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A nonprofit, independent news source to inform, inspire, educate and connect the St. Louis Jewish community.

St. Louis Jewish Light

A nonprofit, independent news source to inform, inspire, educate and connect the St. Louis Jewish community.

St. Louis Jewish Light

A nonprofit, independent news source to inform, inspire, educate and connect the St. Louis Jewish community.

St. Louis Jewish Light

Judi Dench as Miss Rocholl in Andy Goddard’s “Six Minutes to Midnight.” Courtesy of IFC Films. An IFC Films Release.

British WWII historical drama tips its bowler to Hitchcock

BY CATE MARQUIS, SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH LIGHTPublished February 4, 2021

Judi Dench, Eddie Izzard and Jim Broadbent headline “Six Minutes to Midnight,” a Hitchcock-styled British historical thriller set in the summer of 1939 at a finishing school for German girls on the southeastern coast of England as World War II looms.The...

Yehuda Nahari Halevi stars in ‘Incitement.’

Chilling ‘Incitement’ dramatizes young man’s devolution to Rabin assassin

By Cate Marquis, Special to the Jewish LightPublished November 6, 2020

“Incitement,” director Yaron Zilberman’s gripping, fact-based political thriller, explores the life of a young Israeli man in the two years before he assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at a rally in November 1995 celebrating the second...

Bruno Ganz (left) as Sigmund Freud and Simon Morze as Franz in "The Tobacconist." (Photo: Petro Domenigg) 

Bruno Ganz as Freud propels WWII-era coming of age film

BY CATE MARQUIS, SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH LIGHTPublished July 9, 2020

The late, great Swiss actor Bruno Ganz plays Sigmund Freud in “The Tobacconist,” an imaginative, engrossing tale about a friendship between a teenage boy and Freud set in Vienna just before and during the Nazi invasion. This was one of the Ganz’s...

Scarlett Johansson (with Sam Rockwell, left, and Roman Griffin Davis) stars as a loving German mom in "Jojo Rabbit."

‘JoJo Rabbit’ mocks Hitler in child-centric satiric fantasy

By Cate Marquis, Special to the Jewish LightPublished October 31, 2019

Mel Brooks has said, at various times and in various ways, the best way to get back at Hitler is to ridicule him, and Brooks certainly did exactly that in his comedy “The Producers.” Now New Zealand-born  director/writer/comedian Taika Waititi takes...

At left, Maria Karnilova, Tanya Everett, Zero Mostel, Julia Migenes and Joanna Merlin are shown backstage on the opening night of 'Fiddler on the Roof' on Sept. 22, 1964. Above, the Imperial Theater in 1964. Photo: Associated Press/Courtesy of Roadside Attractions and Samuel Goldwyn Films

Documentary explores the miracle that created ‘Fiddler on the Roof’

By Cate Marquis, Special to the Jewish LightPublished September 6, 2019

The delightful documentary “Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles”  actually begins with a fiddler on a roof, but not the one we expect to see. A violinist in a tuxedo, seated on a New York rooftop garden, plays the familiar opening tune from the beloved...

Yaniv Biton and Kais Nashif in ‘Tel Aviv on Fire.’ Photo courtesy Cohen Media

Film treats Israeli-Palestinian conflict with laughs, heart

By Cate Marquis, Special to the Jewish LightPublished August 8, 2019

Writer-director Sameh Zoabi and co-writer Dan Kleinman use the shared affection Israelis and Palestinians hold for both soap operas and hummus to fuel their delightful French/Israeli comedy “Tel Aviv on Fire,” which offers some gentle commentary on...

Matthew Broderick (left) and Géza Röhrig star in ‘To Dust.’ 

Unfunny script, queasy graveyard scenes reduce film ‘To Dust’

BY CATE MARQUIS, SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH LIGHTPublished February 21, 2019

“To Dust” features Matthew Broderick and Géza Röhrig in a film about a bereaved Hasidic cantor obsessing about how his late wife’s body is decaying. To help him understand what is happening underground, he enlists the help of a reluctant, non-Jewish...

Adam Driver stars as Flip Zimmerman and John David Washington as Ron Stallworth in Spike Lee’s ‘BlacKkKlansman.’  

Humor, horror masterfully mix in Spike Lee’s ‘BlacKkKlansman’

By Cate Marquis, Special to the Jewish LightPublished August 9, 2018

Simply put, “BlacKkKlansman” is one of Spike Lee’s best, a film that is smart as well as hilarious. The story is based on the strange but true story of a black police officer who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the late 1970s and became a card-carrying...

Miguel Angel Sola and Angela Molina in ‘The Last Suit.’

Old tailor’s heartwarming odyssey fills out ‘Last Suit’

BY CATE MARQUIS, SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH LIGHTPublished May 31, 2018

Abraham Bursztein (Miguel Ángel Solá) is clearly feeling bossed around by his children in the Buenos Aires home he’s lived in for 50 years. The Polish-born retired tailor is miffed when his favorite great-granddaughter, Micaela (Pilar Alegre Alonso)...

‘Budapest Noir’

Reporter investigates murder, cover-up in 1936 Hungary

BY CATE MARQUIS, SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH LIGHTPublished May 31, 2018

All of the hallmarks are there: classic noir style, soulful jazz, world-weary voice-over, and slanting light and city street. But this is not New York or San Francisco. It is Budapest in 1936, a “city of lights for some and city of darkness for others,”...

Neta Riskin and Golshifteh Farahani in the Israeli thriller ‘Shelter.’

Israeli spy thriller is taut, suspenseful

BY ROBERT A. COHN, Editor-in-Chief EmeritusPublished May 31, 2018

Israeli writer director Eran Riklis builds upon the success of his previous films “The Syrian Bride” and “The Human Resources Manager,” with “Shelter,” based on a short story titled "The Link" by Shulamith Hareven.  “Shelter” stars Neta...

‘Sammy Davis Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me’

Film explores Sammy Davis Jr.’s fight for respect

BY ELLEN FUTTERMAN, EDITORPublished May 31, 2018

At the beginning of “Sammy Davis Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me,” the entertainer jokes that he’s a “colored, Jewish, Puerto Rican,” then adds, “When I move into a neighborhood, I wipe it out.”Funny, perhaps, but more to the point, ironic, because...

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