The Holocaust exacted a terrible toll in Greece. Seven out of ten Greek Jews were murdered by the Nazis. But on the scenic Ionian Sea island of Zakynthos, something very different happened. All 275 of its Jewish residents survived thanks to the humanity and courage of a bishop and a mayor and the assistance and […]
She beat the odds. Bess Myerson (1924-2014) was the first and still only Jewish woman to be crowned Miss America. She won that glittering prize in 1945, crashing through the glass ceiling of persistent and widespread antisemitism in the United States. “She was the most important pretty girl since Queen Esther,” quips the narrator in […]
A court in Athens rendered a judicious verdict on October 7 by condemning the Greek neo-fascist political party Golden Dawn as a criminal organization. Its decision was hardly surprising, since there was never any doubt that Golden Dawn was beyond the pale of decency and respectability. It took three judges five years to reach that […]
The late Polish-Jewish mathematician Stanislaw Ulam was one of the key figures in the development of the atomic bomb, which was created by a cadre of mainly European-born scientists during World War II. Ulam worked on the Manhattan Project with a brilliant group of physicists, mathematicians and engineers at the Los Alamos laboratory in New […]
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered a major policy speech on October 1 that confirmed yet again that Turkey under his administration is pursuing a neo-Ottoman foreign policy that blends Islamic consciousness with Turkish nationalism. Harkening back to the era when the Ottoman Empire was a global hegemon and Palestine was one of its far-flung […]
President Emmanuel Macron intends to introduce a bill in December to defend France’s secular values against radical Islam and sectarianism. It’s a long overdue and welcome piece of legislation. It should have been tabled years ago. Macron announced the details on October 2 as an important trial took place in Paris that reminded Parisians why […]
On October 1, shortly after Israel descended into its second lockdown in six months to contain the second wave of the rampaging coronavirus contagion, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin paid an “emergency” visit to a leading ultra-Orthodox rabbi, Shalom Cohen. The purpose of his trip was to urge Cohen to encourage his followers in the haredi […]
Israel’s normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, formalized in Washington, D.C. in a White House ceremony presided over by U.S. President Donald Trump last month, already seem warmer and more substantive than the peace treaties Israel signed with Egypt and Jordan in 1979 and 1994 respectively. If optics mean anything, Israel and […]
Let’s call a spade a spade. Donald Trump is soft on white supremacy. He should be ashamed of himself. White supremacy is a blot on American democracy and a threat to Jews and other minorities, and no U.S. president should tolerate it. During the recent presidential debate with Democratic rival Joe Biden, moderator Chris Wallace […]
A crime of unspeakable proportions took place in a wooded ravine on the outskirts of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, 79 years ago today and yesterday. At Babi Yar, or Babyn Yar, the Nazis murdered 33,371 Jewish men, women and children in one of the biggest single mass killings of the Holocaust. It was carried […]