Uncategorized
A Jewish producer of ‘All Quiet On The Western Front’ sees his family history in the Oscar-nominated Netflix film
(JTA) — The film producer Daniel Dreifuss has only one surviving photo of a distant relative: his grandfather’s cousin, who fought for Germany in World War I and died in combat two days before the war’s end.
He has a few more photos of his grandfather, who also wore the German uniform in WWI — only to be rounded up by the Nazis two decades later during Kristallnacht and thrown into a concentration camp, as even the Jews who had fought for their country were not safe from its campaign of race extermination.
Dreifuss, who was raised in Brazil after his surviving ancestors fled the war to Uruguay, held up these weathered black-and-white photos to his Zoom camera as he spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency from his home in Los Angeles. One shows his grandfather’s cousin in his military uniform, the other shows his grandparents posing together, between the wars.
“Twenty years later, your country, that you just gave your health for and your cousin for and your family for, sends you to a camp,” he said. “It’s a lot of trauma to have to go through in one lifetime.”
These family stories echoed through Dreifuss’ mind when he first read the script for a proposed modern take on “All Quiet on the Western Front,” the classic 1928 novel about the German army’s hellish experiences during World War I. Nearly a century later, author Erich Maria Remarque’s descriptions of trench warfare and of the utter lack of heroism, valor or patriotism felt by its soldier protagonists resonated with Dreifuss.
“I said, ‘I know these people,’” he recalled. “Not because they are some distant relatives that I’ve heard of, but because I am the grandson of one of those kids who were in the film.”
Dreifuss’ parents met at a Jewish youth group in Rio de Janeiro in the 1960s. “My father was my mother’s madrich,” he recalled, using the Hebrew word for a youth group counselor. After they were later married, they moved to Israel partially to avoid Brazil’s military dictatorship and became left-wing political activists. They left Israel just before the Yom Kippur War and relocated to Scotland, where Dreifuss was born, before returning to Brazil to raise him.
Dreifuss had his bar mitzvah in the city of Belo Horizonte before later moving to Rio, which has a much larger Jewish community. “My family was never at all religious, but culturally Jewish,” he said, recalling Passover celebrations and gefilte fish recipes. He did not have many Jewish friends growing up, but his Brazilian friends were interested in Judaism and would attend his family’s Jewish events.
Daniel Dreifuss, a producer of Netflix’s “All Quiet on the Western Front,” holds up a photo of his grandfather Max Dreifuss from 1919, recovering from his German military service in WWI. Max was sent to a concentration camp once the Nazis took power. (Courtesy of Daniel Dreifuss)
This global upbringing is reflected in Dreifuss’ interest in international film. It took a decade for him to mount his remake of “All Quiet,” which was eventually set up with a German production company and released by Netflix this past fall amid another endless military conflict in Europe. No one, he said, wanted to fund a resolutely anti-war film that refused to glorify its combatants, a film that was “never a hero’s journey, not the story of someone who came, you know, beat 1,000 people with their bare hands, triumphs and looks down on top of a hill at the end with some sweeping score.”
But that journey has been validated by the film’s impressive Oscar total, which surprised industry observers. At the nomination ceremony last month, “All Quiet” received nine total nods, the second most of any film this year, including for best picture — which the novel’s original 1930 Hollywood adaptation, directed by Jewish filmmaker Lewis Milestone, won. (This year’s Academy Awards will be held March 12.)
Considering the Nazis had once led a campaign of book burning against the source material and terrorized German movie theaters that showed the original movie adaptation, accusing it of being a “Judenfilm,” Dreifuss sees the new film’s success as a historical victory, too. “I love that my name will be associated with a story that was deemed degenerate by that regime,” he said.
When he was first presented with an early draft of the new “All Quiet” script, in 2013, Dreifuss was coming off of the success of another international historical film he had produced. “No,” a 1980s-set Chilean political drama, starred Gael Garcia Bernal as an ad executive tasked with convincing his country to vote the dictator Augusto Pinochet out of office. The film netted Chile’s first-ever Oscar nomination for international feature film, although Dreifuss himself is not Chilean.
In researching “No,” Dreifuss said, the film’s team had trouble finding Chileans who would admit to having cast their real-life vote in Pinochet’s favor — even though 40% of the population did so. “We couldn’t find one single person who supported him,” he recalled. “At some point, years later, no one wanted to say, ‘I supported it, I voted, I was on that side.’” He saw a parallel to the history of geopolitics in the run-up to WWII, when many Western countries — including his family’s adopted homeland of Brazil — were initially sympathetic to the Nazis.
When Hollywood studios turned down the proposed remake of “All Quiet,” forcing Dreifuss to turn to European financing, he saw an opportunity to mount the first-ever German adaptation of the property, which would allow the film to open up a “historical perspective” on how the aftermath of WWI led to the rise of the Nazis and the Holocaust.
German filmmaker Edward Berger, who also helmed several episodes of the espionage miniseries “Deutschland 83,” stepped into the director’s chair, and he also has a co-writing credit. German star Daniel Brühl, who has played many historical villains to the Jewish people in films ranging from “7 Days in Entebbe” to “The Zookeeper’s Wife,” took a key supporting role as the lead negotiator for the armistice agreements — the sole figure in the movie trying to find a peaceful resolution for his country. (The historical figure Brühl portrays, Matthias Erzberger, was vilified as a traitor by the German right and assassinated in 1921 by antisemitic nationalist radicals who were precursors to the Nazis.)
Though there are no explicitly Jewish characters in the film, Dreifuss believes it still speaks to the fate that would soon await Europe’s Jews.
“We know what followed in the decade in Germany,” he said. “So we could bring that to the film in subtle ways.”
He pointed to the armistice plotline that foreshadows how the Treaty of Versailles left Germany in a deeply disadvantaged position, creating an opportunity for Hitler’s brand of national populism. There are also scenes in which thoughtless German generals, driven by nationalistic fervor and wounded pride, send entire squadrons to their deaths mere minutes before the armistice is set to take effect. In one sequence, the film’s lead, the soldier Paul (Felix Kammerer), steals a goose from a French farming family of non-combatants and says: “It’s a hatred of the other, of not understanding, of being raised to have an enemy.”
Dreifuss is dipping into a different chapter of world Jewish history with his next project: a Showtime miniseries produced with the co-creators of the Israeli Netflix series “Fauda” that explores CIA operations in the Middle East and is partially set during the Lebanon War in which Israel had a heavy, and oft-criticized, military presence. The series will air this summer.
He has also been pitched a host of WWI and WWII-related projects in the wake of the success of “All Quiet.” But, he joked, “I would love for people to not only think of me as the war guy, or as the dictator guy.”
—
The post A Jewish producer of ‘All Quiet On The Western Front’ sees his family history in the Oscar-nominated Netflix film appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Trump Says He Is Likely to Reject Peace Proposal as Iran Has ‘Not Yet Paid a Big Enough Price’
Ships and boats in the Strait of Hormuz, Musandam, Oman. Photo: May 1, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer
US President Donald Trump said that he had yet to review the exact wording of a new Iranian peace proposal but he was unlikely to accept it, because the Iranians had not yet “paid a big enough price.”
Trump’s remarks on social media concluded a day in which he publicly mused about the possibility of restarting airstrikes, the latest mixed signal as he seeks to end the war he launched more than two months ago.
On Sunday, Israel ordered thousands of Lebanese to leave villages in southern Lebanon, an escalation of a war between Israel and Iran’s Hezbollah allies that has run in parallel to the Iran war and could further complicate wider peace efforts.
Iran has said talks with Washington cannot resume unless a ceasefire also holds in Lebanon, which Israel invaded in March to attack Hezbollah after the Iranian-backed Lebanese group fired across the border in support of Tehran.
Lebanon and Israel agreed to a separate truce last month, but fighting has continued, though on a smaller scale. The Israeli military issued an urgent warning on Sunday to residents of 11 towns and villages in Lebanon’s south, urging them to evacuate their homes and move at least 3,300 feet away to open areas.
The military said it was conducting operations against Hezbollah following what it described as a violation of the ceasefire, warning that anyone near Hezbollah fighters or facilities could be at risk.
PEACE APPEARS NO CLOSER
The United States and Israel suspended their bombing campaign against Iran four weeks ago, but appear no closer to a deal to end a war that has caused the biggest disruption ever to global energy supplies, roiled global markets and raised worries about the possibility of a wider global economic downturn.
In his post on social media, Trump wrote: “I will soon be reviewing the plan that Iran has just sent to us, but can’t imagine that it would be acceptable in that they have not yet paid a big enough price for what they have done to Humanity, and the World, over the last 47 years.”
On Saturday, a senior Iranian official had said Iran’s proposal would first open shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and end a US blockade of Iran, while leaving talks on Iran’s nuclear program for later.
Though Trump had already said on Friday that he was not satisfied with the Iranian proposal, he said on Saturday he had yet to hear all the details.
“They told me about the concept of the deal. They’re going to give me the exact wording now,” he said. Asked if he might restart strikes on Iran, Trump replied: “I don’t want to say that. I mean, I can’t tell that to a reporter. If they misbehave, if they do something bad, right now we’ll see. But it’s a possibility that could happen.”
IRAN’S PROPOSAL APPEARS TO CONTRADICT WASHINGTON’S DEMANDS
Iran’s proposal to delay talks on nuclear issues until later appears to contradict Washington’s repeated demand that Iran give up its stockpile of more than 400 kg (900 pounds) of highly enriched uranium as a condition to end the war.
Washington says the uranium could be used to make a bomb. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful but it is willing to discuss curbs on it in return for the lifting of sanctions, as it accepted in a 2015 deal that Trump abandoned.
Reuters and other news organizations have reported over the past week that Tehran was proposing to reopen the strait before nuclear issues were resolved. The senior Iranian official confirmed that this new timeline had now been spelled out in a formal proposal conveyed to the United States through mediators.
While saying repeatedly he is in no hurry, Trump is under domestic pressure to break Iran’s hold on the strait, which has choked off 20% of the world’s oil and gas supplies and pushed up US gasoline prices. Trump’s Republican Party faces the risk of a voter backlash over higher prices when the country votes in midterm congressional elections in November.
Iranian media said Tehran’s 14-point proposal included the withdrawal of US forces from areas surrounding Iran, lifting the blockade, releasing Iran’s frozen assets, payment of compensation, lifting sanctions and ending the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, as well as a new control mechanism for the strait.
Iran has been blocking nearly all shipping from the Gulf apart from its own for more than two months. Last month, the US imposed its own blockade of ships from Iranian ports.
Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential diplomacy, the senior Iranian official said Tehran believed its latest proposal to shelve nuclear talks for a later stage was a significant shift aimed at facilitating an agreement.
“Under this framework, negotiations over the more complicated nuclear issue have been moved to the final stage to create a more conducive atmosphere,” the official said.
Uncategorized
Most Jewish voters rate Mamdani poorly, new poll finds
As New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani marks four months in office, a new survey of New York City’s Jewish voters suggests he has done little to ease concerns among a community that overwhelmingly did not support his election and remains uneasy about his handling of antisemitism and Israel.
A Mercury Public Affairs poll of 665 Jewish voters who cast ballots in last year’s mayoral election found that 58% rate his performance as “poor” or “fair,” compared to 32% who say “excellent” or “good.” Among the 18% who described his performance as “fair,” a majority — 56% — said they disapprove, while 24% approve.
The poll sponsored by The Jewish Majority, an advocacy group led by AIPAC veteran Jonathan Schulman, was conducted from Feb. 17 to 28 in English and Yiddish via landline and cell phone. The sample has a reported margin of error of plus or minus 3.7%. It included a diverse cross-section of the city’s Jewish electorate: 30% Orthodox; 32% Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist; and 20% unaffiliated.
The results published Sunday underscore a political reality that has shadowed Mamdani since taking the helm of the city that is home to the largest concentration of Jews in the U.S. He won just 26% of the Jewish vote in the 2025 election, compared to 55% for Andrew Cuomo and 8% for Curtis Sliwa, according to the poll. His support was strongest among younger voters ages 35-44 (34%) and unaffiliated Jews (42%). He drew just 7% among Orthodox voters.
Antisemitism and Israel loom large
A central tension in Mamdani’s relationship with Jewish groups has been his effort to separate his views critical of Israel from his repeated commitment to protect Jewish New Yorkers.
Mamdani, who rose to power aligned with pro-Palestinian activism, has so far declined calls from Jewish leaders to acknowledge the community’s connection to Israel more directly. That comes into sharper focus now as the Jewish community marks Jewish American Heritage Month. Mamdani is not expected to march in the annual Celebrate Israel Parade on Fifth Avenue on May 31, a choice likely to reinforce perceptions of that distance. This year’s parade theme is “Proud Americans, Proud Zionists.”
Last month, Mamdani vetoed a City Council bill requiring safety plans for protests near schools, while allowing a separate measure protecting houses of worship to become law. Mamdani said he shared concerns raised by progressive groups and labor unions that the legislation could impact their ability to organize and potentially limit demonstrations, particularly on campuses. He also faced backlash from Zionist Jewish organizations on his first day in office after revoking executive orders tied to antisemitism and campus protests.
At the time the poll was taken, an overwhelming 84% of respondents said they had supported the Council’s initial proposal to establish a safe perimeter around houses of worship to prevent harassment and intimidation, while preserving First Amendment rights. Only 7% opposed it.
According to the survey, 82% of respondents said they are concerned about the rise in antisemitism in New York City, and 58% said they believe the increase is linked to the normalization of anti-Zionism.
A majority — 61% — said Mamdani’s refusal to outright condemn the slogan “globalize the Intifada” has emboldened pro-Hamas protesters. Nineteen percent disagreed.
Mamdani stands firm
The Jewish Majority spearheaded an open letter during the mayoral election, signed by more than 1,100 Jewish congregational leaders opposing what it described as “rising anti-Zionism and its political normalization” among figures like Mamdani.
Four months in, Mamdani is showing little sign of changing course, sticking with the coalition that brought him to power even as many Jewish New Yorkers say their concerns remain unresolved.
“I am deeply committed to protecting Jewish New Yorkers,” Mamdani told the Forward last week. “It’s part of a commitment to ensure that public safety is delivered for each and every New Yorker. And I also believe that as we deliver that public safety, as we show an absolute rejection of antisemitism across the five boroughs, we can also do these things while protecting our fundamental constitutional rights.”
The post Most Jewish voters rate Mamdani poorly, new poll finds appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
After a Maryland teacher’s death, her 200-piece Judaica collection finds new life in a Jewish museum
(JTA) — As Rae Ann Kaylie sat on her mother’s couch in the wake of her death, the Judaica felt overwhelming.
Over 50 menorahs adorned the shelves. A dozen seder plates had been meticulously hung alongside a trove of Jewish art on each wall. And countless dreidels, kiddush cups and shofars filled every corner of the 1,100-square-foot home in Rockville, Maryland.
There were so many hamsas hanging near the entrance, Kaylie joked, “Whoa, Mom, what on earth? Like, how much evil eye do we have in here?”
For 35 years, Kaylie’s mother, Deborah Brodie, had amassed a collection of over 200 Jewish ritual objects, which she had used as a hands-on classroom for her Hebrew school students with special needs. Among the collection, Brodie had also obtained a Torah from Ebay, which her students used to practice for their b’nai mitzvah.
“She wasn’t the one who was like, ‘Oh, don’t touch it. You’re going to break it,’” Kaylie said. “She was like, ‘Touch it, here, take a bunch,’ you know what I mean, and that was really cool about her entire collection.”
Brodie — known as “Bubbie Cookie” to her family — had not built the collection alone. Her longtime partner, Jay Brill, whom she met through a Washington Jewish Week personals ad in 1986, was alongside her throughout the journey, traveling with her to all 50 states to sell Jewish jewelry and a computerized Hebrew-learning program they created together.
Over the years, the couple attended both B’nai Shalom and Shaare Tefila Congregation, two Conservative synagogues in Olney, Maryland. Toward the end of their lives, they attended Chabad of Olney, whose rabbi officiated their funerals.
But after Brodie, 76, and Brill, 74, died in February just 19 days apart, Kaylie said she and her family were faced with a painful question: What would happen to the couple’s lifetime of Jewish devotion in their absence?
“We all picked something we wanted, but then, you know, you don’t want to sell it, you don’t want to make any money off of it,” Kaylie said. “It was just trying to figure out, like, what can we do to further her passion, her vision?”
The answer, Kaylie said, arrived through Instagram.
Earlier this month, Kaylie sent a simple message to Nick Fox, who operates a social media series titled “Millennial Inheritance,” writing, “Hey, you want to see a lot of menorahs?”
Since October, Fox has documented dozens of inheritance stories across his social media channels, featuring people grappling with their late parents’ vast collections of Breyer Horse figurines, salt and pepper shakers and Christmas decorations.
But while Fox said the mission of his page is not necessarily to help people find homes for inherited collections, Kaylie’s story felt different.
As he viewed images of Brodie and Brill’s home, Fox, who is Catholic, said that he immediately flashed back to childhood memories attending his classmates’ bar mitzvahs and receiving souvenir hamsas from their trips to Israel.
“It was the fact that she was actively grieving and really had no idea what to do, and I think the fact that I was raised how I was, where I was, that I had a knowledge of what this stuff was and what it meant,” Fox said.
Just days later, Fox posted a short video for his 200,000 followers featuring snippets of the sprawling collection along with a call to help find it a permanent home that would “love it the way Rae Ann’s mom did.”
As the post garnered hundreds of comments offering ideas for the collection’s future and tributes to Brodie’s contributions to Jewish education, it was also making its way through Washington’s Jewish community.
The morning after the post, Jonathan Edelman, the collections curator for the Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum, said he woke up to dozens of messages from people urging the museum to find a home for the collection.
“It was so meaningful that so many people in the broader community, and who have never stopped in our museum, tagged us and said, you know, this should be the home of this sort of wild story and this amazing collection,” Edelman said.
By the following weekend, Edelman had travelled to Brodie’s home to meet with Rae Ann to view the collection himself. But even after seeing Fox’s post, Edelman said he was unprepared for what awaited him inside.
“It was incredible, floor-to-ceiling Judaica like I’d never seen in anyone’s home before,” Edelman said. “It wasn’t just thrown on a shelf. It was so thoughtfully laid out. I mean, she had seder plates and hanukkiot hanging on the wall, which is no easy task to do…it felt like a museum quality display. It was really impressive.”
Edelman quickly reported back to the museum, which opened in June 2023, telling them that he believed he had stumbled upon an “incredible opportunity” to launch its inaugural education collection.
Now, the Capital Jewish Museum has plans to house the entirety of Brodie and Brill’s collection in its second-floor education and program space, the Community Action Lab, where visitors will be able to interact with the Judaica firsthand, just as Brodie encouraged her students to do in her home.
The museum also plans to photograph the collection so it is accessible online, and lend individual pieces to schools and organizations in the area for educational use.
“When I heard her mother’s story, you know, we were doing the same thing. Our goal was Jewish education, and she did it as an individual, we’re doing it as an institution,” Edelman said. “It means so much for us to honor her mother’s memory by doing the work that she dedicated her life to…it feels particularly special.”
But while Fox said he was not surprised by the outpouring of support and suggestions from the Jewish community, he said other Jews that inherit large quantities of Judaica should not look to Kaylie’s story as a roadmap.
“This is absolute best-case scenario, but it also makes it so very unique, because there aren’t going to be a lot of collections that museums usually are going to take on,” Fox said, adding that people should not assume that inheritances will find a place in a museum.
Instead, Fox said he encouraged people that inherit Jewish collections to consult their local Jewish community centers or synagogues to see if they might have a use for them.
“In the case of someone having a tremendous amount of Judaica, I think the best way would be to tap into your network, first, talk to people that you know that are in your community,” Fox said. “And then if it goes nowhere, then you have every right to, you know, if you’re looking to sell it, or if you’re looking to donate it, I think the big ask would be, what would your relatives want done with that stuff?”
Rachel Steinhardt, a California resident who organized a large-scale Judaica drive for people impacted by the Palisades and Eaton fires last year, recommended that people who find themselves with inherited Judaica they cannot keep turn to local Facebook groups or Judaica rehoming communities such as L’dor V’dor Judaica or Heritage Judaica.
“New Judaica is great, but people definitely value something that has been touched and loved and appreciated over the years…you want something that has a little soul in it,” Steinhardt said. “So I think that even something that’s not of value, other people can appreciate that it has been loved and want to acquire it.”
Reflecting on Fox’s decision to spotlight her mother’s collection, Kaylie said that he had been a “guardian angel.”
“He didn’t have to do that, and really, it’s because of him that we’re able to have my mom’s legacy be how we could have wanted it,” Kaylie said.
Edelman said he expects the collection to be installed in the museum sometime this summer, where it will be displayed alongside a plaque honoring “Bubbie Cookie” and “Zayde Jay,” names the couple were referred to by their families.
For Kaylie, imagining the future museum visitors handling her mother’s kiddush cups and menorahs felt like “exactly how she would have wanted it.”
“When we lost Bubbie Cookie, we said the legend of Bubbie Cookie was over,” Kaylie said. “And now, for the legend and the legacy to move on, I mean, it’s unreal. It’s, I have no words, I can’t even articulate it. It’s just amazing.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post After a Maryland teacher’s death, her 200-piece Judaica collection finds new life in a Jewish museum appeared first on The Forward.