Morris (Moe) Berg has acquired a reputation as the most educated and brainiest player in the history of American major league baseball. Born in New York City in 1902, he studied modern languages at Princeton University and law at Columbia University. Despite his bent for academia, he devoted himself to baseball. For 15 years, he […]
We live in an era of rising racism, antisemitism and tacit acceptance of racial and ethnic hatred by right-wing populist politicians. Case in point: A year and a half ago, at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, neo-Nazi louts chanted, “Jews will not replace us.” In a profoundly disappointing response, U.S. President Donald Trump […]
Israeli police recommended a month ago that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be indicted on criminal charges in connection with three corruption, bribery and fraud cases against him. These are extremely serious accusations that should concern Israeli voters. Lest it be forgotten, this was the third time in a year that the police had filed this recommendation. […]
Founded in 1866, just a year after the U.S. Civil War ended, the Ku Klux Klan was established as a secret fraternal organization whose aim was to promote white supremacy and reimpose servitude on African Americans by various means of terrorism, including lynchings. Concentrated in southern states that had formed the Confederacy, the Klan faded […]
Few cities in France have been roiled by as much upheaval. Strasbourg, the cosmopolitan capital of Alsace, has always been in the eye of a storm. Founded by the Romans as a military camp, it was a free imperial city during the Holy Roman Empire. Ceded to France in 1681, it fell into Germany’s hands during […]
Ultra- Orthodox Jews in Israel, known as haredim in Hebrew, live in almost total seclusion, their everyday lives an enduring mystery to most Israelis. Shtisel, a popular Israeli television series which ran from 2013 to 2014, shines a spotlight on these reclusive Jews through the Shtisels, a middle-class family in western Jerusalem. Rather than regarding […]
Twenty five years have elapsed since I watched Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, his riveting and powerful 195-minute film set during the Holocaust in Poland. Having left an indelible impression on me the first time around, I was eager to see it again at a Spielberg retrospective at the Toronto International Film Festival. In the re-release […]
Golda Meir, Israel’s fourth prime minister, was an indomitable, single-minded person of unwavering principles singularly devoted to the Zionist cause. Occasionally presenting herself as an amiable grandmotherly figure, she was a tough cookie, possessing a will of steel who brooked no dissent. Born in Kiev, Ukraine in 1898, she immigrated to the United States in […]
Periodic waves of violence have washed across the West Bank since it was conquered by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War. The reason is crystal clear: Israel’s military occupation, plus its settlement building program, have always been vehemently opposed by the West Bank’s Palestinian Arab inhabitants. The Palestinians under the leadership of Yasser Arafat […]
Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, a persona non-grata in the Soviet Union until the late 1980s, looms large in Trotsky, an eight-part Russian television series released last year to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Now available on the Netflix streaming network, Trotsky is an ambitious, finely-crafted period piece featuring a stellar cast. […]