Good journalists are endlessly curious and should be endlessly enthusiastic. My features run the gamut from politics to travel writing. They all have one thing in common – to transmit that enthusiasm to the reader.
Righteous Gentiles for the JN July 2018 On March 29, 1946, her 16th birthday, Lily Pohlmann arrived in Britain on the first of three rescue transports, organised by the indomitable Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld, under the auspices of the Chief Rabbi. On Thursday, Lily and members of her family joined nearly 100 people at Hoop Lane […]
Barak for JN May 29 2018 by Jenni Frazer Ehud Barak’s memoir has a what-it-says-on-the-tin title: “My Country, My Life, Fighting for Israel, Searching for Peace”. Israel’s 10th prime minister, from 1999 to 2001, is still, at 76, the joint most highly decorated soldier in Israel’s history, and it is clear that the one-time kibbutznik […]
For the Times of Israel posted May 29 2018 Without doubt, few men can declare, with a straight face, “Marilyn Monroe was my babysitter”. And yet this is the unique boast of Joshua Greene, an American photographer and digital film restorer, who has achieved the seemingly impossible by restoring the thousands of pictures of the […]
For the Jewish Chonicle, published April 27 2018 Leonard Crystall’s face, still rounded with teenage puppy fat, stares solemnly from the cover of Michael Greisman’s remarkable new book, Jews in Uniform, his sailor hat at a jaunty angle, giving no hint of the tragedy which was to befall him. Crystall, who died aged just 18, […]
Macedonia for JC by Jenni Frazer March 2018 Ninety-eight per cent of the Jews of Macedonia were murdered in Treblinka during the Holocaust. Yet, 75 years after their deportation, an extraordinary museum has opened in Skopje, Macedonia, a joint project of the tiny Jewish present-day community and the Macedonian government. The Holocaust Memorial Centre, designed […]
McMafia Ep 8 for JC from Jenni Frazer February 9 2018 It is perhaps worth reminding ourselves, as McMafia disappears into the collective hive memory, how we started out just two months ago: a Russian Jewish family living in London, with a criminal past back in Moscow, and an apparently squeaky clean heir who was […]
McMafia Episode 7 by Jenni Frazer I am beginning to feel, after seven episodes of McMafia, that even I could manage a little Russian vocab — and thus can be forgiven for laughing when James Norton’s Alex earnestly tells a member of a Mexican cartel that his unique selling point in this Game of Thugs […]
McMafia Episode Six January 2018 by Jenni Frazer Evil Vadim’s parting shot to Alex last week, “Give my regards to your family” began to come creepily true in this week’s Episode Six of McMafia, as EV pondered the many ways in which he could make Alex suffer for scuppering his plans for international world domination […]
McMafia Episode 5 for the JC from Jenni Frazer Departing from its usual format, this week’s entertaining McMafia confined its locations to London and Israel — both Tel Aviv and Eilat. And heavens, Alex Godman was actually a functioning person, rather than a cardboard cut-out as in previous episodes. So what did we learn? We […]
McMafia Episode 4 for JC by Jenni Frazer We are halfway through the BBC’s gripping thriller, McMafia, but I regret to report that the Russian Family Godman has got no better at being Jewish than in previous episodes. Sadly, they don’t appear to know the difference between the toast “l’chaim” and wishing someone “long life”, […]