Movies

Leona, a name meaning Lioness, is also equivalent to the Hebrew name “Ariela,” by which the protagonist in this 94-minute, Spanish-language, English-subtitled film is known.  She is 25 years old living in what might be considered the cocoon of the insular Jewish community of Mexico City.  The movie begins with Ariela’s cousin dipping three times in the mikvah, under...

OK, I’ll admit it, I enjoy children’s movies.  They are frequently gentle, sentimental, and have happy endings.  I went to see  Tim Burton’s new version of Dumbo and liked it very much.  Although I saw the old Dumbo movie when I was very young, I could barely remember it.  I found a copy of it at my local library.  After watching it, I...

SAN DIEGO – A 25-minute documentary on the life of Holocaust Survivor Ruth Goldshmiedova Sax, who recently died at age 90, had its premiere Sunday night at Tifereth Israel Synagogue on a doubly sad occasion.  It was Yom HaShoah, which is the annual date for memorializing victims of the Holocaust, and it was the night after a shooting at...

SAN DIEGO – Raised in impoverished circumstances by a single mother, Daniel Patrick Moynihan Daniel Patrick Moynihanalways had compassion for those who were not as lucky as he was.  By fortuitous circumstances, a Navy commission which led to him obtaining a PhD at Tufts University, he was able to escape poverty and rise to the upper echelons of American...

Making the rounds of Jewish film festivals across the country is the documentary Chasing Portraits by Elizabeth Rynecki, concerning a quest to learn more about the pre-Holocaust art of her Polish Jewish great-grandfather Moshe Rynecki (Pronounced Renetsky).  Previously, Elizabeth Rynecki published a book with the same title that detailed her research. The artist was removed from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Majdanek...

Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Quincy Jones, Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock… If you’re a jazz fan, you know these names. They are the stars shining in the jazzosphere of Blue Note Records. And the magi we have to thank for these precious gifts were two German Jews, Alfred Lion and Franz Wolff (aka the Lion and the Wolf)....

Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People is soon to be released in theaters around the country, starting with March premieres in New York City and Los Angeles. The 85-minute documentary traces Pulitzer’s life as a Jewish immigrant from Hungary to his rise as the powerful publisher of both the St. Louis Post-Dispatchand the New York World.  It capsulizes some of his famous campaigns,...

Every year the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival presents movies about Jewish-American life, the cinema of Israel and the legacy of the Holocaust. But this year’s festival, which takes place at multiple venues Feb. 6-26, features several films that explore homosexuality and gender issues. “We (saw) a tremendous number of films … that explored issues of the LGTBQ community, whether it be the...

The 18th annual Las Vegas Jewish Film Festival is a celebration of “chai.” As in the Hebrew word for “life,” not the type of tea. To commemorate the spiritually significant anniversary — the word chai is formed by the eighth and 10th letters of the Hebrew alphabet and, as a result, the number 18 has achieved reverence within Judaism — admission...

Roma, a Spanish language film, was written and directed by Oscar winning, Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron. It is an engaging and powerful story set in Mexico City from 1970 to 1971.  Mexico was in a state of crisis.  The president, Luis Echeverria Alvarez, had been the interior secretary in charge of police and internal security in 1968 when the...