The philosopher Martin Buber (1878-1965) never deviated from his belief that dialogue is an essential component of human existence. A cosmopolitan bridge builder, he devoted his life to two interrelated goals — reconciliation between people and universal peace. It is hardly coincidental that he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize seven times. Buber’s quest forms […]
Known as the Angel of Death, he was the personification of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime and the embodiment of the Holocaust. Josef Mengele, a minor yet haunting figure in Nazi culture, was a German physician who cold-bloodedly determined the fate of new Jewish arrivals at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in Poland and who conducted cruel […]
It was a milestone in the annals of Israel’s bilateral relations with the Arab world. On December 13, Naftali Bennett became the first Israeli prime minister to visit the United Arab Emirates. It is one of four Arab countries that agreed to normalize relations with Israel under the diplomatic umbrella of the 2020 Abraham accords, […]
Sean Baker’s bittersweet movie, Red Rocket, provides viewers with an unimpeded glimpse of flyover territory in the United States. It unfolds in Texas City, a somnolent, flyblown town in Texas hemmed in by highways and a railway track and dominated by the belching smokestacks of chemical refineries humming day and night ceaselessly. It’s an alienating […]
Donald Trump has bared his soul in a series of remarkably candid interviews with the Israeli journalist Barak Ravid. Sounding a lot like a spurned lover, the ex-U.S. president blasted Benjamin Netanyahu, the former Israeli prime minister, with whom he forged a close political relationship. Still smarting from his resounding defeat at the hands of […]
Ten thousand refugees from Germany and Austria settled in the greater Los Angeles area between 1933 and 1941. A significant proportion of the newcomers were Jewish writers, composers, artists, actors and film and theater directors. Among them were Salomea Sara Steuermann, an actress, and her husband, Berthold Viertel, a screenwriter. They were Nazi Germany’s gift […]
Klezmer, a Polish film set in Nazi-occupied Poland, exposes viewers to a harsh Darwinian world where life is nasty and brutish. Streamed by Chaiflicks, an online provider of Jewish-themed and Israeli films, Piotr Chrzan’s dark and pessimistic movie unfolds in a forest near Bialystok in the summer of 1942 or 1943. Polish Jews who have escaped […]
Philippe Sands befriended Horst Wachter by chance, but their improbable relationship would be illuminating for both men. Sands, a professor of international law at University College London, met Wachter, the son of Nazi war criminal Otto Wachter, through Niklas Frank, whose father, Hans Frank, had been the governor-general of German-occupied Poland. Otto Wachter, one of […]
Israel and its chief ally, the United States, are squabbling over a variety of contentious issues. Their strategic relationship is being buffeted by disagreements concerning the Iran nuclear agreement, the expansion of Israel’s settlements in the West Bank, the planned construction of Israeli neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and Israel’s decision to brand several Palestinian civic […]
The Senate in Romania passed a law recently requiring high schools and vocational schools to teach a course on the Holocaust and the Jewish people. Due to be introduced in 2023, its contents will be fleshed out by the Ministry of Education in consultation with the Elie Wiesel Institute for the Study of the Holocaust […]