Christian Petzold’s German movie, Phoenix, unfolds in postwar Germany as a German Jewish survivor of the Holocaust scours Berlin for her missing husband. By chance or design, the film opens in Canada on May 8, just a day after the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Nelly (Nina Hoss), the survivor, […]
Author: Sheldon Kirshner
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Bombing Campaign Gave Allies An Edge
Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies 70 years ago on May 7, ending World War II in Europe. Germany’s abject defeat could be ascribed, in part, to the ferocious Allied bombing campaign of its homeland and industrial heartland. Britain and the United States bombed German cities mercilessly, working on the assumption that the air raids […]
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Bartoszewski Was A Noble Pole
Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, who died last week at the age of 93, was a Polish hero in the mould of the late Jan Karski. A witness to the Nazi Holocaust in Poland, he risked his life to help Polish Jews when such assistance carried an automatic death penalty. And during the postwar period, when antisemitism was […]
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A Tenacious Minoritiy
The Jews of Italy have survived four major plagues through the centuries — religious persecution, ghettoization, fascism and the Holocaust — and have endured. Sara Reguer, the chair of the Department of Judaic Studies at Brooklyn College, relates their 2,000-year history in a cogent and deeply-researched book, The Most Tenacious Of Minorities, published by Academic […]
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The Holocaust In Holland
Holland was liberated by the Canadian army 70 years ago next month after five years of Nazi occupation. The official date of the liberation was May 5, 1945, two days before Germany’s official surrender to Allied forces. The people of Holland paid dearly for German aggression. By one estimate, 150,000 Dutch civilians perished during this […]
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U.S. And Iran: Enemies Yet Partners
The United States and Iran are enemies yet partners in the fast-changing political landscape of the Middle East. As the old saying goes, politics makes for strange bedfellows. Once Iran’s close ally, Washington severed diplomatic relations with Tehran in 1979 after its embassy in Iran was seized by an Iranian mob. Since that momentous moment, […]
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The Covenant Kitchen
Californians Jeff and Jodie Morgan offer a contemporary approach to eating and drinking in the Jewish tradition. The Covenant Kitchen: Food and Wine for the New Jewish Table (Random House) is billed as the first kosher cookbook that pairs food with wine. It’s a fresh approach that will surely please gourmets and wine aficionados alike. […]
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A Majestic Lake In Guatemala
Nestled in a serene and picturesque valley 5,000 feet above sea level and framed by three heavily wooded volcanoes, Lake Atitlan is one of Guatemala’s most majestic tourist destinations, often compared to Lake Como in Italy. Sparkling blue on a sunny day and brooding on a cloudy one, it’s Guatemala’s deepest body of water. Ringed […]
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The Specter Haunting Europe
The specter of Islamic extremism haunts Europe. For about the past decade, a succession of young European Muslims fired up by Islamic radicalism have carried out one terrorist assault after another — from the train bombing in Madrid in 2004 that claimed the lives of 191 Spanish commuters to the attacks on the French satirical […]
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The Armed Struggle For Israel
Jews in Palestine were not handed political sovereignty on a silver platter. Not by a long shot. As Bruce Hoffman observes in Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle For Israel, 1917-1947 (Alfred A. Knopf), they achieved statehood through diplomacy and civil disobedience but above all through armed resistance and terrorist violence. In this magisterial account, told mostly […]