Seventy five years ago this month, the collaborationist Vichy regime in France committed its worst single crime. On July 16-17, 1942, French police in Paris rounded up 13,152 stateless Jews — men, women and children — and consigned them to purgatory. Some were taken to a detention camp in Drancy, near Paris. The rest were […]
Israel has learned a sobering lesson from the nearly two week standoff at the Temple Mount: Its sovereignty in East Jerusalem, already widely challenged by the international community, is subject to a panoply of constraints and pressures. Israel possesses sweeping powers in the eastern half of the city, conquered by the Israeli army in the […]
The new ceasefire in southwestern Syria, brokered recently by the United States, Russia and Jordan, has led to the first public dispute between Israel and the Trump administration. The truce, the culmination of months of negotiations in which Israel was involved, was announced on July 7 following the first meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump […]
Iraq’s dictatorial strongman, Saddam Hussein, ruled his country with an iron hand, tolerating no dissension. Barring a coup or fatal illness, he could have governed Iraq indefinitely had he kept his nose to the grindstone. But being guided by hubris and wildly false assumptions, he made the major mistake of invading neighboring Kuwait on August […]
Ida Lupino (1918-1995) was a prominent film actress and director in Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s. In a 48-year career, which began in Britain in 1931, she appeared in 59 movies and directed eight others. As an actress, she was something of a femme fatale, projecting a gutsy persona and playing tough yet vulnerable characters. […]
Tucked into the lush green hills of the forested Carmel mountain range is Israel’s only artists’ village, Ein Hod. Founded almost 65 years ago by a Romanian Jewish painter, it’s a serene retreat far from the hustle and bustle of Israel’s coastal plain. A short drive from the port of Haifa, Ein Hod is a […]
In a courageous and searingly candid acknowledgment of France’s complicity in the Holocaust, President Emmanuel Macron said yesterday that France had played a central role in one of its darkest chapters. Commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Velodrome d’Hiver (Vel d’hiv) roundup of Jews in Paris in the summer of 1942, and speaking in the […]
Much to its credit, Germany — a nation still in the process of striving to overcome its Nazi past — has passed a law that will force social media companies to delete extremist messaging and posts on their digital platforms. The legislation, drafted by Justice Minister Heiko Maas recently, goes into effect in October. It […]
The Toronto Public Library came to its senses yesterday, albeit belatedly, when it announced it would review its discredited room rental policy. The library caused an uproar when one of its suburban branches permitted a bunch of white supremacists and racists to use its facilities for a private event on July 12. The controversy erupted […]
Three years years after the eruption of the third Gaza war, the Gaza Strip remains a tinderbox. The Gaza region has been fairly quiet since the end of the war, with relatively little cross-border fighting having broken out, but both sides are acutely aware that a fourth round of hostilities could easily flare up again. […]