Rafael Medoff : Chicago filmmaker focusing on U.S. diplomat who warned of Holocaust.

By Rafael Medoff (09/14/2012)

Israeli-American filmmaker Shuli Eshel has produced and directed critically acclaimed documentaries about topics ranging from Jewish women in sports to grassroots Arab-Jewish peacemaking efforts. Now the Chicago-based Eshel is turning her attention to one of the last untold stories of the Holocaust: the little-known one-man campaign by U.S. diplomat James G. McDonald to expose Hitler’s genocidal plans and rescue Jews from the clutches of the Nazis. McDonald recorded his insights in a diary that was recently discovered and published by Indiana University Press, in association with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. Continue reading Rafael Medoff: Chicago filmmaker focusing on U.S. diplomat who warned of Holocaust →

Jewish women and sports: Chicago filmmaker’s inspiring new documentary

By Joseph Aaron (09/07/2007)

It’s an old joke based on an old stereotype. What’s the shortest book ever written? “Jews and Sports.”

Jews, so the cliche goes, are the people of the book, not the basketball court or Olympic track. And that’s especially true of Jewish women, who, as the stereotype would have it, says Chicago filmmaker Shuli Eshel, “are all Jewish mothers who care only about raising their children to be lawyers and doctors, and for whom sports is the last thing on their minds.” Continue reading Joseph Aaron: Jewish women and sports: Chicago filmmaker’s inspiring new documentary →