When I received a copy of Mark Celinscak’s book, Distance from the Belsen Heap: Allied Forces and the Liberation of a Nazi Concentration Camp (University of Toronto Press), I was eager to read it. My parents, you see, are Holocaust survivors who were transported to Bergen-Belsen in the waning months of World War II and […]
Author: Sheldon Kirshner
I knew I was flying south, toward blissfully warm weather, when I looked out of the airplane window and saw cotton-candy cloud formations, the kind you see in Canada during the summer months. My wife and I were heading to Varadero, Cuba, having booked a one-week all-inclusive package at the Melia Marina Hotel. The fluffy […]
The Greatest Jewish Builder Of All Time
Herod the Great, the Jewish ruler of Roman-occupied Judea for 32 years, is considered the greatest builder in Jewish history. He expanded the Second Temple, built the Temple Mount and the walls surrounding it and constructed the fortresses of Masada and Herodium. Marvels of engineering, these structures were among the most magnificent of their time. […]
Son Of Saul
Amid the unspeakable inferno of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazi extermination camp in Poland, a Hungarian Jewish forced laborer named Saul watches impassively as a new transport of Jews from Hungary rumbles in ominously. It’s the spring of 1944 and the Holocaust is in full swing. Hundreds of thousands of Jews in German-occupied Hungary have been singled […]
With the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in Germany approaching, German eyes will be fixed on its leading light, the theologian Martin Luther, who was born in 1483 and died in 1546. Luther was a Christian rebel who, in 1517, questioned papal authority and thereby touched off a revolution in Christianity. As revered as […]
Donald Trump Touches A Raw Nerve
Donald Trump, the outspoken, anti-establishment Republican Party presidential candidate, has rightly been denounced for proposing that Muslims should be banned from entering the United States. It’s an offensive proposal that demonizes an entire community, panders to base instincts and runs counter to contemporary American democratic values. Trump, the master of politically incorrect dogma, issued his […]
Henry Kissinger’s Ascent To Power
Henry Kissinger had a finger in virtually every pie when he was U.S. secretary of state, managing the foreign affairs file of the world’s preeminent superpower. “There cannot be a crisis next week,” he once joked in a sardonic moment of levity. “My schedule is already full.” Kissinger was indeed a busy bee. He negotiated […]
Germany is girding for an influx of nearly one million Muslim refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan by year’s end. The greatest proportion of the migrants will be Syrians, whose country has been torn apart and virtually destroyed by four years of civil war. Four million Syrians have already emigrated, and more will flee as […]
The current wave of Palestinian terrorism washing over Israel has unsettled many Israelis, even those living a considerable distance from the West Bank and Jerusalem, where almost all the incidents have occurred since about mid-September Once again, Israelis are under siege. Israel fought wars on Arab soil in 1956, 1967, 1973 and 1982. But ever […]
Everything Will Be Fine
Despite a promising story line, a credible cast and the magic of 3D cinematography, Everything Will be Fine doesn’t measure up. Wim Wenders’ film, due to open in theatres in Canada on December 11, lands with a thud. Tomas (James Franco), a novelist living in the Quebec countryside, has fallen into a funk. He’s struggling with […]