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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.”
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Shabbos Kestenbaum: The New Encampments
The “People’s University” encampment, established by Students for Justice in Palestine, on the campus of Smith College in April 2024. Photo: Screenshot
The encampments have returned. At Smith and Occidental Colleges, the ugliest form of campus bigotry since the 2024 Tentifada is back.
The 2023-2024 academic year saw an unprecedented wave of antisemitic incidents on American college campuses. Infamously, anti-Israel “encampments” — also known as the Tentifada — took over at least 80 campuses during this period. These pro-Hamas zones were designed to make Jewish students feel unsafe. Sadly, they’re here once again.
At Occidental College in Los Angeles, students set up the “Rafah to Jenin Liberated Zone.” Organizers recently called it the longest-lasting encampment since 2024. The radicals were handing out “No Zionists” pins and red inverted triangle stickers, a symbol Hamas uses to mark targets.
In 2024, Occidental settled a Title VI complaint filed by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Brandeis Center, agreeing to implement sweeping reforms to address antisemitism. The agreement explicitly states that “no Zionist” litmus tests may constitute discrimination against Jewish or Israeli students.
At Smith College in Massachusetts, radicals occupied Chapin Lawn and renamed it “the People’s University.” They demanded divestment from Israel and called for a critical race theory curriculum. The president and chairwoman of the Board of Trustees agreed to sit down with the ringleaders. Despite this concession, the coordinators pledged to continue disrupting campus.
The Smith College jihad pajama party disbanded only after the college’s administration agreed to enter into sustained negotiations with the anti-Israel rule-breakers. The radicals openly stated that they will continue to disrupt campus life to demand divestment and threatened that “if the institution won’t give it to us, we will make it.”
Allowing these terror-supporting encampments to fester is a losing strategy for college administrators. It causes real damage, both physical and institutional, at the schools that fail to immediately disband them. Many colleges are now under investigation for failing to protect their students during the spring 2024 semester.
One of the most destructive tentifadas occurred at Columbia University. Pro-Hamas radicals seized the Butler library in May 2024, disrupted final exams, and targeted Jewish students. They besieged Hamilton Hall, smashed open the doors with hammers, injured security personnel, and barricaded themselves inside. Jewish faculty lost access to campus. Jewish students alleged structural antisemitism in a lawsuit. Ultimately, Columbia canceled in-person classes and commencement ceremonies for the remainder of the school year.
Across the United States, campus agitators vandalized property with swastikas and terrorist propaganda and defaced war memorials and statues of American heroes. They smashed and occupied buildings and poured cement into sewage systems. Jewish students faced violent threats and were blocked from getting to class. In some cases, physical violence resulted in the hospitalization of Jewish students. Due to the severity of the campus disruptions, many classes and graduation ceremonies were canceled across the country.
The Tentifada caused an estimated $3 million in property damage at the City College of New York, millions in damage at Cal Poly Humboldt, and $29 million across the University of California system, including new security measures, law enforcement, and the destruction of campus spaces. These incidents are just a small portion of the damage that was done by pro-Hamas radicals on American campuses during the 2023-2024 academic year.
The Tentifada was a dark chapter for American universities. Pro-Hamas campus radicals are now trying to start a new chapter of destruction and disorder. Administrators must not let them. The response should be immediate: disband the encampments, impose disciplinary proceedings, expel participants, and refer criminal conduct for prosecution. American universities exist to educate students, not to host pro-Hamas block parties.
Shabbos Kestenbaum is a political commentator at PragerU and a former lead plaintiff in a civil rights lawsuit against Harvard University.
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The Special Importance of Memory in Judaism
The entrance gate of a Jewish cemetery in Gauting, Starnberg, Upper Bavaria, Bavaria, Germany, on Nov. 8, 2020, is a wrought iron gate adorned with a Star of David. It stands between two stone pillars, leading into a tree-lined cemetery with gravestones and a pathway visible in the background. Photo by Michael Nguyen/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
A few weeks ago, I conducted the funeral of Ron Plotkin, former owner of Monster.com and once a leading philanthropist in Los Angeles. In recent years, his life changed drastically — from prominence and influence to obscurity and hardship.
I knew Ron at his height and stayed in touch as others drifted away. By the time he died, there were no resources left — not even enough for a burial. We arranged for him to be laid to rest through charitable means at the Jewish cemetery in Commerce, California.
Sadly, we struggled to find 10 men to attend Ron’s funeral so Kaddish could be recited. A group from my synagogue agreed to come, but there were only nine of us. We stood in the blazing sun, waiting for a minyan.
Suddenly, a 10th man appeared: Shalom Raichik — originally from Los Angeles, now living in Baltimore — was at the cemetery just at that moment and agreed to join us.
After I recited Kaddish for Ron, Shalom asked if we could gather at another nearby grave to say Kaddish again, along with a memorial prayer.
“Who is it?” I asked. Shalom’s answer sent a chill through all of us. It is a story I cannot put out of my mind — a story about reclaiming someone who had disappeared from history.
We often think of death as a single, final event. But Jewish tradition introduces a powerful idea: a person can die twice. The first death is physical. The second is when they are forgotten — when no one remembers their name, or visits their grave, or even knows they existed.
The man we said Kaddish for that day is marked as “Ploni ben Avraham” — the Jewish equivalent of John Doe. We don’t know his name.
His story is tragic yet extraordinary: He survived the Holocaust, came to America alone, had no money and no family, and lived quietly in New York in obscurity.
At some point, he sought the help of Dr. Maurice Frey, a dentist and fellow refugee who had escaped Europe during the war. Dr. Frey was known for caring for penniless Holocaust survivors and treated this man without charge.
The patient, wanting to keep his dignity, insisted on giving something in return and arranged to donate his body to medical science, requesting his skull be given to Dr. Frey for educational use.
Years later, long after the encounter had been forgotten, a small package arrived containing the man’s skull. Dr. Frey tried to transfer it to the NYU School of Dentistry, but when they declined to take it, he kept it.
After his death, Dr. Frey’s widow moved to California, bringing the skull with her. There, she sought its disposal according to Jewish law and was directed to Chabad, who helped arrange a proper burial in 2021. Though only a skull remained, they honored the survivor and fulfilled the obligation to respect even the smallest remnant of a Jewish life.
Still, something was missing: There was no name, no marker, and no memory. Visitors to the cemetery unknowingly walked over his grave. A man who had survived the worst horrors was, even in death, being trampled, not by malice but by ignorance.
Finally, a small group decided to act, and this past January, they placed a modest stone, simply acknowledging that Ploni ben Avraham had existed and was not forgotten. And a few weeks ago, someone finally said Kaddish for him at his grave.
At Ron Plotkin’s funeral, having just buried a man once surrounded by success and admirers, but who died nearly alone, and then walking over to the grave of Ploni ben Avraham, I was struck by how fragile life and legacy can be.
Ron had a name and achievements, and was once celebrated, but at the end, there were barely 10 people at his funeral. Ploni ben Avraham had no name or notable achievements, and no family to remember him — yet, by chance, both were remembered on the same day. Their second death was averted.
At the end of Sefer Vayikra, in Parshat Bechukotai, the Torah presents consequences for the Jewish people’s fidelity or disregard for their responsibilities. It seems like a strict formula of reward and punishment: Follow God’s laws and you’ll receive blessings; abandon them, and hardship will follow.
And yet, within this passage, there is a quieter message. After the warnings and descriptions of suffering, the Torah offers a redemptive promise (Lev. 26:42): “I will remember My covenant,” says God.
That is the turning point. Even if everything falls apart — even if the people are scattered and shattered — God says: I will remember, I will always remember.
God teaches us that memory is the foundation of meaning. In Jewish thought, remembering is not merely recalling; it is restoring. When God says, “I will remember,” it is an active commitment: No matter how far we fall, we are never erased.
That is why we say Kaddish — not for the dead, but because memory sustains identity. It ensures a person’s life continues to echo in this world. We mark graves, tell stories, and cling to names — because the greatest tragedy is being forgotten.
That is why we tell stories about the dead, and that is why we refuse to let people disappear after they’re gone. Because the ultimate curse is not suffering, or even death. It is oblivion. And the ultimate redemption is not just survival. It is being remembered.
When we remember someone, we return them to the narrative. We restore their place in the story of our people. Ploni ben Avraham had no land, no family, and no possessions. He didn’t even leave a name. But we still remember him, and that is his redemption.
That day in the cemetery, I was reminded that in the end, what matters is not how loudly a person’s life is celebrated at its peak, but whether it is remembered after they are gone. And sometimes, in the most unexpected ways, we are invited to be part of that remembering.
The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.
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The BBC Tried to Blame Israel — but Exposed Hezbollah Instead
Men carry Hezbollah flags while riding on two wheelers, at the entrance of Beirut’s southern suburbs, in Lebanon, Nov. 27, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani
It is well established that Hezbollah has not only turned southern Lebanon into a base for terrorism targeting Israel but also embedded itself deep within Beirut’s civilian suburbs.
Yet when the BBC reports from those same areas, it appears determined to obscure that reality.
That may not be surprising. As HonestReporting previously documented, Hezbollah tightly controls access and information available to foreign journalists. What reporters see — and therefore what international audiences are shown — is often filtered through Hezbollah’s interests.
When a Sky News crew reported from Lebanon earlier this year, journalists openly acknowledged the restrictions imposed on them. Hezbollah limited where they could go and what they could film following Israeli airstrikes, likely to conceal evidence of terrorist activity.
So, when BBC reporters arrive in Lebanon two months later and somehow fail to find evidence of Hezbollah’s presence, it is hardly coincidental.
The “BBC traces how 10 minutes of Israeli bombing brought devastation to Lebanon” investigation attempts to portray Israel as deliberately targeting Lebanese civilians. But the report itself repeatedly undermines that narrative.
1/
Even as @BBCNews wanders around Beirut attempting to prove that Israel deliberately targets civilians, it can’t avoid revealing some inconvenient truths.Let’s take a closer look at how the BBC can’t help covering for Hezbollah.
pic.twitter.com/WWs14Xwuwd
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 6, 2026
The very case study the BBC highlights gives the game away.
In Beirut’s Hay el Sellom suburb, a BBC journalist interviews Mohammed, whose son Abbas was killed in an Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in April 2026.
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We meet Mohammed, whose son was killed after Israel struck their apartment building.He tells the BBC he would never have stayed there had he known Hezbollah operatives were in the building… before showing his support for them when interviewed by local media. pic.twitter.com/Q6c8cDI09K
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 6, 2026
Mohammed claims that, had he known Hezbollah operatives were nearby, he would have left. But that admission directly undermines the BBC’s broader framing. It reinforces the reality that Israel’s operations are linked to Hezbollah’s presence, not random or indiscriminate attacks against civilians.
Another interviewee claims Israel is bombing Lebanon in an attempt to “take over” the country. Yet the report’s own details point to something else entirely: a campaign directed at Hezbollah infrastructure and operatives in an effort to restore security along Israel’s northern border.
According to the IDF, the April 8 strikes that reportedly killed Abbas also targeted more than 250 Hezbollah terrorists.
Ironically, while touring the suburb, the BBC journalist also filmed martyr posters of Ali Mohammed Ghulam Dahini, reportedly killed in the same strikes — corroborating Israeli media reports identifying him as a Hezbollah operative.
Yet the BBC still avoids acknowledging the obvious implication: these strikes were targeting Hezbollah personnel embedded within civilian areas.
Civilian deaths in war are tragic. But tragedy alone does not determine intent.
Under the laws of armed conflict, counterterrorism operations require assessing proportionality — weighing anticipated military advantage against potential civilian harm. In each example highlighted by the BBC, evidence of Hezbollah’s presence at the strike locations is difficult to ignore.
The report itself notes that Mohammed expressed support for Hezbollah in Arabic-language interviews, praising the group for “defending Lebanon.” But Lebanon would not require “defending” from repeated wars had Hezbollah not transformed civilian neighborhoods into military infrastructure.
The BBC acknowledges that Mohammed gave pro-Hezbollah views when speaking to local media. Yet Mohammed presents himself differently to international English-speaking audiences. That discrepancy raises an obvious question: why?
The answer may lie even closer to home.
Investigative journalist David Collier revealed that Mohammed’s son, Abbas Khair al-Din, was himself affiliated with Hezbollah, citing martyr posters and Hezbollah imagery at his grave.
Well I found him – and I found his son. This is his son’s grave – full of martyr images and clear Hezbollah affiliation.
These are Hezbollah’s people.
Did your journalist not bother to look at all? Why are you spreading terrorist propaganda? 3/5 pic.twitter.com/Kcm5bJjerF
— David Collier (@mishtal) May 6, 2026
Had the BBC acknowledged these Hezbollah ties, its central framing — that Israel was recklessly targeting civilians — would have become far more difficult to sustain.
This is not the first time the BBC has minimized or erased Hezbollah’s presence in Lebanon.
By omitting Hezbollah’s systematic use of civilian infrastructure, the outlet constructs a narrative in which responsibility falls almost exclusively on Israel while Hezbollah’s role fades into the background.
Most remarkably, despite the evidence presented throughout the report, the BBC still repeats Hezbollah’s denial that it embeds itself among civilians.
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The report also repeats Hezbollah’s denial that it embeds itself among civilians.Instead, the terror group claims Israel deliberately targets civilians to pressure them.
The problem? Mohammed’s own words undermine that narrative. pic.twitter.com/nWelmpCFjL
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 6, 2026
The contradiction is striking: the BBC’s own reporting repeatedly points to Hezbollah activity within civilian areas, yet the outlet still amplifies Hezbollah’s denials with minimal scrutiny.
Not all Lebanese civilians support Hezbollah. But the BBC’s inability — or unwillingness — to feature meaningful Lebanese criticism of the terrorist organization reveals how selective the report truly is.
Hezbollah has effectively held Lebanon hostage, exploiting civilians while dragging the country into repeated cycles of conflict.
There is genuine dissent within Lebanon. Many Lebanese are exhausted by Hezbollah’s dominance and want a future free from perpetual war. Yet those voices are almost entirely absent from the BBC’s report.
The BBC intended its report to portray Israel as conducting a campaign against Lebanese civilians.
Instead, it inadvertently documented something else entirely: Hezbollah’s deep entrenchment within civilian infrastructure.
The report repeatedly presents evidence of Hezbollah activity, Hezbollah support, and Hezbollah-linked individuals in the very locations Israel targeted — while simultaneously attempting to deny or downplay the implications.
When media outlets obscure Hezbollah’s use of civilian areas, they do more than distort the story. They sanitize the conditions Hezbollah itself created.
And in this case, the BBC’s own reporting ultimately undermines the narrative it set out to build.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.