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The real story behind Jewish family comedy ‘iMordecai’ and its unusual path to the big screen
(JTA) — The real Mordecai Samel, at the time in his late 70s, really didn’t want an iPhone in 2015.
The Holocaust survivor who had been living in South Florida since 2004 didn’t see a need. His taped-together flip phone worked fine. But his son Marvin insisted.
One thing that helped convince Mordecai to give in: the ability to listen to the klezmer music of his youth that the iPhone provided.
“One day I got off a plane, and I called my dad, and all I could hear was static,” Marvin Samel said.
Soon Mordecai was going to iPhone lessons at a local store six times a week.
“It’s there that I see my father holding court, telling stories,” Marvin said about the lessons, “and I said, this is it. This is the vehicle to tell the story as a screenplay.”
Thus sprung an unusual comedy film that hits theaters Friday inspired directly by first-time director Marvin Samel’s life, centered on a Jewish family that is split by a stark generational divide.
In the film — as in the Samels’ real lives — Marvin (played by Sean Astin) attempts to sell his cigar company while his father’s antics continually get in the way and his mother (Carol Kane), who has Alzheimer’s Disease, sometimes wanders off.
“I had to tone him down for the movie, because no one would believe me if I actually printed the truth. He’s always getting himself into trouble,” Samel said of the real Mordecai, a retired plumber who is played onscreen by Tony and Emmy Award winner Judd Hirsch.
At the same time, Marvin’s wife, who has just given birth to twins, is upset with him about delays in the company sale and the family’s resulting cash crunch. Mordecai agrees to take the iPhone lessons and befriends the instructor (Azia Dinea Hale) who he calls “Einstein Nina,” someone with a surprising family backstory of her own.
Mordecai tells her some stories about his family’s escape from the Nazis when he was a child, showing her family pictures from before the war and noting that he can’t remember his mother’s face. These stories, Marvin Samel said, were inspired more by the stories told by Mordecai’s brother, who was older when the family fled, than by his own. The family left Poland in 1939, when Mordecai was three and his older brother was six. They first went to the Soviet Union and eventually to Brooklyn.
Mordecai’s family was from Janów Podlaski, a small town in Poland at the center of the territory split by Hitler and Stalin in 1939. Some flashback sequences are presented in animation.
Marvin Samel sold his company, Drew Estate Cigars, back in 2014. The film was mostly self-financed, in part from the proceeds of the cigar company’s sale, “all the way through distribution.” While Samel has always loved the movies, even seeing movies like “Taxi Driver” and “Hair” when he was much too young to do so — “my Temple, growing up, was the movie theater,” he said — he had never before set foot on a movie set prior to the first day of filming of “iMordecai.”
Samel taught himself filmmaking, in part, by taking online courses through MasterClass from the likes of Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard and Jodie Foster, and he also had a chance meeting at a dinner with retired basketball star Ray Allen, who had made a novice acting appearance in Spike Lee’s “He Got Game” when he was in his early 20s. Allen’s advice was to spend some time on movie sets to get a feel for things, but not much was filming in South Florida at the time.
Sean Astin, right, plays Marvin Samel’s character. (FeMor Productions)
“iMordecai” was shot in 23 days in late 2019, meaning that Samel filmed a movie that starred Hirsch as a heavily-accented, old-world Jewish immigrant inspired by a relative of the filmmaker at least a year before Steven Spielberg did the same for “The Fabelmans.” Hirsch is nominated for an Oscar for his role in that movie, his first Academy Award nomination since “Ordinary People” more than 40 years earlier.
Samel’s film, which features the city of Miami extensively, has been a hit so far in Florida. It had its world premiere in January 2022 at the Miami Jewish Film Festival, where it won the audience award for best narrative film.
“I think that this film has the capacity to possibly impact and resonate with people of all ages,” said Igor Shteyrenberg, executive director of the festival.
Samel is taking the film on a tour that criss-crossed the Sunshine State this month, including a run of 10 shows at The Villages, the world’s largest retirement community. That tour, in which the real Mordecai has been on stage at times, headed to New York’s Quad Cinemas this week, and a limited theatrical release — also heavy in Florida — starts Friday. Tour dates in such markets as Dallas, Phoenix, Chicago are next, prior to a return to Florida, Samel said.
Perhaps the success with the older Florida crowd has to do with the universality of the film’s subject matter. Even Warren Buffett, the famed investor, turned in his flip phone for an iPhone back in 2020, when he was nearly 90, even though he had bought many billions of dollars in Apple stock by that point.
Yvette Miro, a 99-year-old who lives in Tamarac, Florida, said it’s “hard to remember not having” an iPhone after getting one to replace her flip phone about 10 years ago. A Brooklyn native — she attended Eastern District High School at the same time as Mel Brooks, who was a couple of years younger — Miro has lived in Florida since 1999, and even at her age continues to host weekly Shabbat dinners with her family, including her nine grandchildren and more than 30 great-grandchildren.
But unlike Mordecai, rather than badgered into getting the iPhone, she got one herself.
“I heard about it, I wanted it. I’m old, but I had to keep up with the times,” she said.
She now uses it for “everything… especially FaceTime, where I can see [the kids]. I use it even more than my regular phone.”
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The post The real story behind Jewish family comedy ‘iMordecai’ and its unusual path to the big screen appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Board of Peace Members Have Pledged More Than $5 billion for Gaza, Trump Says
A drone view shows the destruction in a residential neighborhood, after the withdrawal of the Israeli forces from the area, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, in Gaza City, October 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas/File Photo
US President Donald Trump said Board of Peace member states will announce at an upcoming meeting on Thursday a pledge of more than $5 billion for reconstruction and humanitarian efforts in Gaza.
In a post on Truth Social on Sunday, Trump wrote that member states have also committed thousands of personnel toward a U.N.-authorized stabilization force and local police in the Palestinian enclave.
The US president said Thursday’s gathering, the first official meeting of the group, will take place at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, which the State Department recently renamed after the president. Delegations from more than 20 countries, including heads of state, are expected to attend.
The board’s creation was endorsed by a United Nations Security Council resolution as part of the Trump administration’s plan to end the war between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza.
Israel and Hamas agreed to the plan last year with a ceasefire officially taking effect in October, although both sides have accused each other repeatedly of violating the ceasefire. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, more than 590 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops in the territory since the ceasefire began. Israel has said four of its soldiers have been killed by Palestinian militants in the same period.
While regional Middle East powers including Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel – as well as emerging nations such as Indonesia – have joined the board, global powers and traditional Western US allies have been more cautious.
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Why a forgotten teacher’s grave became a Jewish pilgrimage site
Along Britton Road in Rochester, New York, a brick gatehouse sits across from ordinary homes. Beyond it lies Britton Road Cemetery, its grounds divided into family plots and sections claimed over time by Orthodox congregations and fraternal associations, past and present. Names like Anshe Polen, Beth Hakneses Hachodosh, B’nai Israel, and various Jewish fraternal organizations are found here.
On the east side of the cemetery, a modest gray headstone draws visitors who do not personally know the man buried there, who were never taught his name in school, and who claim no personal connection to his life. Some leave notes. Some light candles in a small metal box set nearby. Others whisper prayers and stand for a moment before going. They come because they believe holiness can be found here.
The grave belongs to Rabbi Yechiel Meir Burgeman, a Polish-born teacher who died in 1938. He did not lead a major congregation or leave behind an institution that bears his name. And yet, nearly a century after his death, people still visit.
Over time, Burgeman has come to be remembered as a tzaddik nistar, a hidden righteous person, whose holiness is known through their teaching and daily life rather than through any title or position. His grave has become a place of intercession. People come to pray for healing, for help in times of uncertainty, and for the hope of marriage. What endures here is not an individual’s biography so much as a practice: the belief that a life lived with integrity can continue to shape devotion, even after the body has been laid to rest.
In life, Burgeman was not known as a miracle worker or a public figure. He was a melamed, a teacher of children, living plainly among other Jewish immigrants in Rochester’s Jewish center in the early decades of the 20th century. At one point, he was dismissed from a teaching post for refusing to soften his instruction. He later opened his own cheder, or schoolroom. There was no congregation to inherit his name, no institution to archive his papers. When he died, he was buried in an ordinary way at Britton Road Cemetery, one grave among many.
What followed was not immediate.
Remembered in return
The meaning attached to Burgeman’s resting place accumulated slowly. Stories began to circulate. People spoke of his kindness, his discipline, his integrity. Over time, visitors came. The grave became a place not of answers, but of belief. For generations, this turning toward the dead has taken this same form. It is not worship. It is proximity. A way of standing near those believed to have lived rightly, and asking that their merit might still matter.
In Jewish tradition, prayer at a grave is a reflection on those believed to have lived with righteousness, asking that their merit accompany the living in moments of need. Psalms are traditionally recited. Words are often spoken quietly.
I have done something similar too. Years ago, before I converted to Judaism and before I had the means to travel, I sent a written prayer through a Chabad service that delivers letters to the grave of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in New York. Someone else carried it. I cannot say with absolute certainty what happened because of it. Only that the practice itself made space for hope that I was seen, and that a prayer was later answered in ways that shaped my life and deepened my understanding of Judaism.
Burgeman’s grave functions in a similar register, though without any institutional frame. People come not because his name is widely known, but because the story has endured. Over time, that story gathered details. The most persistent involves a dog said to have escorted Jewish children to Burgeman’s cheder so they would not be harassed along the way by other youths. The dog then stood watch until they were ready to return home. The versions differ. Some are reverent. Some are playful. Some verge on the miraculous. The story endures because it names something children needed: care, in a world that could be frightening.
In recent decades, Burgeman’s afterlife has taken on a digital form. His name surfaces in comment threads and genealogical forums, passed along by people who never met him and are not always sure how they are connected. Spellings are debated. Dates are corrected. A descendant appears. A former student’s grandchild adds a fragment. Someone asks whether this is the same man their grandmother spoke of. No single account settles the matter. Instead, memory gathers. What once traveled by word of mouth now moves through hyperlinks.
The internet allows fragments to remain visible. Burgeman’s story survives not because it was officially recorded, but because enough people cared to remember it. In this way, his legacy resembles the man himself: quiet, unadorned, sustained by actions rather than declaration.
This story does not offer certainty. It is about remembering a life and asking if we might still learn from it and if, perhaps, it can bring us closer to faith. Burgeman left no grand monument. He left descendants. A grave. A life of Jewish values that continues to teach.
Burgeman did not seek recognition in life. After death, he became something else: a teacher still teaching, not through words, but through the way people continue to act on his memory. That is the lesson. Not any miracle. Not any legend. The quiet insistence that a life lived with integrity does not end when the casket is placed into the earth.
Some graves are instructions.
This one still asks something of us.
The post Why a forgotten teacher’s grave became a Jewish pilgrimage site appeared first on The Forward.
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Turkey Sends Drilling Ship to Somalia in Major Push for Energy Independence
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a ceremony for the handover of new vehicles to the gendarmerie and police forces in Istanbul, Turkey, Nov. 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Murad Sezer
i24 News – Turkey has dispatched a drilling vessel to Somalia to begin offshore oil exploration, marking what officials describe as a historic step in Ankara’s drive to strengthen energy security and reduce reliance on imports.
Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Alparslan Bayraktar announced that the drilling ship Çagri Bey is set to sail from the port of Taşucu in southern Turkey, heading toward Somali territorial waters.
The vessel will pass through the Strait of Gibraltar and around the coast of southern Africa before reaching its destination, with drilling operations expected to begin in April or May.
Bayraktar described the mission as a “historic” milestone, saying it reflects Turkey’s long-term strategy to enhance national energy security and move closer to self-sufficiency.
The operation will be protected by the Turkish Naval Forces, which will deploy several naval units to secure both the vessel’s route and the drilling area in the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. The security arrangements fall under existing cooperation agreements between Ankara and Somalia.
The move aligns with a broader vision promoted by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, aimed at reducing Turkey’s dependence on foreign energy supplies, boosting domestic production, and shielding the economy from external pressures.
Bayraktar said Turkey is also working to double its natural gas output in the Black Sea this year, while continuing offshore exploration along its northern coastline. In parallel, Ankara is preparing to bring its first nuclear reactor online at the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, which is expected to begin generating electricity soon and eventually supply about 10% of the country’s energy needs.
The current drilling effort is based on survey data collected last year and forms part of Ankara’s wider plan to expand its energy exploration activities both regionally and internationally.