Hirokazu Koreeda’s serene and affecting Japanese film, Our Little Sister, which opens in Canada on July 22, focuses on three sisters who yearn for a sense of family and find it, remarkably enough, after meeting their younger step-sister. The Koda sisters, all in their 20s and single, live in their late grandmother’s rustic cottage in a […]
It was like a bolt out of the blue. Ten years ago this month, the Second Lebanon War erupted, catching Israelis and Israel’s political and military leadership by surprise. The Lebanese border region had been fairly quiet until then, but on July 12, 2006, it exploded in fury, enveloping Israel in a 34-day war with […]
Its awkward title notwithstanding, NSU German History X, a new Netflix original drama, is addictively compelling. Unfolding in German, with English sub-titles, this three-part series deconstructs the rise and fall of the National Socialist Underground, a neo-Nazi terrorist organization in Germany which murdered eight Turkish German citizens and one Greek immigrant between 2000 and 2006. […]
The death of Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel recently signified not only the passing of a distinguished novelist but the passing of another Holocaust survivor. Six million European Jews perished during the Holocaust, a meticulously organized and unprecedented campaign of genocide conceived by the Nazi regime and implemented by Germany and its allies and accomplices […]
Seventy years ago this month, Poland was shaken by the worst pogrom in postwar Europe. In an outburst of antisemitic violence, 42 Polish Jews were killed by a mob in the southeastern city of Kielce, touching off the departure of tens of thousands of Jews from Poland and staining Poland’s international image. This week, Poles […]
Donald Trump’s suitability as a candidate for the highest office in the land has been called into question yet again. Trump, whose bluster and demagoguery have manifested themselves time and time again during this divisive U.S. presidential campaign, posted an inflammatory image on Twitter recently that brings to mind classical antisemitic tropes about Jews. In […]
Surveys suggest that Israel’s popularity in the United States remains strong despite victories by the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement on university campuses. But Israel is losing ground in the Democratic Party, which will nominate Hillary Clinton as its presidential candidate later this month in Philadelphia. The party’s liberal wing has begun to turn away […]
Early on in her revelatory book, Canadian scholar Sarah Phillips Casteel makes an observation about “the strikingly persistent presence of Jewishness in Caribbean writing” and goes on to say that the phenomenon “merits attention.” In Calypso Jews: Jewishness in the Caribbean Literary Imagination (Columbia University Press), Casteel, an associate professor of English at Carleton University, explores this […]
In recent days, one political leader in the Middle East has acknowledged an important truth, while another has mangled it beyond recognition. Shortly after Turkey and Israel signed a reconciliation agreement late last month, ending six years of official estrangement. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blasted the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), the Istanbul-based organization which […]
Israel’s reconciliation agreement with Turkey, announced on June 27 by the Israeli and Turkish prime ministers, Benjamin Netanyahu and Binali Yildirim, was six years in the making and is a win-win outcome for both sides. At a time of great ferment, instability and uncertainty in the Middle East, Israel’s rapprochement with Turkey, once its closest […]