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New Flesh for Old

In the second part of a two-part series, Sean Alexander explores the films of Brandon Cronenberg and the return of Jewish Body Horror. *Warning: this review contains spoilers Brandon Cronenberg’s second film, Possessor (2020), echoes much of the corporate themes of its predecessor, this time positing a technology that allows the cerebral transference of ‘agents’ […]

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Discounted Jews

Nathan Abrams finds flaws in David Baddiel’s new book about antisemitism Jews Don’t Count.  I finally got my copy of Jews Don’t Count, David Baddiel’s new book about antisemitism. Despite being a longtime fan and bearing more than a passing physical resemblance to him, I desperately didn’t want to like this book. Maybe it’s because the media only seems to pay attention to these issues when it’s a celebrity like Baddiel, Simon Schama or Anthony Julius. As he puts it himself in the book, ‘I am, […]

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‘All poets are Jews’

Darragh O’Donoghue explores aspects of Jewishness in the work of Stephen Dwoskin. Stephen Dwoskin (1939-2012) was a Jewish American graphic designer, painter, illustrator, photographer, filmmaker, writer, teacher, photomonteur, and activist who arrived in Britain in 1964 on a Fulbright Scholarship, and remained based in London for the rest of his life. He was a founder member […]

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Ten Reasons Why ‘Shrek’ Is Jewish

Nathan Abrams provides ten reasons why Shrek is Jewish. Every year, the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry chooses 25 films of historical, cultural, or aesthetic significance to be marked for preservation. Among this year’s inductees is Shrek (2001). The Registry commended the film thus: Even by DreamWorks standards, the charm and magic of ‘Shrek’ […]

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Borat 2’s Hilarious Holocaust Chutzpah

Borat is back and the new movie is chock full of Jewish jokes and humour some small, some writ large. As the titular Borat Sagdiyev, the Jew-hating, yet paradoxically Hebrew-speaking, Kazakh reporter, Sacha Baron Cohen again treats us to a gloriously jaw-dropping, hilarious exercise in physical slapstick and verbal humour. Take the chameleonic performances of […]

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The Jewish Films of Michael Lonsdale

Nathan Abrams celebrates the Jewish films of legendary French actor, Michael Lonsdale. The French actor Michael Lonsdale, who has died, aged 89, may not have been Jewish, but he left behind some key films dealing with Jewish issues. Here are the top five.   The Trial (1962) The Trial was the attempt by legendary auteur Orson Welles to adpat the 1925 novel of the same name by the Jewish […]

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Remembering Ronald Harwood, the Jewish Writer with a Strong Jewish Sensibility

Nathan Abrams remembers the work of Jewish playwright and screenwriter Ronald Harwood. Sir Ronald Harwood, who is perhaps best known for writing the screenplay to Roman Polanski’s Holocaust film, The Pianist, died yesterday of natural causes. He was born on 9 November 1934 in Cape Town, South Africa to Isobel (née Pepper) and Isaac Horwitz. […]

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Antisemitism and Stanley Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’

The Shining, which marks its fortieth anniversary this year, is probably the ur-horror film. Its template for pyschological horror has been much copied over subsequent decades. Given its director’s ethnicity, which has been established by various authors (including myself), we can also view The Shining through the lens of Jewishness and Judaism. In so doing, […]

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David Cronenberg: Jewish King of the Venereal

While one famous Canadian Jew has been in the news recently, another has been overlooked: David Cronenberg. His first feature, Shivers, opened 45 years ago this October, soon making him the nascent new horror’s ‘Baron of Blood’ and ‘King of the Venereal’. It also established many of the Jewish themes and characteristics that would become staple elements of all his […]

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Ben Cross: Non-Jewish Actor Who Excelled at Playing Jewish Roles

Sean Alexander reflects on the Jewish roles of Ben Cross who passed away on August 18th. Inevitably, the obituaries for actor, Ben Cross, who died yesterday aged 72 following a short illness, started with his starring (and arguably name-making) role in 1981’s Chariots of Fire, in which Cross played the real-life Jewish athlete Harold Abrahams. He and Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson) portrayed Jewish and Christian runners both competing for […]

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