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Middle East

Israeli Bill Would Stifle Political Dissent

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has tabled a bill that may well stifle, if not delegitimize, a precious gift — political dissent in Israel. The bill, known as the NGO Law, should be permanently shelved for the sake of Israeli democracy. Sponsored by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, it would require non-governmental organizations in Israel to […]

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Arts

Rams — An Austere Film From Iceland

Grimur Hakonarson’s austere film, Rams, which opens in Canada on February 12, unfolds under a leaden sky in a treeless valley. The bleak Icelandic landscape lends itself to the theme: the discord that keeps two feuding brothers, Gummi (Sigurdur Sigurjonsson) and Kiddi (Theodor Julisson), at loggerheads. Although they live in close proximity to each other, they have […]

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Arts

Jewish Authors Created Template of War Novel

Jewish writers like Irwin Shaw and Norman Mailer created the template of an enormously important and popular literary genre — the American war novel. From Shaw’s The Young Lions to Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead, these best-sellers, published between 1948 to 1961, shaped the American public’s perception of World War II, the Holocaust and […]

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Jewish Affairs

Eichmann Was Much More Than A “Pencil-Pusher”

On the eve of his execution in 1962, Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann brazenly requested a pardon from the state of Israel. In line with the defence strategy his lawyer had mounted at his trial in Jerusalem, Eichmann claimed he had been a minor functionary merely following orders. “There is a need to draw a line […]

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Arts

The Lady In The Van

Maggie Smith, the British actress who portrays a prim and proper aristocrat in the popular series, Downton Abbey, transforms herself into a homeless person in The Lady in the Van, which opens in Canada on February 5. It’s quite an astonishing makeover. As Margaret Shepherd, a woman whose current circumstance are jarringly at odds with […]

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Middle East

Inconvenient Truths

The American ambassador to Israel and the secretary-general of the United Nations have both issued no-nonsense warnings regarding the pitfalls of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. Call them inconvenient truths. To no one’s surprise, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded harshly to their collective words of wisdom, thereby confirming the widely-held assumption that […]

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Jewish Affairs

Farewell, David

David Kirshner, my loud, lively, gregarious, boisterous and unforgettable father, departed from this vale of tears in the early hours of January 20 as I slept soundly. The shattering news was conveyed to me, in the dead of winter, by my younger sister, Shirley, whose frantic message awoke me with a start. I was thus […]

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Jewish Affairs

The Sole Survivor

David Stoliar, the sole survivor of a shipwreck which graphically symbolized the world’s indifference to Jewish suffering during the Holocaust, has died. Stoliar, The New York Times reported on January 23, passed away in Bend, Oregon, on May 1, 2014. He was 91. I interviewed Stoliar in connection with the release of The Struma, a […]

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Arts

Egypt’s Failed Revolution

The fifth anniversary of the seminal uprising in Egypt is upon us. On January 25, 2011, thousands of Egyptians from all walks of life converged on Cairo’s Tahrir Square to demand an end to autocracy, a staple in Egypt’s governance. “They weren’t merely trying to overthrow a despicable regime,” writes the American journalist Thanassis Cambanis […]

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Arts

The Legendary Mike Nichols

The late Mike Nichols was a man for all seasons. In an illustrious 50-year career, which ended with his death in 2014, he was an actor, comedian and movie director. Nichols, who was equally at home in theatre as in film, is the subject of a documentary scheduled to be broadcast by the PBS network […]