Canadian historian Paul Brykczynski has written an authoritative account of a long-forgotten incident in Poland’s early 20th century history that altered its political landscape and undermined its large Jewish community. The “December Events,” as he describes them, unfolded in 1922 against the backdrop of a closely-fought election, anti-Jewish street riots and the assassination of a president. Until […]
Aficionados of classical European architecture are bowled over by Konstanz, the southern German city adjacent to the Swiss border. Niederburg, its oldest neighborhood, is a revelation, an open air museum of building styles ranging from Renaissance to Gothic. During World War II, a profusion of historically important buildings in Germany were destroyed by Allied bombing raids. Konstanz […]
Since the start of the new year, an ominous wave of antisemitism has roared across the length and breadth of the United States. Jewish community centres, schools and institutions have received about 150 bomb threats, while two Jewish cemeteries have been vandalized. These incidents, unprecedented in scale, have caused anxiety and alarm around the country. President […]
In the spring of 1945, as World War II was winding down, the British government commissioned a documentary about the horrors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. The supervising director would be the Hollywood auteur Alfred Hitchcock. The screenwriter would be Richard Crossman, who would go on to become a British cabinet minister. The […]
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has done it again. In his usual intemperate style, he’s accused two friendly countries, the Federal Republic of Germany and Holland, of behaving like Nazi Germany. The comparison is absurd, but lest we forget, Erdogan has also levelled this odious accusation against Israel, not once but twice. Clearly, he’s a loose […]
There are now 225 Jewish settlements and outposts in the West Bank, conquered by the Israeli army during the 1967 Six Day War. Since then, Israel and the West Bank have morphed into a single geo-political unit. This inescapable reality has enormous ramifications on the long-simmering Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel’s armed presence in the West Bank […]
Why can’t Chrystia Freeland acknowledge the truth? Why can’t she come clean? Freeland, Canada’s foreign minister and a member of Parliament representing a mid-town Toronto district, has been less than transparent about her maternal grandfather, Michael (Mikhailo) Chomiak, who edited a pro-Nazi Ukrainian newspaper in Cracow during Germany’s occupation of Poland. The publication in question, Krakivski […]
Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Liberman has issued a warning that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be wise to heed. In an appearance before the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee a few days ago, Liberman warned that Israel’s annexation of the West Bank would spark a crisis with the United States, its chief benefactor and […]
Holland, a nation celebrated for tolerance and compassion, had a mercurial relationship with the Holocaust. Dutch Jews who emerged from hiding and from German concentration camps in the wake of Holland’s liberation from Nazi tyranny in 1945 learned to their utter dismay and disgust that they would be fined for not having paid their property […]
Late last month, for the seventh time in six years, Russia vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution in defence of its ally, Syria, which has been embroiled in a civil war since 2011. The resolution, proposed by France and Britain and supported by the United States, condemned Syria for deploying banned chemical weapons against rebel […]