On June 14, a day after Israel launched a preemptive attack on Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defined Israel’s twin goals as eliminating Iran’s nuclear program and depleting its stock of ballistic missiles. Israel’s preoccupation with eradicating Iran’s maze of nuclear facilities requires no elaboration. The issue has virtually obsessed Netanyahu for years now and […]
Israel, having launched Operation Rising Lion, its long-anticipated preemptive attack on Iran, has opened a stunning new chapter in its bruising confrontation with its deadliest enemy. The regional Mideast war that the United States tried to head off after Hamas’ attack against Israel in 2023 may have begun. Starting around 3 a.m. on June 13, […]
Benjamin Netanyahu has taken the famous Arab proverb, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” to its outer limits. The Israeli prime minister recently acknowledged that Israel has been working with Palestinian clans in the Gaza Strip antagonistic to Hamas as part of its efforts to defeat it. In disclosing that Israel has “activated” […]
It was a slick publicity stunt from start to finish. The week-long voyage of the Madleen ended abruptly and abjectly in the early hours of June 9 when Israeli soldiers boarded the vessel and towed it to the port of Ashdod. The Madleen, a yacht with ten activists and two journalists aboard, set sail from […]
Montreal comedians Eli Batalion and Jamie Elman are like fish out of water in Sweden. The zany performers, who specialize in Yiddish-inflected humor, landed in Stockholm last May with little or no knowledge about Sweden. They were laser-focused on learning about a small Scandinavian Jewish community that keeps a very low profile. Their explorations unfold […]
Harry Rasky describes Nobody Swings On Sunday as a “memory” movie. Rasky’s bitter-sweet documentary, to be screened at the ongoing Toronto Jewish Film Festival, is an assemblage of his boyhood memories of Toronto in the 1930s and 1940s. Released in 2003, it is based on his eponymous memoir, which was published in 1980. Rasky (1928-2007), […]
It’s the “last remnant” of old Toronto, according to former Toronto mayor John Sewell. Kensington Market, a throwback to the 1920s and 1930s, is a vibrant reminder of what parts of Canada’s largest city looked like about a century ago. Exuding color, character and charm, and located within a small area bounded by College, Spadina, […]
For Menajem Aguirre and his wife, Isska Dvash, immigration to Israel would be a dream come true. The young couple from Cali, Colombia, think of little else after having bought airplane tickets to Israel for themselves and their two young daughters, Jaia and Ruth. They are members of Beit Israel, a small community of Christians […]
German troops marched into the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia on July 20, 1941, less than a month after Germany invaded the Soviet Union. In short order, its 30,000 Jewish residents, comprising about one-third of the population, were singled out for persecution and mass murder in line with Nazi Germany’s genocidal policy. Waleriy Shalyga’s spare and […]
Alex Osmolovsky’s documentary, The Community, profiles a Jewish community under siege. Ukraine has been at war since the Russian invasion in 2022, and Ukrainian Jews have been caught up in the violence. His movie will be presented at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, which runs from June 5-15. He presents a rosy picture of a […]