Family secrets can be toxic and embarrassing, and in the worst-case scenario, they can also be extremely divisive. The secret in Shemi Zarhin’s The Kind Words — due to be screened by the Toronto Jewish Film Festival’s Chai Tea & A Movie series on Sunday, February 28 at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. at the Cineplex […]
Michael Moore, the rambunctious American filmmaker, brings to his craft a skeptical mind, a jaundiced eye and a goofy sense of humour, the very qualities that have informed his documentaries on current affairs since 1989, when Roger & Me was released to a wave of adulation. In his latest documentary, the provocatively-titled Where To Invade […]
It should come as no surprise that food has a central place in the annals of Zionism. Israel, after all, has been referred to as the Land of Milk and Honey. As Yael Raviv writes in Falafel Nation: Cuisine and the Making of National Identity in Israel (University of Nebraska Press), “Food has been used as a […]
The United States and Russia have reached an agreement to end the bloodshed in Syria, but it could easily fizzle and die. The accord, signed in Munich on February 12 by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, is ambitious in scope but precarious and fragile. It calls for the delivery of […]
John Birch, an American missionary and U.S. army intelligence officer killed in China by communist troops in August 1945, earned acclaim and adulation only after his untimely death at the age of 27. Hailed by his rabidly anti-communist admirers as the first casualty of the Cold War, Birch would become associated with right-wing extremism in […]
If you’re a Baby Boomer, like me, you may have been hooked by the mesmerizing rhythms of Carole King’s iconic pop songs. King’s songs, at once exuberant and plaintive, were appealing due to their simplicity, honesty, empathy and compassion. They struck a chord with an entire generation, of which I was part. A living legend, […]
As expected, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has redefined Canada’s role in the U.S.-led military campaign to degrade and defeat Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. On February 8, at a press conference in Ottawa, he announced that Canadian advisors will no longer be involved in a combat mission in the Middle East. Instead, Canada […]
Jihadists love the Internet, as they should. It’s their portal to free publicity, a potentially vast audience and enhanced membership rolls. Islamic State, the jihadist organization that has wreaked havoc in the Middle East, has learned to its satisfaction that social media is a potent weapon to brainwash and radicalize Muslims and recruit them as […]
Amsterdam’s old Jewish quarter, the Jodenhoek, is but a hollow shell of its former self, having been swept away by the tides of time. The epicenter of the Jewish community from the 17th century until World War II, it was once a congested and atmospheric labyrinth of tenements, factories, open-air stalls, narrow streets and back […]
The impasse in the protracted civil war in Syria is so profound that even the prospect of successful peace talks to end the nearly five-year-old conflict seems outlandish and unrealistic. On February 3, after two days of preliminary discussions in Geneva, United Nations mediator Staffan de Mistura threw up his hands in utter despair and […]