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How this Jewish refugee became Times Square’s queen of porn
(New York Jewish Week) — “She was the most un-grandma person that anyone could have,” says David Bourla at the beginning of a film about his one-of-a-kind grandmother, Chelly Wilson. “Except for the fact that she was Jewish, we celebrated Christmas in a porn theater. It doesn’t get any weirder than that.”
So begins Valerie Kontakos’ documentary, “Queen of the Deuce,” which tells the unlikely story of how a tough-as-nails Jewish lesbian narrowly escaped the Holocaust in Greece and became the successful owner of several pornographic movie theaters in New York City in the the 1970s. The documentary, which premieres in New York on Friday, Nov. 11, is one of several Jewish films playing the documentary film festival DOC NYC, which runs this year from Nov. 9 through Nov. 27.
Born in 1908, Wilson grew up in a religious Sephardic family in Thessaloniki — also known as Salonika in Judeo-Spanish — and was ambitious from a young age. “She had this fierce desire to achieve something,” said Kontakos. “When she was younger, she wanted to be a doctor. But of course that wasn’t an option for her at that point, and given her circumstances, given the fact that she was a Jewish Sephardic woman in Salonika. She came from a very conservative community.”
Relying on a mix of archival footage, interviews and animated sequences, “Queen of the Deuce” is a wide-ranging look at Wilson’s improbable life: her various business ventures, her marriages to men and romances with women, the pain of the loss of her family and more. Central to the film are Wilson’s now-grown grandchildren, who describe their unconventional Jewish grandmother as tough and eccentric, with the confident body language of a mob boss. (Wilson, who died in 1994, appears in the film through home videos.)
As a young woman, Wilson left Athens just before the outbreak of World War II, narrowly escaping the devastating destruction of Thessaloniki’s Jewish community. According to Yad Vashem, out of the approximate 56,000 Jews who lived in Thessaloniki before the war, some 54,000 were killed in the Holocaust.
Wilson got her start in New York selling hot dogs and soda. She sent some of her earnings to Greece to buy newsreel footage and turned the footage into a film called “Greece on the March” — an effort to raise money in the U.S. for the Greek war effort against the Germans. When she played the film at a New York movie theater she met a Jewish film projectionist named Rex Wilson. Although they lacked a common language, he became her second husband.
“He was nice,” Wilson says of Rex in her husky, accented voice. “He provided me with cigarettes.”
(Her first husband, whom she divorced after having two children, Paulette and Dino, was the product of an arranged marriage in Greece. Wilson compares his kisses to “torture” in the film. Later in her life, after Wilson and her second husband split up, her preference for women became an open secret.)
From there, Wilson fell into the movie theater business — first “regular” movies, and then, by the late 1960s, sensing opportunity, she became the owner of several adult movie theaters. Many of them were located on 42nd Street, nicknamed “the Deuce,” which was New York’s infamously gritty red light district at the time.
“It’s unusual not to be surprised by something that she did,” said Kontakos, who first met Wilson in the early 1970s when, as a teenager, she worked at the Wilsons’ Tivoli Theatre on 8th Avenue. “It showed Greek films on Sundays, which were PG, completely family material. The rest of the week they would show porn.”
“Times Square [in the ‘70s] was like the underworld,” added Kontakos, whose family is Greek though not Jewish. “You had drugs there, prostitution, and then you had porn. It was really quite extreme.”
The Adonis Theater marquee, as seen in “Queen of the Deuce.” (Courtesy of the Wilson family)
Wilson was, by all accounts, an exceptionally tough character — she rarely smiled, and usually had a cigarette or a cigar in hand. She frequently held court reclining on the sofa of her living room — her Times Square apartment was above the Eros, a gay porn theater that opened in 1962 — with bags of cash in the corner. Wilson also owned the Adonis, an all-male adult theater so legendary for cruising that it became the locale for a meta, well-known 1978 gay porno film “A Night at the Adonis.”
In family footage shown in the film, she puffs a cigarette and tells stories in imperfect, Greek-accented English of how she smuggled her children to New York from Palestine and Greece. “I had Dino stolen from Israel, you know?” she says, reclining on her couch in a red silk robe. The story that unfolds is an improbable one, involving secret boat rides, misbehaving children and a chance encounter with a sympathetic official in Athens.
Similar to the fate of Thessaloniki’s Jews, most of Wilson’s family died in the Holocaust. But her shrewdness had saved Paulette: Before she departed for the United States in 1939, Wilson left her daughter in the care of a non-Jewish Greek family — with the specific instructions not to turn her over to her Jewish relatives, even if they came looking for her (which, of course, they did).
Still, Wilson kept her difficult past mostly hidden from her children and grandchildren. And in the film’s interviews, her offspring express the pain of their lost family and histories. They remember that Wilson refused to seek out reparations for her murdered family, saying it was blood money.
For Kontakos, it was important to tell this Holocaust story well, noting that the history the persecution of Greek Jews isn’t as well known as other European Jews. “I do feel it’s still not really discussed as openly as it should be,” she said.
Though Wilson may not have been the warm, nurturing type, she had a fierce dedication to her family, and her children and grandchildren reminisce in the film about her creative spirit and zest for life. Kontakos hopes audiences walk away from the film with a sense of “the joy of life, regardless of the hardships,” she said.
“Queen of the Deuce” is screening in New York on Friday, Nov. 11 and Saturday, Nov. 12 as part of the DOC NYC film festival, and will be available for online streaming Nov. 12 through Nov. 27. For details, click here.
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The post How this Jewish refugee became Times Square’s queen of porn appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Holocaust Denial Is Best Predicted by Belief in Other Conspiracy Theories, New Research Shows
White supremacist Nick Fuentes with a crowd of supporters after speaking at the America First Political Action Conference 4 outside of Huntington Place in in Detroit, Michigan, on June 15, 2024, after he and his supporters were ejected from the Turning Point USA ”People’s Convention.” Photo: Dominic Gwinn/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
The best predictor of Holocaust denial is belief in other conspiracy theories, which is driven by low trust in institutions, according to newly published research.
The report, released by The Center for Heterodox Social Science and written by Canadian professor Eric Kaufman, is titled, “Recreational Racists and Performative Antisemites? A Profile of Right-Wing Audiences from Fuentes to Carlson.”
In the report, Kaufman explores the audiences of far-right podcasters, including Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, and Candace Owens. He also extensively goes through a recent Manhattan Institute report that included findings on antisemitism and other forms of hate.
“Fuentes and others are infotainers, with very little impact on public opinion,” the professor states. “First, Fuentes’ audience is no larger than Alex Jones. My new survey shows that just 2-3 percent of US adults and 7 percent of [US President Donald] Trump voters under 35 tune in regularly.”
And while Kaufman found in the data that the audiences of Carlson and Owens are larger, “There are few white nationalists among Fuentes or Tucker Carlson’s followers. Only 10-20 percent of Fuentes & Carlson’s regular viewers back zero immigration or say you have to be white to be a ‘true American.’”
In his article on the report for Compact Magazine, the researcher argued, “It’s time to press pause on the panic about antisemitic and racist influencers taking over young conservatism. We should worry more about how a collapse in trust is fueling nihilistic conspiracy theories.”
He goes on to explain that the audiences of many of these podcasters are not particularly ideologically or consistently hateful. For example, “Holocaust denial is linked to other conspiracy theories but not as clearly to attitudes toward Jews, with only 22 percent of Holocaust deniers saying that Jews are given too much support and favorable treatment in American society.”
Instead, “Their racism is superficial, transgressive, and performative,” and it is driven by a form of nihilism that expresses itself in conspiracy theories.”
“Researchers find that an important predictor of belief in conspiracy theories is low trust,” Kaufman writes. “After all, conspiratorial thinking is predicated on a lack of trust in powerful elites and institutions, notably mainstream media, and a suspicion that one’s fellow citizens have had the wool pulled down over their eyes.”
On that note, he notes in a summary of his findings on social media that “the strongest predictor of Holocaust denial is believing in other conspiracy theories (i.e. moon landings, 9/11 an inside job). This is even more predictive than identifying as an antisemite!”
12/ The strongest predictor of Holocaust denial is believing in other conspiracy theories (i.e. moon landings, 9/11 an inside job). This is even more predictive than identifying as an antisemite!
The strongest predictor of Jewish conspiracism is general conspiracism. pic.twitter.com/4ANbApk9sw
— Eric Kaufmann (@epkaufm) January 20, 2026
He continues, “Similar pattern for beliefs about ‘Israel’s supporters’ controlling the media. The more conspiratorial accounts (Jones, Fuentes, Tucker, Owens, Bannon) are twice as likely to believe this.”
“The strongest predictor of Jewish conspiracism is general conspiracism,” he writes.
The consequences of his findings, Kaufman explains, is that “the right-wing cultural ecosystem faces a dilemma. A degree of populist disruption, mistrust, and skepticism is necessary to reform established institutions and challenge the power of special interests, entryism, and ideological capture.”
However, “the challenge,” Kaufman argues, “is to permit all theories to be advanced in the public square, but have commentators dismantle those which are ungrounded in systematic evidence.”
He sees this as a dilemma that needs to be solved to prevent his concern over “the emergence of a floating ‘conspiracy vote,’ leaning young and nonwhite, which could shape the political and cultural direction of today’s unprecedentedly low-trust America.”
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UN Rights Body Censures Iran’s ‘Brutal Repression’ of Protests; Tehran Threatens US Investments in Region
Members of the UN Security Council meet on Iran at the request of the United States at UN headquarters in New York City, US, Jan. 15, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
The UN rights body condemned Iran on Friday for rights abuses and mandated an investigation into a recent crackdown on anti-government protests that killed thousands of people.
“I call on the Iranian authorities to reconsider, to pull back, and to end their brutal repression,” High Commissioner Volker Turk told an emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, voicing concerns for detainees.
The council passed a motion extending a previous inquiry set up in 2022 so UN investigators could also document the latest unrest “for potential future legal proceedings.”
Rights groups say bystanders were among those killed during the biggest crackdown since Shi’ite Muslim clerics took power in the 1979 revolution. Tehran has blamed “terrorists and rioters” backed by exiled opponents and foreign foes the US and Israel.
Iran‘s mission decried the rights council’s “politicized” resolution and rejected external interference, saying in a statement it had its own independent and robust accountability mechanisms to investigate “the root causes of recent events.”
Twenty-five states including France, Mexico, and South Korea voted in favor, while seven including China and India voted against and 14 abstained.
“This is the worst mass murder in the contemporary history of Iran,” Payam Akhavan, a former UN prosecutor of Iranian-Canadian nationality, told the meeting. He called for a “Nuremberg moment,” referring to the international criminal trials of Nazi leaders following World War II.
Iran‘s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, told the Council its emergency session was invalid and gave Tehran’s tally of some 3,000 people killed in the unrest.
One Iranian official, however, has told Reuters that at least 5,000 people, including 500 members of the security forces, had been killed.
The US-based HRANA rights group said it has so far verified 4,519 unrest-linked deaths and had 9,049 additional deaths under review.
China, Pakistan, Cuba, and Ethiopia also questioned the utility of the rights session, with Beijing’s ambassador Jia Guide calling the unrest in Iran “a matter of internal affairs.”
It was unclear who would cover the costs of the extended UN inquiry amid a funding crisis that has stalled other probes.
Meanwhile, an influential Iranian cleric warned on Friday that Iran may target US-linked investments in the region in retaliation for any US attack on the Islamic Republic, Iranian news agencies reported.
President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the United States had an “armada” heading toward Iran but hoped he would not have to use it, as he renewed warnings to Tehran against killing protesters or restarting its nuclear program.
“The one trillion dollars you have invested in the region is under the watch of our missiles,” said Mohammad Javad Haj Ali Akbari, a leader of prayers that are held on Fridays in Tehran before a large gathering. He did not specify which investments he was referring to.
Separately, Iran‘s top prosecutor Mohammad Movahedi denied that Iran had called off 800 executions of people arrested in recent nationwide protests, as Trump has said.
“This claim is completely false. No such number exists, nor has the judiciary made any such decision,” Movahedi was quoted as saying by the judiciary’s news agency Mizan.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Fox News last week “There is no plan for hanging at all” by Iran, when asked about the anti-government protests.
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US Threatens to Starve Iraq of Its Oil Dollars Over Iranian Influence, Sources Say
A general view shows al-Firdous Square in Baghdad, Iraq, July 27, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Ahmed Saad
Washington has threatened senior Iraqi politicians with sanctions targeting the Iraqi state – including potentially its critical oil revenues – should armed groups backed by Iran be included in the next government, four sources told Reuters.
The warning is the starkest example yet of US President Donald Trump’s campaign to curb Iran-linked groups’ influence in Iraq, which has long walked a tightrope between its two closest allies, Washington and Tehran.
The US warning was delivered repeatedly over the past two months by the US Charge d’Affaires in Baghdad, Joshua Harris, in conversations with Iraqi officials and influential Shi’ite leaders, according to three Iraqi officials and one source familiar with the matter who spoke to Reuters for this story. The message was delivered to some heads of Iran-linked groups via intermediaries, they said.
Harris and the embassy did not respond to requests for comment. The sources requested anonymity to discuss private discussions.
Since taking office a year ago, Trump has acted to weaken the Iranian government, including via its neighbor Iraq.
Iran views Iraq as vital for keeping its economy afloat amidst sanctions and long used Baghdad’s banking system to skirt the restrictions, US and Iraqi officials have said. Successive US administrations have sought to choke that dollar stream, placing sanctions on more than a dozen Iraqi banks in recent years in an effort to do so.
But Washington has never curtailed the flow of dollars from the oil revenues of Iraq, a top OPEC producer, sent via the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to the Central Bank of Iraq. The US has had de facto control over Iraq’s oil revenue since it invaded the country in 2003.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s office, the Central Bank of Iraq, and Iran‘s mission at the United Nations did not respond to requests for comment.
“The United States supports Iraqi sovereignty, and the sovereignty of every country in the region. That leaves absolutely no role for Iran-backed militias that pursue malign interests, cause sectarian division, and spread terrorism across the region,” a US State Department spokesperson told Reuters, in response to a request for comment.
The spokesperson did not answer Reuters questions about the sanction threats.
Trump, who bombed Iran‘s nuclear facilities in June, threatened to again intervene militarily in the country during protests last week.
NO ARMED GROUPS IN NEW GOVERNMENT
Among the senior politicians to whom Harris’ message was passed were Prime Minister Sudani, Shi’ite politicians Ammar Hakim and Hadi Al Ameri, and Kurdish leader Masrour Barzani, three of the sources said.
The conversations with Harris started after Iraq held elections in November in which Sudani’s political bloc won the single-largest bloc of seats but in which Iran-backed militias also made gains, the sources said.
The message centered on 58 members of parliament views by the US views as linked to Iran, all the sources said.
“The American line was basically that they would suspend engagement with the new government should any of those 58 MPs be represented in cabinet,” one of the Iraqi officials said. The formation of a new cabinet could still be months away due to wrangling to build a majority.
When asked to elaborate “they said it meant they wouldn’t deal with that government and would suspend dollar transfers,” the official said.
The US has had de facto control over oil revenue dollars from Iraq, a top OPEC producer, since it invaded the country in 2003.
Iran has long supported an array of armed factions in Iraq. In recent years, several have entered the political arena, standing for election and winning seats as they seek a slice of Iraq’s oil wealth.
Renad Mansour, director of the Iraq Initiative at London’s Chatham House think tank, said armed groups were increasingly benefiting from positions in Iraq’s massive bureaucracy and so took the threat of cutting dollar flows seriously.
“The US has significant leverage,” he said. “The threat of the loss of access to US dollars, which is how Iraq’s economy functions through the sale of oil, has made it very concerning.”
WASHINGTON OPPOSES FIRST DEPUTY SPEAKER
One of the people Washington objects to is Adnan Faihan, a member of the powerful, Iran-backed political and armed group Asaib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), who was elected first deputy speaker of parliament in late December, the Iraqi official and the source with knowledge of the matter said.
They said the US opposed Faihan’s appointment to the post.
In a sign the pressure campaign was working, AAH leader Qais al-Khazali communicated a willingness to the Americans to remove Faihan as deputy speaker, the Iraqi official said. Faihan currently remains in his position.
The AAH media office and Faihan did not immediately respond to a request for comment and neither did Faihan.
In the last government, AAH held the education ministry, and Iraqi officials say it is seeking to participate in the next government too.
AAH was a key group in a sophisticated oil smuggling network generating at least a $1 billion a year for Iran and its proxies in Iraq, sources previously told Reuters.
Khazali was sanctioned by Washington in 2019 for AAH’s alleged role in serious human rights abuses, related to the killing of protesters in Iraq that year and other violence, including a 2007 attack that killed five US soldiers. At the time, he dismissed the sanctions as unserious.
DOLLAR CONTROL
Iraq holds the bulk of proceeds from its oil export sales at a Central Bank of Iraq account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Though it is a sovereign account of the Iraqi state, the arrangement gives the US practical control over a critical choke point of Iraqi state revenues, making Baghdad reliant on Washington’s goodwill.
“US efforts to achieve stability in the region are focused on ensuring states retain their sovereignty and can achieve security through mutual economic prosperity,” the State Department spokesperson said in their reply to Reuters questions.
The move to pressure Baghdad with a possible suspension of dollars takes place as the US begins marketing Venezuelan oil, which followed the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in Caracas by US forces and his transfer to New York to be put on trial in relation to drug charges.
The US Department of Energy has said all proceeds from Venezuelan oil sales would be initially settled in US-controlled accounts at globally recognized banks.