Television review: Valley of Tears

The Jewish Chronicle : Television review: Valley of Tears Josh Howie    November 21, 2021  This drama about the Yom Kippur war is like a Woody Allen film transposed to the Golan Heights. The 10 part series is showing on More4 (Photo: HBO) With cinema and television placing ever more import on representation, you’d think the one genre an ethnic group would be happy not being overly featured in is war. Yet still, whenever a Jew does pop up, it makes an impact. Not that there are many examples; the guy who gets stabbed in the heart in Saving Private Ryan, the Star of David gravestone in the same film, the translator in Band of Brothers. If not for Spielberg’s efforts highlighting that we didn’t play only one part in WWII, that’d pretty much be it apart from the underrated Biloxi Blues, where the two Jewish protagonists never get beyond the training camp. So, in the ten-part Israeli drama Valley of Tears, when faced with an entire army of Jews, the...
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From ‘The Queen’ to Golda Meir

FIRST LOOK AT HELEN MIRREN AS GOLDA MEIR IN UPCOMING BIOPIC Academy Award winner to portray Israel’s only female PM in feature-length movie ‘Golda’ set during turbulent Yom Kippur War period Production on “Golda” began earlier this year and it is currently being shot in London with a star-studded cast that includes “Call My Agent” star Camille Cotin as Meir’s longtime personal assistant and Israeli actor Lior Ashkenzi as her chief of staff. The feature-length movie is being directed by Israeli filmmaker Guy Nattiv, who won the 2018 Academy Award for best short for “Skin,” a film involving neo-Nazis that he later made into a feature. The news of the new biopic earlier this year followed the announcement of another star-powered production on Meir, a series titled “Lioness,” led by Israeli actress Shira Haas of “Unorthodox” fame. While “Golda” will focus on the turbulent Yom Kippur War period, “Lioness” will follow Meir from her birth in Kiev to her American upbringing in Milwaukee, her role...
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When Kate met Arek and Ike

Duchess of Cambridge meets Shoah survivors who found ‘paradise’ in Lake District Kate took a boat trip on Lake Windermere with Arek Hersh and Ike Alterman, both 93, who more than 75 years ago were part of a 300-strong group known as The Windermere Children   The Duchess of Cambridge spent time in the Lake District with Arek Hersh and Ike Alterman The Duchess of Cambridge heard the moving stories of Holocaust survivors sent to a British beauty spot to recuperate from the horrors of the Nazi regime. Kate took a boat trip on Lake Windermere with two elderly men who more than 75 years ago were part of a 300-strong group known as the Windermere Children who went from “hell to paradise”. While living close to the famous lake they underwent psychiatric sessions, art therapy and swam and climbed to aid their recovery, something the duchess described as “so forward thinking for the time”, adding: “It’s so relevant still today.” TV celebrity and barrister Robert Rinder,...
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The Soirees Begin Again

After a long 2 year pause due to Covid, the monthly soirees hosted by Rabbi Danny and Rebetzen Anna at their home, finally began again last night - 15th November 2021. The discussion centred around upcoming Chanukah, and as always, became quite lively.  It was accompanied by a table that groaned with food (including a delicious hot potato kugel). Next year in Jerusalem ?  Well not quite, but hopefully next month at the Rabbi's :-) ...
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A Man Walked into a Shul …

Absolutely phenomenal!! An Israeli Mizrachi man walked into the Great Synagogue in Italy (Florence) and started singing Oseh Shalom...just wow! When the Nazis occupied Florence, this very synagogue was the headquarters for Nazi artillery storage. When the Nazis were retreating, the entire building was wired to be blown up. The Nazis dragged their wires several blocks away. As they were doing this, the non-Jewish caretaker was able to dismantle all of the bombs, leaving only one in an area of the building where, if blown up, would not threaten the structure. He did this, so that when the Nazis detonated, they would hear an explosion and leave. Because of that Righteous Gentile, the magnificent Synagogue of Florence was saved. The dip in the floor is where the bomb went off.   https://www.facebook.com/ugobey/videos/446697350391012/...
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Vayetzeh

Vayetzeh This week we read of a mob of student protestors that attempted to storm the Israeli ambassador, TZIPI HOTOVELY, who was giving a talk at  LSE university (also dubbed by some as the London School of extremism recall that in 2010 this University took £1.5 million from the son of the infamous disgraced Colonel Gaddafi). The only positive that we can take from this story is the courage displayed by the ambassador who managed to attend and give her talk. On so many other occasions the 'mob rules' and speakers are cancelled or de-platformed. Universities are supposedly bastions of rational enquiry, the free exchange of ideas, of pursuit of knowledge going wherever the evidence takes us. However more and more evidence shows that the very contrary is the case. Universities are increasingly riddled with antisemitism and the shut down of debate. This is now the case not only regarding Israel and antisemitism but on broader identity politics where to take a counter view to...
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“I was born a Jew…and I will die a Jew”

𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐒𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐯𝐨𝐫, 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐲, 𝐠𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐉𝐞𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲   “I was born a Jew…and I will die a Jew”   Listen here - https://pod.co/thefed/meet-itzik or anywhere you get your podcasts by searching for Humans of The Fed   To coincide with the 83rd anniversary of Kristallnacht - the Night of Broken Glass - we bring you a very special podcast.   Itzik Alterman – Ike, as he is affectionately known – is a sprightly, immaculately dressed, active 93-year-old. A lover of golf and still a regular on the tees in his tenth decade, his outward appearance hides the truth of the incredible suffering he has endured and witnessed.   𝗜𝗸𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗛𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗦𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗶𝘃𝗼𝗿.   Ike survived four concentration & death camps – Blizyn, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buchenwald & Theresienstadt – as well as a death march. His childhood destroyed by the outbreak of war, Ike’s journey led him through unimaginable anguish and grief, to the infamous places whose names are imprinted upon the minds of humanity.   With almost his entire family wiped out by the Nazis, Ike came to England as one of ‘The Windermere Children’ – the children who...
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