From NetFlix:

‘No Jews, dogs or coloreds,’ reads the sign outside a public
swimming pool in 1954 Baltimore. High school freshman Ben Kurtzman
(Ben Foster) and friends find themselves confronted with
anti-Semitism, racism and coming of age in a fast-changing world.
Writer-director and Baltimore memorialist Barry Levinson takes
viewers on a sentimental journey, complete with loving period
details and wry humor.

For those of you fortunate enough to not have grown up in Baltimore, Liberty Heights was
at that time a Jewish section of Baltimore. This movie takes place in 1954 when I was
a freshman at Mount Saint Joseph high school in Baltimore. The movie portrays a Baltimore
life of which I was completely unaware. I had many Jewish friends because I attended
also the Peabody Music School in Baltimore. I had NO black friends. I never really
experienced anti-Semitism. But among my family and friends there was much anti-black
prejudice. Fortunately, my mother’s influence was strong enough to combat the prejudice.

I can only hope the movie is an accurate portrayal. Was it realistic to have a white Jew
befriend a middle-class black girl in his forcibly desegregated high school behind her
disapproving father’s back and go with her to a black live theater to see a rock and
roll star while the audience was mixed black and white, all dressed well in shirts, ties, etc ?

That boy’s father supposedly ran the famous Gayety burlesque theatre. Even I had
heard of the Gayety. Baltimore has since cleaned up its act much in the way that
Boston has.

True or not, I loved the movie. It is warm and human enough to call it a “feel-good”. But
the sexual language and some few incidents might put the movie out of bounds for
children.

To me it was worth the trip back in time.