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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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Remains of final hostage Ran Gvili on way back to Israel after being located in Gaza
(JTA) — The remains of the final Israeli hostage in Gaza, Ran Gvili, have been retrieved and are on their way back to Israel for burial.
The announcement by the Israeli military marks a significant milestone for the Israeli public, which transformed into a communal vigil for the hostages taken when Hamas attacked on Oct. 7, 2023. It also removes an obstacle to the second phase of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer, was killed defending Kibbutz Alumim on Oct. 7. His remains were recovered from a cemetery in Gaza City during a major military operation, the IDF said. Hundreds of bodies were reportedly exhumed during the search and are being reburied.
“The return of Ran z”l for burial is a painful moment of closing the circle—with the return of the last hostage from the Gaza Strip territory to the soil of Israel,” said Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz in a post on X. “This is a moment that underscores the State of Israel’s commitment to its fighters and citizens: to bring every single one home—as we promised the families and the public in Israel. This is mutual responsibility.”
Four of the hostages released under the ceasefire deal had been held since before Oct. 7, meaning that Gvili’s return marks the first time since 2014 that there will be no Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced that the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire had commenced despite opposition from Gvili’s family who said his body should be returned first.
Since then, the Trump administration has announced the formation of an international “Board of Peace” to oversee the ceasefire and presented plans for the reconstruction of Gaza. On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced that it would reopen the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt after the search for Gvili’s remains was completed.
Gvili’s mother, Talik, said the news of his return is “a relief, after these two and a half years, even though we hoped for a different ending,” according to the Times of Israel.
The discovery of Gvili’s remains was also celebrated by Israeli soldiers at the cemetery where he was found. Video of the soldiers posted on X showed many embracing and singing “Ani Ma’amin,” a Hebrew song meaning “I Believe.”
Some Jews and Jewish institutions removed their hostage necklaces and dismantled their displays in support of the hostages after all of the remaining living hostages were released in October. Others posted social media videos of themselves doing so on Monday following the news of Gvili’s return.
Speaking to the media in the Knesset on Monday, Netanyahu said, “We promised, and I promised, to bring everyone back, and we brought everyone back,” adding, “Rani is a hero of Israel. He went in first, he came out last. He came back.”
The post Remains of final hostage Ran Gvili on way back to Israel after being located in Gaza appeared first on The Forward.
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Columbia selects Jennifer Mnookin, Jewish U of Wisconsin chancellor, as its next leader
(JTA) — Three different women have taken turns as Columbia University’s president amid ongoing turmoil surrounding the handling of pro-Palestinian protests on the New York City campus. Now, Columbia has invited a fourth — and the first to be Jewish — to try her hand at running the Ivy League school.
Jennifer Mnookin, the chancellor of University of Wisconsin, has been chosen as Columbia’s next president, the co-chairs of the school’s board of trustees announced on Sunday. She will be the school’s first Jewish leader since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, triggering a war in Gaza and a student protest movement in the United States of which Columbia was an epicenter.
Mnookin, a legal scholar, served as dean of the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law before moving to Wisconsin in 2022. At least two other candidates reportedly declined the Columbia position prior to her selection.
She takes the helm at a delicate time for Columbia as it continues to reel from the fallout of the student protests, which has included included penalties from the Trump administration, rapid leadership changes and ongoing fear and anxiety among many Jewish students.
“I am honored and thrilled to join Columbia University at this important moment,” Mnookin said in a statement released by the university. “Columbia is defined by rigorous scholarship, a deep commitment to open inquiry, world-class patient care, and an inseparable and enduring connection to New York City, the greatest city in the world.”
She follows three other women who struggled amid the turmoil. The president in charge on Oct. 7, Nemat Minouche Shafik, cited the “period of turmoil” that followed when she resigned in 2024; she had faced criticism from members of Congress as well as the Columbia community over her handling of the student encampment that formed this year.
Her temporary replacement, Katrina Armstrong, stepped down in March 2025 as the school faced pressure from the Trump administration over antisemitism allegations. Armstong’s successor, the current interim president, Claire Shipman, struck a $221 million deal with Trump to settle the claims; she also apologized soon after taking office for having suggested the removal of a Jewish member of the school’s board of trustees.
Now, Mnookin will be responsible for managing Columbia’s relationship with federal authorities, weighing and implementing the recommendations of its antisemitism task force and healing a divided campus, which has been closed to outsiders now for years.
“The last few years have been undeniably difficult for the Jewish and Israeli communities on campus. While challenges remain, there is a vibrant, joyful, proud Jewish community at Columbia,” Brian Cohen, executive director of Columbia/Barnard Hillel, said in a statement. “I am hopeful that President-elect Mnookin will bring the reputation, experience, and understanding that we need to build on that strong foundation.”
It will be Mnookin’s first time working at a private university. At Wisconsin, first sent law enforcement to shut down a student encampment, then negotiated with protesters after they established a second one. The deal required Students for Justice in Palestine to comply with university rules related to protest in exchange for the right to present their divestment demands to “decision makers,” who did not accede to them.
She also denounced neo-Nazi protesters who marched on the Wisconsin campus in November 2023, calling them “utterly repugnant.” Through it all, she gained a reputation for promoting open inquiry and academic freedom — even as Wisconsin, like dozens of other universities, faced a federal investigation over antisemitism allegations.
“I think universities should be spaces where ideas, and different ideas, embodied by people from different backgrounds, come together, and where it won’t always be comfortable, but where we will learn and do better from that engagement,” she said in a roundtable of college presidents published in The New York Times in November. (The other presidents were also Jewish: Sian Bellock of Dartmouth College and Michael Roth of Wesleyan University, who has emerged as a rare leader in higher education who is willing to spar with the Trump administration.)
Mnookin was raised in a Reform Jewish family in the Bay Area that escalated its Jewish engagement when she asked to celebrate her bat mitzvah, according to her father Robert. A scholar of conflict negotiation, he described the evolution in his 2015 book “The Jewish American Paradox: Embracing Choice in a Changing World,” which he said he wrote in part to explore his own late-onset attachment to Judaism.
The post Columbia selects Jennifer Mnookin, Jewish U of Wisconsin chancellor, as its next leader appeared first on The Forward.
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Tim Walz invokes Anne Frank in pressing Trump to end ICE operations in Minnesota
(JTA) — Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, invoked Anne Frank in exhorting President Donald Trump to call off the ICE operations in the Twin Cities in which a second protester was killed over the weekend.
Speaking at a press conference on Sunday, Walz — whose master’s degree focused on Holocaust education — suggested that the conditions facing children in his state during the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement raids were of a kind with those facing Frank during the Holocaust.
“We have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside. Many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank,” he said. “Somebody is going to write that children’s story about Minnesota.”
The prominent mention of Frank, who died of disease in a Nazi concentration camp after her family’s hiding place was betrayed, adds to a growing discourse about whether ICE’s operations targeting immigrants in Minnesota can be compared to the Nazis’ tactics in rooting out Jews during the Holocaust. Figures such as Stephen King and Bruce Springsteen have likened ICE to the Gestapo.
Until recently, Nazi comparisons were long considered inappropriate by many in the Jewish world who argued that such analogies cheapen the memory of the particular genocide against the Jews. In the last decade, that norm has to some degree fallen away, with voices on both the right and left likening their opponents to Nazis.
On Sunday, some of Walz’s critics denounced his comments and said an immigration crackdown cannot be compared to the deliberate murder of Jews. Retweeting an account called Stop Wokeness, the activist Shabbos Kestenbaum tweeted, “One million Jewish children were killed during the Holocaust. Illegal immigrants are offered thousands of dollars to take a free flight home. Tim Walz is an evil retard.”
In a post on X responding to Walz’s analogy, Stephen Miller, a top aide to Trump, wrote, “The purpose of the rhetoric is to incite attacks on ICE.”
But others said the comparison was apt, with a quotation from Frank’s diary circulating widely online as it did in 2019 in response to ICE raids then. The quotation, those sharing it suggested, offered a close parallel to what has been playing out in Minnesota.
“Terrible things are happening outside,” the passage says. “Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared. … Everyone is scared.”
Jewish voices, too, have invoked the Holocaust in arguing for intervention in Minnesota, where federal agents on Saturday shot and killed a man, Alex Pretti, who had been protesting their presence.
“What did we learn from the Holocaust? We have to act and we have to resist,” one rabbi who flew into Minnesota to protest told the Religion News Service last week.
Walz, a Democrat who was the vice presidential candidate in 2024, wrote a master’s thesis on Holocaust education, arguing that the Holocaust should be taught “in the greater context of human rights abuses,” rather than as a unique historical anomaly or as part of a larger unit on World War II.
“Schools are teaching about the Jewish Holocaust, but the way it is traditionally being taught is not leading to increased knowledge of the causes of genocide in all parts of the world,” he wrote in his 2001 thesis, completed while he was a high school teacher.
The post Tim Walz invokes Anne Frank in pressing Trump to end ICE operations in Minnesota appeared first on The Forward.