“More and better,” the guiding principles under which Jeremy lives, are linked to his experience as a student at AHS, where he occasionally felt burdened by the extra work required in a double curriculum. In the end, though, he grew to appreciate his Jewish education and the diverse group of students who graduated with him.

Associated’s “educational grounding was really strong—in every aspect, not just the Jewish subjects,” said Jeremy in a recent phone interview. “Overall, it was an extremely good education” that left him well prepared for the next phase of his life. But as he developed his craft, being Jewish wasn’t something he felt he needed to incorporate into television and film projects.

“You want to make films that are very personal to you. We are a lot of things, we’re not just our faith; we are our gender, we are our age, we are our culture, we are our nationality. We are all kinds of things. And all those things sort of play into things you write.”

However, as the child of a Holocaust survivor, Jeremy was drawn both “artistically and emotionally” to author Anne Michaels’s novel Fugitive Pieces, the story of Jakob Beer, a boy who witnessed his parents’ murders in Nazi-occupied Poland. Rescued by a Greek archeologist and raised in Greece, then Canada, Jakob, now an adult, struggles to accept his family’s tragic fate. “This was an opportunity to deal with something I haven’t really dealt with before, and an opportunity to say something that hasn’t really been said. I found the right vehicle to deal with that aspect of who I am,” Jeremy says. He credits his parents and Associated for providing him with a foundation of “historical perspective and sensitivity” that he wouldn’t have received from a secular education.

Fugitive Pieces, the film, was released in Canada and the U.S. on May 2, 2008, to critical acclaim, including having been awardedthe prestigious opening spot at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

Driven to succeed, Jeremy’s future plans are to “keep working. Get better as a filmmaker, as a writer, director and producer, and make things that you’re proud of and feel good about putting into the world.” He is currently directing the Australian-based epic HBO mini-series “The Pacific” and working with executive producers Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.

While often away from Toronto for work, Jeremy still has ties to our community today, where his sister’s children are alumni of AHS. The entire Associated community wishes Jeremy Mazal Tov on his recent success, and Kol haKavod in his continued quest for more and better.