Categories
Commentary

JD Vance Creates Unease In The American Jewish Community

Controversial comments by U.S. Vice President JD Vance have set off ripples of unease in the American Jewish community. Vance, a friend of Tucker Carlson — a conservative podcaster  who has been accused of dabbling in antisemitism — has conveyed the impression that he tolerates antisemites in the isolationist “Make America Great Again” wing of […]

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Books

Bernie For Burlington

At the ripe old age of 84, the political war horse Bernie Sanders is still going strong. The longest serving independent in U.S. congressional history, he has been fixture in American politics since the early 1980s. He was mayor of Burlington, the biggest city in the state of Vermont, from 1981 to 1989. He was […]

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Commentary

West Bank Settler Violence Is On The Upswing

Jewish settler violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is on the upswing, and Israel is doing virtually nothing to stop it. The attacks have occurred on almost a daily basis, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing nationalist government has taken scarcely any steps to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators. The Institute for National […]

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Television

Black And Jewish America: An Interwoven History

African and Jewish Americans have been bound together in a deeply intertwined relationship despite their historical, religious and cultural differences and divergent priorities. Since the formation of the American republic more than two centuries ago, they have been mocked and feared as they have tried to tear down the walls of hatred and prejudice, says […]

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Film

The Odessa File

Frederik Forsyth’s novel, The Odessa File, was an amalgam of fact and fiction. So is Ronald Neame’s eponymous feature film, which was adapted from Forsyth’s best-seller and released in 1974. A hard-hitting thriller, it is driven by several interlocking themes: Israel’s quest for survival. The Holocaust. The attempt by diehard Nazis to evade justice. The […]

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Film

The Partisan With The Leica Camera

Mundek Lukawiecki’s son, Simon, knew nothing about his father’s past until he was an adult. A survivor of the Holocaust in Poland, Lukawiecki did not talk about that horrendous period and acted as if the mass murder of Polish Jews had never even occurred. In 1993, Lukawiecki switched course, telling his story to Yad Vashem, […]

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Middle East

A Weight Is Lifted From Israel’s Shoulders

This was the moment Israel had been waiting for with profound anticipation. On January 26, the Israeli army announced that the remains of Ran Gvili, the last hostage in the Gaza Strip, had been found. With this momentous announcement, Israelis unburdened themselves of a trauma that had weighed on them for the past two years. […]

Categories
Television

Elie Wiesel: Soul On Fire

Elie Wiesel, the late Jewish novelist and human rights activist, was deeply affected by the Holocaust. He was personally traumatized by it and drew on its horrors as a writer. Oren Rudavsky’s documentary, Elie Wiesel: Soul On Fire, which is scheduled to be broadcast by the PBS network on Tuesday, January 27 at 9 p.m. […]

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Middle East

A State Commission Should Investigate The October 7 Failures

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is unyielding in his refusal to create a state commission of inquiry to investigate Hamas’ one-day invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023, the worst military and intelligence failure in Israel’s history. Claiming the lives of roughly 1,200 people and resulting in the abduction of 251 Israelis and foreign nationals, […]

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Books

Between Hitler And Churchill

Certain Polish nationalists were prepared to reach an accommodation with Nazi Germany, despite its record of atrocities in Poland. As might be recalled, six million Polish citizens, including three million Jews, perished during the six-year German occupation. The Israeli historian Yaacov Falkov meticulously documents the sporadic negotiations between the Polish government-in-exile in Britain and Germany […]