Shabtai Shavit worked for the Mossad, Israel’s vaunted external intelligence agency, for 32 years. From 1973 to 1976, he was head of operations. And in the homestretch of his career, from 1989 to 1996, he was its director. Appointed to his post by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, he was the first director of the Mossad […]
Itay Tal’s gripping Hebrew-language movie, God of the Piano, which is now available on DVD and digital outlets like iTunes and Amazon, fleshes out themes such as ambition, disappointment, deception and obsession. His central character, a pregnant pianist named Anat (Naama Preis), embodies these qualities. Sitting at home in front of her piano, she pours out […]
David Osit’s absorbing 89-minute documentary, Mayor, is a nuanced portrait of Musa Hadid, the Christian Palestinian mayor of Ramallah — the seat of the Palestinian Authority and the epicenter of commerce and culture in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six Day War. Osit, whose film is currently available […]
No one seriously expected the hopelessly divided Senate to impeach disgraced former U.S. president Donald Trump. The calculus favored Trump from the very outset. Impeachment would have required two-thirds of the 100 senators to charge him with “incitement of insurrection” for his undeniable role in encouraging a mob to storm Capitol Hill on January 6 to […]
Tradition bumps up against modernity in Isaac Cherem’s empathetic drama, Leona, which is playing virtually in movie theatres across the United States. Cherem’s film unfolds in contemporary Mexico City against the backdrop of a love affair between two young people, Ariela (Naian Gonzalez Norvind) and Ivan (Christian Vasquez), who seem made for each other. They’re […]
The pro-German Vichy government in France enacted antisemitic legislation with the full knowledge and support of the Catholic church, says a Canadian scholar who’s currently writing a book about that charged topic. Aliza Luft, an assistant professor at the University of California’s campus in Los Angeles, made this claim at a zoom lecture recently sponsored […]
Much to its discredit, the current Polish government is trying to muzzle scholarship on the Holocaust to suit its partisan nationalist objectives. Case in point: At the conclusion of a libel trial in Warsaw on February 9, a district court handed down a ruling ordering two Polish scholars to issue a public apology regarding the role […]
Two old friends and lovers, Sam and Tusker, are on a road trip in Britain’s scenic and idyllic Lake District. They’re on perhaps the last holiday they’ll ever spend together. Sam (Colin Firth) and Tusker (Stanley Tucci) are the central characters in Harry Macqueen’s poignant movie, Supernova, which opens on VOD platforms on February 16. […]
As expected, the Palestinian Authority expressed satisfaction with the International Criminal Court’s decision on February 5 to consider an investigation of allegations concerning war crimes by Israel in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Muhammad Shtayyeh, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, praised its ruling as a victory for justice. Israel, of course, […]
Until his assassination last January, Qassem Soleimani was one of Israel’s deadliest adversaries. As commander of the Quds Force, the external operations arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, he coordinated attacks against Israel from Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. Arash Azizi, an Iranian journalist and historian, describes him as “a larger than life” […]