What is it like being a Palestinian living outside the homeland? Seventy years after the eruption of the first Arab-Israeli war, which led to the dispossession of some 500,000 Palestinians from their homes in what is now Israel and to the intensification of the conflict between Zionism and Palestinian nationalism, this question remains very relevant. […]
A 10-part series on the ambitious, power-hungry henchmen who worked closely with Adolf Hitler is now available on the Netflix streaming network. Hitler’s Circle of Evil, a skillful German production, is an amalgam of newsreels, wordless dramatizations and commentary by British and German historians. Judging by four of its episodes, this fascinating documentary is a […]
Israel’s embassy in Jordan — one of only two Arab countries with which Israel has diplomatic relations — still remains closed, eight months after the Israeli ambassador and her staff fled Amman following an eruption of shooting during which two Jordanians were killed. This incident brought Israel’s important relationship with Jordan to a virtual standstill […]
Certain American liberal feminists seem to be in thrall to Louis Farrakhan, the fiery Nation of Islam leader who rarely misses an opportunity to excoriate Jews. At the annual Saviours’ Day event in Chicago late last month, the African American demagogue spewed brimstone and fire as he delivered one of his trademark blistering speeches. During the course […]
Polish President Andrzej Duda recently delivered a candid speech to mark the 50th anniversary of the antisemitic campaign launched by the then Communist regime under the guise of anti-Zionism. As a result of the calumnies levelled against Polish Jewish citizens, the vast majority of whom were highly assimilated, 13,000 or more Jews fled into exile, […]
Al Capone was the first American gangster to achieve celebrity status. Such was his notoriety that he appeared on the cover of Time magazine on March 24, 1930, an honor normally reserved for politicians, statesmen, scientists, movie stars, novelists or captains of industry. Capone’s ascent to stardom is the subject of Al Capone: Icon, which will […]
Grief, anguish, boredom and callousness course through Samuel Maoz’s emotionally wrenching film, Foxtrot, which opens in Canada on March 16. Divided into three related segments, it takes place in a high-rise condo in Tel Aviv and at a remote checkpoint in the desert. As in his previous movie, Lebanon, he presents Israel as an embattled […]
Canada’s only overseas “representative office” is located in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the administrative capital of the Palestinian Authority, and is headed by a Canadian diplomat who joined the Department of External Affairs 31 years ago. Douglas Scott Proudfoot, the Representative of Canada to the PA, has been in charge of the Representative […]
The Toronto International Film Festival is presenting a retrospective from March 10-16 on the late Hollywood movie director Sidney Lumet (1924-2011). Five of his films — 12 Angry Men, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Network and The Prince of the City — will be screened at the TIFF Bell Lightbox (350 King West). One of his […]
The horrible things my eyes have seen are indescribable,” Marcel Nadjari, an Auschwitz-Birkenau prisoner, wrote in 1944. Nadjari, a Greek Jew, was a member of the Sonderkommando, a squad of inmates charged with the grisly, inhumane task of herding newly-arrived Jews into the gas chamber, extracting valuables from their corpses, removing their bodies and placing them […]