Features
“On a Clear April Morning,” a Brazilian masterpiece written by a Jewish author documenting the early Jewish experience in Brazil, is finally available in English
By IRENA KARSHENBAUM On a foggy December afternoon in 2021, I accidentally stumbled on a fascinating website, The Baron Hirsch Jewish Farmers Community. The golden field, on the home page, illuminated by the sun, seemed to shine a ray of light into my gloomy living room. As I clicked through the different pages: Argentina, Brazil, USA, I was intrigued to discover that these countries had Jewish farming colonies and that they had received funding from Baron Maurice de Hirsch, one of the 19th century’s wealthiest men and the most significant Jewish philanthropist of his time who wanted Jews to become farmers, then seen as the most honourable of occupations, and which, he believed, would be the answer to eliminating anti-Semitism.
Engrossed by the stories — the Catskills’ Grossinger’s resort had its start as a Jewish farm located on rocky soil that just could not make a go of it as a farm? Who knew? — I noticed conspicuously missing was a page on the Canadian Jewish farming experience. Since most Jewish farms in Canada received at least some financial assistance from the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA), the philanthropic organization Hirsch established, I thought a Canadian chapter was warranted.
I found an email address and wrote away asking if I could contribute a story on Jewish farming in Canada, specifically about a Jewish farming colony in eastern Alberta that was once home to a synagogue — the 1916 Montefiore Institute — which had received $300 towards its construction from JCA.
Then I waited.
And waited.
Weeks went by and not a word. I forgot my offer and moved on with other projects.
In October of 2022, 10 months after my initial inquiry, I received a frantic note bursting with apologies that my email had somehow escaped the recipient’s eyes. Being so happy to finally receive a reply, I quickly wrote back. A few weeks later, over Zoom, I met the owner of the website, Merrie Blocker, living in Maryland. A retired U.S. diplomat, Blocker was once posted to Argentina and Brazil, among other countries, and proceeded to explain that when she was living in Porto Alegre, Brazil, which had a large Jewish community, she befriended Moacyr Scliar.
I repeated the name to make sure I had heard her correctly. “The Moacyr Scliar, one of the greatest Brazilian writers? Author of Max and the Cats?”
It was the same Moacyr Scliar and it was he who introduced her to a gem of a book, On a Clear April Morning, A Jewish Journey. Written by Ukrainian-born, Brazilian author, Marcos Iolovitch, it was a biographical work of fiction, published in 1940, and the first literary work to document the early Jewish experience in Brazil. Blocker explained that it was this book that inspired Scliar to become a writer. “Let me send you a copy,” she said, and yes, I could also contribute a blog to her website about The Little Synagogue on the Prairie Project.
A memory swept across my mind and I could see, years earlier, while searching through book shelves at Chapters, my hand coming to rest on a slim novella, Max and the Cats. Even back then, I was on the hunt for the obscure, the antithesis of a best seller, a great literary work from some far away place. I purchased a copy and the story unfolded of a German boy escaping Nazi Germany, in the 1930s, who found himself on a dinghy with a jaguar sailing across the Atlantic Ocean before finally finding refuge in Brazil. It became one of my favourite books. I was not the only one who understood its simple brilliance. Yann Martel borrowed the storyline for his novel, Life of Pi — where a young Indian boy finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean in a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra and a Bengal tiger — which won him the 2002 Man Booker Prize.
A copy of On a Clear April Morning eventually appeared in my mailbox and I proceeded to read a moving and heartbreaking immigrant account that began with a relatively abundant life in Zagradowka, a village in the Ukrainian province of Kherson. Yossef Iolovitch, the author’s father, began to worry about his children’s future, while at the same time being slowly seduced by brochures depicting rural Brazilian life of “a soft, blue sky, a farmer, with a wide-brimmed hat… wielding the handles of a plow pulled by a team of oxen turning the virgin land… highlighted in vivid and bold colours, was an enormous orchard, composed principally of orange trees.” The father who “had little education,” but “had no doubts about the truth of the offerings…[and] had complete trust in the goodness of mankind,” sold his business (despite his wife’s objections) and forced his family to endure an arduous journey across the Atlantic Ocean to finally arrive in Brazil — to take up the noble profession of farming.
Settling on a farm in Erebango, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Iolovitch describes the family’s beginning, “One of the first visits we received in the new land was from Death who carried away forever my youngest brother.”
Eventually failing at farming, the family moved to Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul. Disembarking off the train with no money, with almost no Portuguese, they were luckily saved by a blind Jewish cart man who “saw the suffering of others” and “generously offered his modest hospitality.” The move to the city did not ease the family’s dire poverty, which continued for years as they struggled to eke out a bare existence.
Scliar republished Iolovitch’s book in 1987, writing a preface to that edition, in Portuguese, that first began by explaining that in any body of literature there exists for some obscure reason a work that is underestimated. On a Clear April Morning “falls into this category,” he wrote.
Scliar continues, “This book’s value as a work of documentation is priceless. It speaks to us of an age, it speak to us of a human experience that decisively marked Judaism and also left an indelible mark on the history of this state, Rio Grande do Sul, and of this country, Brazil.” Scliar reminds readers that emigration, as an experience, over the last two thousand years, has not been a rare occurrence in the Jewish timeline and that the “confessional dimension” of the book, “can move the most indifferent reader with its innocence and sincerity.”
After reading On a Clear April Morning in a single sitting, Blocker made a promise to herself that she would one day translate the work from Portuguese to English and get it published. (This was the reason for the existence of her beautiful website that I accidentally stumbled on, as writers who want to get published need to have a website.) Blocker kept her promise for over 30 years. She translated the book into English and found a publisher, Academic Studies Press, in Brookline, Massachusetts, which released the book, in 2020, to English-speaking readers — 80 years after its initial publication in Brazil.
I urge readers to discover for themselves this unassuming masterpiece.
Irena Karshenbaum is a writer, historian and heritage advocate who led a project that gifted one of the last surviving prairie synagogues — the 1916 Montefiore Institute — to Calgary’s Heritage Park.
irenakarshenbaum.com
Features
So, what’s the deal with the honey scene in ‘Marty Supreme?’
By Olivia Haynie December 29, 2025 This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.
There are a lot of jarring scenes in Marty Supreme, Josh Safdie’s movie about a young Jew in the 1950s willing to do anything to secure his spot in table tennis history. There’s the one where Marty (Timothée Chalamet) gets spanked with a ping-pong paddle; there’s the one where a gas station explodes. And the one where Marty, naked in a bathtub, falls through the floor of a cheap motel. But the one that everybody online seems to be talking about is a flashback of an Auschwitz story told by Marty’s friend and fellow ping-ponger Béla Kletzki (Géza Röhrig, best known for his role as a Sonderkommando in Son of Saul).
Kletzki tells the unsympathetic ink tycoon Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary) about how the Nazis, impressed by his table tennis skills, spared his life and recruited him to disarm bombs. One day, while grappling with a bomb in the woods, Kletzki stumbled across a honeycomb. He smeared the honey across his body and returned to the camp, where he let his fellow prisoners lick it off his body. The scene is a sensory nightmare, primarily shot in close-ups of wet tongues licking sticky honey off Kletzki’s hairy body. For some, it was also … funny?
Many have reported that the scene has been triggering a lot of laughter in their theaters. My audience in Wilmington, North Carolina, certainly had a good chuckle — with the exception of my mother, who instantly started sobbing. I sat in stunned silence, unsure at first what to make of the sharp turn the film had suddenly taken. One post on X that got nearly 6,000 likes admonished Safdie for his “insane Holocaust joke.” Many users replied that the scene was in no way meant to be funny, with one even calling it “the most sincere scene in the whole movie.”
For me, the scene shows the sheer desperation of those in the concentration camps, as well as the self-sacrifice that was essential to survival. And yet many have interpreted it as merely shock humor.
Laughter could be understood as an inevitable reaction to discomfort and shock at a scene that feels so out of place in what has, up to that point, been a pretty comedic film. The story is sandwiched between Marty’s humorous attempts to embarrass Rockwell and seduce his wife. Viewers may have mistaken the scene as a joke since the film’s opening credits sequence of sperm swimming through fallopian tubes gives the impression you will be watching a comedy interspersed with some tense ping-pong playing.
The reaction could also be part of what some in the movie theater industry are calling the “laugh epidemic.” In The New York Times, Marie Solis explored the inappropriate laughter in movie theaters that seems to be increasingly common. The rise of meme culture and the dissolution of clear genres (Marty Supreme could be categorized as somewhere between drama and comedy), she writes, have primed audiences to laugh at moments that may not have been meant to be funny.
The audience’s inability to process the honey scene as sincere may also be a sign of a society that has become more disconnected from the traumas of the past. It would not be the first time that people, unable to comprehend the horrors of the Holocaust, have instead derided the tales of abuse as pure fiction. But Kletzki’s story is based on the real experiences of Alojzy Ehrlich, a ping-pong player imprisoned at Auschwitz. The scene is not supposed to be humorous trauma porn — Safdie has called it a “beautiful story” about the “camaraderie” found within the camps. It also serves as an important reminder of all that Marty is fighting for.
The events of the film take place only seven years after the Holocaust, and the macabre honey imagery encapsulates the dehumanization the Jews experienced. Marty is motivated not just by a desire to prove himself as an athlete and rise above what his uncle and mother expect of him, but above what the world expects of him as a Jew. His drive to reclaim Jewish pride is further underscored when he brings back a piece of an Egyptian pyramid to his mother, telling her, “We built this.”
Without understanding this background, the honey scene will come off as out of place and ridiculous. And the lengths Marty is willing to go to to make something of himself cannot be fully appreciated. The film’s description on the review-app Letterboxd says Marty Supreme is about one man who “goes to hell and back in pursuit of greatness.” But behind Marty is the story of a whole people who have gone through hell; they too are trying to find their way back.
Olivia Haynie is an editorial fellow at the Forward.
This story was originally published on the Forward.
Features
Paghahambing ng One-on-One Matches at Multiplayer Challenges sa Pusoy in English
Ang Pusoy, na kilala din bilang Chinese Poker, ay patuloy na sumisikat sa buong mundo, kumukuha ng interes ng mga manlalaro mula sa iba’t ibang bansa. Ang mga online platforms ay nagpapadali sa pag-access nito. Ang online version nito ay lubos na nagpasigla ng interes sa mga baguhan at casual players, na nagdulot ng diskusyon kung alin ang mas madali: ang paglalaro ng Pusoy one-on-one o sa multiplayer settings.
Habang nailipat sa digital platforms ang Pusoy, napakahalaga na maunawaan ang mga format nito upang mapahusay ang karanasan sa laro. Malaking epekto ang bilang ng mga kalaban pagdating sa istilo ng laro, antas ng kahirapan, at ang ganap na gameplay dynamics. Ang mga platforms tulad ng GameZone ay nagbibigay ng angkop na espasyo para sa mga manlalaro na masubukan ang parehong one-on-one at multiplayer Pusoy, na akma para sa iba’t ibang klase ng players depende sa kanilang kasanayan at kagustuhan.
Mga Bentahe ng One-on-One Pusoy
Simpleng Gameplay
Sa one-on-one Pusoy in English, dalawa lang ang naglalaban—isang manlalaro at isang kalaban. Dahil dito, mas madali ang bawat laban. Ang pokus ng mga manlalaro ay nakatuon lamang sa kanilang sariling 13 cards at sa mga galaw ng kalaban, kaya’t nababawasan ang pagiging komplikado.
Para sa mga baguhan, ideal ang one-on-one matches upang:
- Sanayin ang tamang pagsasaayos ng cards.
- Matutunan ang tamang ranggo ng bawat kamay.
- Magsanay na maiwasan ang mag-foul sa laro.
Ang simpleng gameplay ay nagbibigay ng matibay na pundasyon para sa mas kumplikadong karanasan sa multiplayer matches.
Mga Estratehiya mula sa Pagmamasid
Sa one-on-one matches, mas madaling maunawaan ang istilo ng kalaban dahil limitado lamang ang galaw na kailangan sundan. Maaari mong obserbahan ang mga sumusunod na patterns:
- Konserbatibong pagkakaayos o agresibong strategy.
- Madalas na pagkakamali o overconfidence.
- Labis na pagtuon sa isang grupo ng cards.
Dahil dito, nagkakaroon ng pagkakataon ang mga manlalaro na isaayos ang kanilang estratehiya upang mas epektibong maka-responde sa galaw ng kalaban, partikular kung maglalaro sa competitive platforms tulad ng GameZone.
Mas Mababang Pressure
Dahil one-on-one lamang ang laban, mababawasan ang mental at emotional stress. Walang ibang kalaban na makaka-distract, na nagbibigay ng pagkakataon para sa mga baguhan na matuto nang walang matinding parusa sa kanilang mga pagkakamali. Nagiging stepping stone ito patungo sa mas dynamic na multiplayer matches.
Ang Hamon ng Multiplayer Pusoy
Mas Komplikado at Mas Malalim na Gameplay
Sa Multiplayer Pusoy, madaragdagan ang bilang ng kalaban, kaya mas nagiging komplikado ang laro. Kailangan kalkulahin ng bawat manlalaro ang galaw ng maraming tao at ang pagkakaayos nila ng cards.
Ang ilang hamon ng multiplayer ay:
- Pagbabalanse ng lakas ng cards sa tatlong grupo.
- Pag-iwas sa labis na peligro habang nagiging kompetitibo.
- Pagtatagumpayan ang lahat ng kalaban nang sabay-sabay.
Ang ganitong klase ng gameplay ay nangangailangan ng maingat na pagpaplano, prediksyon, at strategic na pasensiya.
Mas Malakas na Mental Pressure
Mas mataas ang psychological demand sa multiplayer, dahil mabilis ang galawan at mas mahirap manatiling kalmado sa gitna ng mas maraming kalaban. Kabilang dito ang:
- Bilisan ang pagdedesisyon kahit under pressure.
- Paano mananatiling focused sa gitna ng mga distractions.
- Pagkakaroon ng emosyonal na kontrol matapos ang sunod-sunod na talo.
Mas exciting ito para sa mga manlalarong gusto ng matinding hamon at pagmamalasakit sa estratehiya.
GameZone: Ang Bagong Tahanan ng Modern Pusoy
Ang GameZone online ay isang kahanga-hangang platform para sa mga naglalaro ng Pusoy in English. Nagbibigay ito ng opsyon para sa parehong one-on-one at multiplayer matches, akma para sa kahit anong antas ng kasanayan.
Mga feature ng GameZone:
- Madaling English interface para sa user-friendly na gameplay.
- Real-player matches imbes na kalaban ay bots.
- Mga tool para sa responsible play, tulad ng time reminder at spending limits.
Pagtatagal ng Pamanang Pusoy
Ang Pusoy card game in English ay nagpalawak ng abot nito sa mas maraming players mula sa iba’t ibang bahagi ng mundo habang pinapanatili ang tradisyunal nitong charm. Sa pamamagitan ng mga modernong platform tulad ng GameZone, mananatiling buhay at progresibo ang Pusoy, nakakabighani pa rin sa lahat ng antas ng manlalaro—mula sa casual enjoyment hanggang sa competitive challenges.
Mula sa maingat na pag-aayos ng mga cards hanggang sa pag-master ng estratehiya, ang Pusoy ay isang laro na nananatiling relevant habang ipinapakita ang masalimuot nitong gameplay dynamics na puno ng kultura at inobasyon.
Features
Rob Reiner asked the big questions. His death leaves us searching for answers.
Can men and women just be friends? Can you be in the revenge business too long? Why don’t you just make 10 louder and have that be the top number on your amp?
All are questions Rob Reiner sought to answer. In the wake of his and his wife’s unexpected deaths, which are being investigated as homicides, it’s hard not to reel with questions of our own: How could someone so beloved come to such a senseless end? How can we account for such a staggering loss to the culture when it came so prematurely? How can we juggle that grief and our horror over the violent murder of Jews at an Australian beach, gathered to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah, and still light candles of our own?
The act of asking may be a way forward, just as Rob Reiner first emerged from sitcom stardom by making inquiries.
In This is Spinal Tap, his first feature, he played the role of Marty DiBergi, the in-universe director of the documentary about the misbegotten 1982 U.S. concert tour of the eponymous metal band. He was, in a sense, culminating the work of his father, Carl Reiner, who launched a classic comedy record as the interviewer of Mel Brooks’ 2,000 Year Old Man. DiBergi as played by Reiner was a reverential interlocutor — one might say a fanboy — but he did take time to query Nigel Tufnell as to why his amp went to 11. And, quoting a bad review, he asked “What day did the Lord create Spinal Tap, and couldn’t he have rested on that day too?”
But Reiner had larger questions to mull over. And in this capacity — not just his iconic scene at Katz’s Deli in When Harry Met Sally or the goblin Yiddishkeit of Miracle Max in The Princess Bride — he was a fundamentally Jewish director.
Stand By Me is a poignant meditation on death through the eyes of childhood — it asks what we remember and how those early experiences shape us. The Princess Bride is a storybook consideration of love — it wonders at the price of seeking or avenging it at all costs. A Few Good Men is a trenchant, cynical-for-Aaron Sorkin, inquest of abuse in the military — how can it happen in an atmosphere of discipline.
In his public life, Reiner was an activist. He asked how he could end cigarette smoking. He asked why gay couples couldn’t marry like straight ones. He asked what Russia may have had on President Trump. This fall, with the FCC’s crackdown on Jimmy Kimmel, he asked if he would soon be censored. He led with the Jewish question of how the world might be repaired.
Guttingly, in perhaps his most personal project, 2015’s Being Charlie, co-written by his son Nick he wondered how a parent can help a child struggling with addiction. (Nick was questioned by the LAPD concerning his parents’ deaths and was placed under arrest.)
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None of the questions had pat answers. Taken together, there’s scarcely a part of life that Reiner’s filmography overlooked, including the best way to end it, in 2007’s The Bucket List.
Judging by the longevity of his parents, both of whom lived into their 90s, it’s entirely possible Reiner had much more to ask of the world. That we won’t get to see another film by him, or spot him on the news weighing in on the latest democratic aberration, is hard to swallow.
Yet there is some small comfort in the note Reiner went out on. In October, he unveiled Spinal Tap II: The Beginning of the End, a valedictory moment in a long and celebrated career.
Reiner once again returned to the role of DiBergi. I saw a special prescreening with a live Q&A after the film. It was the day Charlie Kirk was assassinated. I half-expected Reiner to break character and address political violence — his previous film, God & Country, was a documentary on Christian Nationalism.
But Reiner never showed up — only Marty DiBergi, sitting with Nigel Tuffnell (Christopher Guest), David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Los Angeles. The interview was broadcast to theaters across the country, with viewer-submitted questions like “What, in fact, did the glove from Smell the Glove smell like?” (Minty.) And “Who was the inspiration for ‘Big Bottom?’” (Della Reese.)
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- Actor-Director Rob Reiner dies at 78
- Carl Reiner On Judaism, Atheism And The ‘Monster’ In The White House
- Mandy Patinkin On His Favorite ‘Princess Bride’ Quote
DiBergi had one question for the audience: “How did you feel about the film?”
The applause was rapturous, but DiBergi still couldn’t get over Nigel Tuffnell’s Marshall amp, which now stretched beyond 11 and into infinity.
“How can that be?” he asked. “How can you go to infinity? How loud is that?”
There’s no limit, Tuffnell assured him. “Why should there be a limit?”
Reiner, an artist of boundless curiosity and humanity, was limitless. His remit was to reason why. He’ll be impossible to replace, but in asking difficult questions, we can honor him.
The post Rob Reiner asked the big questions. His death leaves us searching for answers. appeared first on The Forward.