Jonathan Hayoun’s four-part documentary about the world’s longest hatred, Anti-Semitism: 2000 Years Of History, is an edifying survey of a mutating pathological phenomenon that shows no signs of abating. Now available on the ChaiFlicks streaming platform, this nearly four-hour French production, with English subtitles, is panoramic in scope and substance. The narrative is supplemented by […]
The miserable governing regime in Iran is consistently on the wrong side of current geopolitical and moral issues. In a demonstrative display of its venality, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi sounded off on three related issues — the Holocaust, Israel and the Abraham Accords — this past week and emerged as an unrepentant extremist. During the […]
The latest wave of Palestinian violence in the West Bank raises two salient questions. Is it yet another transitory manifestation of Arab anger at and frustration with Israel’s deeply-entrenched occupation? Or does it represent something far more serious — the first stirrings of a third uprising? No one can divine the future, but the recurring […]
Two estranged sisters strive to reconcile in Dorit Hakim’s spare and moody movie, Moon in the 12th House, which is now available on the ChaiFlicks streaming platform. It unfolds over several weeks at two locales in Israel — a nightclub in Tel Aviv and a pastoral moshav. Lenny (Yaara Pelzig) has become her father’s primary […]
Israel seems resigned to a renewed Iran nuclear agreement, but insists it will not be bound by it and will be free to continue its covert campaign of sabotage against Iran’s nuclear program and its personnel. Ever since its chief ally, the United States, announced its intention to return to the 2015 accord, or the […]
Until it was unceremoniously closed in 2009, the Huronia Regional Centre in Orillia, Ontario, was essentially a grim warehouse for developmentally disabled youth. Barri Cohen’s half-brothers, Alfred and Louis, lived and died there under abysmal conditions. Her heart-wrenching documentary, Unloved: Huronia’s Forgotten Children, which opens in Toronto on September 16, sheds light on an institution […]
With Israel’s November 1 general election drawing closer, opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu is cynically courting Israeli Arabs once again. In recent weeks, the former prime minister has opened new accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tik Tok to bring his message to Muslim and Christian Arab voters. “This is an opportunity to begin a new […]
Giles Alderson’s British thriller, Wolves of War, is thoroughly formulaic. Scheduled to be released on VOD and digital platforms on September 13, it takes place in Germany in 1945 during the dying days of World War II. The plot could not be more straightforward. British commandos are parachuted over Bavaria to rescue an American scientist […]
From 1933 until 1945, a momentous 12-year period encompassing the rise and fall of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime and the onset of the Holocaust, the United States admitted 225,000 European Jewish refugees. This was more than any other country, but only a fraction of the Jews in jeopardy who clamored to find a safe haven in […]
September 11, 2001 was one of those glorious September days when the air felt almost autumnal and the sun was piercingly bright. I was in my cubicle on that morning writing a story about an Israeli movie director I had interviewed at the Toronto International Film Festival, an annual event I covered for the newspaper […]