populated areas, and sow political destabilization, according to Dan Rabinowitz, a professor of sociology and anthropology at Tel Aviv University and the former chairman of Greenpeace Mediterranean. In […]
My Mexican Shivah is quite the hybrid, a feature film that unfolds in Spanish, Yiddish and Hebrew in contemporary Mexico City. Alejandro Springall’s drama/comedy, based on a novel by Ilan Stavans, is now being screened online by the Toronto Jewish Film Foundation. It’s divided into seven segments, each representing a day of a week-long shivah to […]
Lebanese President Michel Aoun is incredibly out of touch with reality. Judging by the comments he made on August 5, following a sudden escalation of tension on Israel’s border with Lebanon, one can only conclude that he inhabits a surreal, topsy-turvy world. On August 4, Palestinian forces in Lebanon fired three rockets at Israel. One […]
Borscht Belt standup comedian Jackie Mason died last month, but he metaphorically returns from the dead in Barry Avrich’s movie, Jackie Mason: The Ultimate Jew, which is being screened online by the Toronto Jewish Film Foundation. Released in 2008, the film portrays the inimitable Mason in his final one-man show on Broadway. Speaking in a heavy […]
On the eve of Passover in 2020, with the coronavirus pandemic raging in Israel, the Israeli government imposed a closure on Bnei Brak. Attempting to curb its spread in this ultra-Orthodox enclave near Tel Aviv, the government had no alternative but to deploy a drastic measure. The manner in which its haredi inhabitants responded to […]
Morris (Moe) Berg was an anomaly in the best sense of the word. Wielding brains and braun, he was an intellectual, a professional athlete and coach, and a spy. Call him a Renaissance Man, if you will. It would not be far-fetched to say he was the most unusual person ever to play Major League […]