Holocaust movies are now a genre. It makes one more than a little queasy to acknowledge this. We’re talking about art that seeks to recreate an atrocity of such devastating scale and magnitude; to imagine the unimaginable. You can say the phrase “Holocaust movie” and a number of images and …
Read More »
Before there were dramas on television, there were dramas on the radio. With no visuals to present to their audience, radio series had to conjure up entire worlds out of carefully scripted narration, homespun special effects, and the sheer vibrance of their actors’ voices. Done right, whether back then or …
Read More »
When you’re 13 everything carries high stakes: friendships, romances, who you’re seen with, which parties you’re invited to. Nothing has an adequate frame of reference, because everything is so new, and you’re not sure if you’re supposed to handle it all like the kid you just were or the adult …
Read More »
During his senior year of college at Yeshiva, a small Jewish university in Washington Heights, New York City, Ryan Turell averaged 27.1 points per game — leading all of men’s college basketball. Some came to calling him “the Jewish Larry Bird,” given his blond mop and prowess from long distance, …
Read More »
David Corenswet may be the first Jewish actor to play Superman, but the Man of Steel himself is as Jewish as matzo ball soup. As you may or may not know, Superman debuted in 1938, the creation of American and Canadian Jewish teenagers, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. But that …
Read More »
Dianna Agron comes off as remarkably calm, cool, and collected. Now 37, she seems sure of herself in ways she perhaps wasn’t when she exploded onto the scene in 2009 as Quinn Fabray, the head cheerleader on Ryan Murphy’s culture-shifting musical-dramedy Glee. She isn’t interested in examining her past relationships …
Read More »
There’s a saying in the Jewish community that certain things are bad for the Jews. The list largely includes people with a great deal of power and money who use it for nefarious ends: Bernie Madoff, Jeffrey Epstein, Woody Allen. (Other things that are arguably not-so-great for the Jews: Einstein’s …
Read More »
TV shows and movies inspired by real-life events tend to overstate the truth for dramatic effect. Netflix’s Transatlantic is a rare case of underplaying history — in this case, the work of Varian Fry, Mary Jayne Gold, and the rest of the European Rescue Committee, who worked to get Jewish …
Read More »