In Arranged, a feel-good feature film now available on the Netflix streaming service, the barriers that normally prevent social interactions between Jews and Muslims crumble. It would be nice if this amity and fellowship could be conveniently transferred to the Middle East. But since this scenario is unlikely to transpire any time soon, you can […]
Kutsher’s Country Club was the last of the Jewish-style resorts in New York’s Catskills Mountains. With its closing and demolition, an era in American Jewish history ended on a sad and inglorious note. Welcome to Kutsher’s, an informative documentary directed by Caroline Laskow and Ian Rosenberg that has made the rounds of Jewish film festivals, […]
A year after the eruption of the third war in seven years between Israel and Hamas, an uneasy calm prevails in the Gaza Strip. The combatants observe an informal ceasefire, but the truce has been broken by periodic bouts of cross-border fighting, most recently last month, and both sides are preparing for a new round […]
A few years ago, en route to Los Angeles, I flew over the Grand Canyon in Arizona, transfixed by its ruggedness, starkness, immensity and otherworldliness. As I gazed upon it from a height of 37,000 feet, I promised to return, but by land. I fulfilled that pledge recently, spending nearly a full day at this […]
Ever since Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi deposed his Islamist predecessor, Mohammed Morsi, in a coup on June 30, 2013, Egypt has been awash in terrorism. Not since the late 1990s, when Egypt was ruled by Hosni Mubarak, has it faced such an upsurge of terrorist violence. Terrorists have killed hundreds of soldiers, members of […]
Susan Butler’s wide-ranging, comprehensive account of a pivotal wartime alliance, Roosevelt And Stalin: Portrait of a Partnership (Alfred A. Knopf), bores into U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s political relationship with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. They were certainly an odd couple, hailing from radically different backgrounds and torn by profound ideological differences, but they respected each […]
It was another stomach-turning day on the terrorist front. Within a matter of hours on June 26, terrorists wreaked death and destruction in three far-flung countries — France, Tunisia and Kuwait. The attacks remind us yet again that Islamic radicalism has morphed into the scourge of our times. Like the toxic fascist movements of the 20th […]
The southern German state of Bavaria is trying to resolve a vexing issue. Should Muslim high school students in all grades be required to visit former concentration camps, or the new Nazi documentation center in Munich, as part of their studies on the Holocaust? It’s a very German problem for a number of compelling reasons. […]
Maya Forbes’ comedic drama, Infinitely Polar Bear, is biographical. Cameron Stewart (Mark Ruffalo), the main character, is modelled after her father. Compassionate and funny, he’s a manic depressive with a bipolar edge. His African American wife, Maggie (Zoe Saldana), appreciates his finer qualities, but can no longer cope with his debilitating disorder. His two adolescent […]
Robert Doisneau (1912-1994) was a remarkable photographer, often mentioned in the same breadth as the illustrious Henri Cartier Bresson. A lithographer and engraver by trade, he slipped into photojournalism gradually. By the 1950s, he was well established, known in particular for his photographs of Paris. Jean Claude Gautrand’s lavishly-illustrated coffee-table book, Robert Doisneau, published by Taschen […]