‘The Americans’ - Straighten up and spy write

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on February 20, 2013

Michael Jackson’s personal physician sentenced to four years in prison

By Ryan Torok
Published on November 29, 2011

Expert propofal witness says jury right to convict Jackson doc

By Ryan Torok
Published on November 7, 2011

Gilad Shalit and Israeli TV’s Searing ‘Prisoners of War’ [UPDATE/SLIDE SHOW]

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on October 31, 2011

Sam Worthington on Playing a Holocaust Survivor and Mossad Agent in “The Debt” [VIDEO]

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on August 30, 2011

Jessica Chastain and John Madden on “The Debt”

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on August 23, 2011

Books: Oren ‘Tempts’ Israeli readers and defies critics

By Avner Hofstein
Published on November 1, 2007

Profile of Israeli novelist Ram Oren who has written 16 titles, sold more than 1 million copies in Israel and set up his own publishing house (Keshet).

Film director Verhoeven defies Dutch Shoah myth in ‘Black Book’ thriller

By Tom Tugend
Published on March 29, 2007

"Black Book" is a first-class thriller, pitting the Dutch resistance against the Nazi occupiers in the waning months of World War II, and it holds plenty of unexpected plot twists.

Fox Takes ‘Walk’ Down Provocative Path

By Tom Tugend
Published on February 24, 2005

Israeli director Eytan Fox makes films that open on a rousing patriotic note of rugged Israelis battling the enemy, before gradually exposing the chinks in his country's macho culture.

‘Burial’ Unearths Small-Town Secrets

By Rochelle Krich
Published on July 15, 2004

Toward the end of Nicholas Racz's quirky, quiet, noirish thriller, "The Burial Society," Sheldon Kasner, the film's protagonist but certainly not its hero, whines: "Why can't anything ever be easy for me?" It's a line Woody Allen might have used in "Take the Money and Run," but while Sheldon has elements of Allen's nebbish-turned-wannabe-thief, he is darker, more complex and far craftier. So is Racz's film about death and rebirth, real and metaphoric.

Actor of ‘Favor’

By Amy Klein
Published on January 24, 2002

"I am not Menachem." So says Israeli heartthrob Aki Avni, referring to his character in "Time of Favor," the Israeli psychological thriller opening in Los Angeles movie theaters Feb 1. The film, winner of six Israeli Oscars last year, including picture of the year, tells the story of a religious settler army unit in which one student, Pini, takes to heart his rabbi's ideological rantings about the Temple Mount, and crazily decides to blow it up.

The Arts

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on July 23, 1998

Debut filmmaker Darren Aronofsky manages to sound incredulous about the Jewish sci-fi flick that has made him a star. "You don't think God, math and bad-ass Jews makes for a Hollywood movie?" he quips of "PI," which won the director's prize at Sundance and a $1 million distribution deal.