Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979), the scion of a fabulously wealthy American Jewish family, was one of the pillars of the modern art movement. Bohemian, rebel, iconoclast and hedonist, she was an astute judge of talent, having recognized the potential of painters like Jean Miro, Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollack long before they were famous and having bought […]
There are films that soar majestically above the rest, and Brooklyn, directed by John Crowley, is one of those rare ones. Premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and scheduled to open in Toronto theaters on November 20, it conjures up a self-contained universe that is both culturally distinct and brimming with fully formed characters. Set in […]
Is Poland’s new defence minister, Antoni Macierewicz, fit to hold public office? That’s a legitimate question following the disclosure that he flirted with the possibility that The Protocols of the Elders Of Zion, a notorious antisemitic tract, may be an authentic historical document, and that he supports its twisted thesis. In an interview in 2002 […]
Israel’s official reaction to a European Union ruling that Israel can no longer attach made-in-Israel labels to some goods produced in the occupied West Bank, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem is nothing less than overblown and self-serving. On November 11, the European Commission — the EU’s executive body — issued guidelines mandating that certain products […]
Ben Palmer’s British romantic comedy, Man Up, which opens in Canada on November 20, hangs on the flimsiest of thematic threads, but holds up quite nicely. The plot, though old as the hills, remains endearing. In a case of mistaken identity, two love-starved and lonely people meet in a busy railway station and sparks fly. […]
Thanks to his diaries, published in two volumes by Indiana University Press in 2007 and 2009, James Grover McDonald has received the recognition he so richly deserves. McDonald (1886-1964), an American who worked tirelessly in the 1930s and 1940s to find a safe haven for Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, was the first U.S. ambassador to […]
An intriguing new documentary, The Day Hitler Died, reveals fresh details about Adolf Hitler’s final hours in his besieged Berlin bunker. It will be screened by the Smithsonian Channel on November 16 at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. and again on November 22 at 10 p.m. Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945 as the […]
In one of its biggest gambles in decades, Russia has plunged headlong into the raging civil war in Syria. The price it is paying for its armed intervention is already staggering and may yet grow worse. On September 30, the Russian Air Force began bombing rebel strongholds in western Syria, its planes taking off from […]
I arrived in Marseille, the atmospheric port in southern France, on a sleek high-speed train from Paris, covering a distance of some 600 kilometres in three hours. Paris in late autumn was typically cloudy and cold. But in Marseille, the weather was gloriously temperate, sunny and almost balmy. As I strolled around the Old Port, […]
If you liked Homeland, you’ll most likely enjoy Fauda. Homeland, now into its fifth season in the United States, was adapted from an Israeli series. Blending post-9/11 national security issues with human interest stories, it was and is immensely popular. Fauda, premiered last February on Israeli television, focuses on Israel’s deadly confrontation with Hamas, the Palestinian […]