Israeli leaders have universally condemned the brutal murder of 18-month-old Palestinian toddler Ali Saad Dawabsha, who was killed on July 31 when terrorists firebombed his home in the West Bank village of Duma, near Nablus. The firebombing injured his parents and four-year-old brother as well. This ghastly incident evokes memories of the kidnapping and murder […]
In a long overdue development that speaks to Germany’s ongoing efforts to acknowledge its Nazi past and achieve a historic reconciliation with Jews, a major university in Germany plans to establish a permanent academic chair in Holocaust studies in 2017. The scholar who’ll fill the position will also be in charge of Frankfurt’s Fritz Bauer […]
Many Israelis have welcomed the news that Jonathan Pollard, the long-imprisoned spy, will be released on parole on November 20. Pollard has the dubious distinction of having been the only American to receive a life sentence for passing classified information to a U.S. ally. He has spent the past 30 years in jail on charges […]
The landmark nuclear agreement signed by the six major powers and Iran on July 14 was fundamentally an exercise in compromise, requiring Iran to curb and mothball its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. According to U.S. President Barack Obama, it cuts off Iran’s pathway to joining the exclusive nuclear club, of which Israel […]
The late Saul Bellow was a colossus in American literature, the son of Yiddish-speaking Russian Jews who immigrated to the United States by way of Canada. In the estimation of his latest biographer, Zachary Leader, he was the most decorated writer in U.S. history, having won the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize and three National […]
Much to U.S. President Barack Obama’s annoyance and even anger, the Israeli government is pressing ahead with efforts to derail the nuclear agreement the United States and five other major powers signed with Iran in Vienna on July 14. Israel, having denounced the accord as a long-range threat to its national security, is working with […]
Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park, both in the state of Utah, stir the soul with their incandescent beauty. The rock formations and mountains in these parks north of the Grand Canyon, part of the 130,000 square-mile Colorado Plateau, speak eloquently of the power and glory of nature. My daughter and I travelled a long […]
Ten years after four homegrown Muslim radicals attacked London’s transportation system, killing 52 civilians and wounding more than 700, Prime Minister David Cameron has laid out a “counter-extremist strategy” to confront the scourge of Islamic radicalism in Britain. In an important speech in Birmingham on July 20, Cameron correctly described the ongoing battle against Islamic […]
Forty five years ago, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yitzhak Rabin, delivered a pep talk to a group of Jewish American teens in Washington, D.C. After he had finished speaking, Rabin — the future prime minister of Israel — gave 15-year-old Michael Bornstein of West Orange, New Jersey, a perfunctory handshake. Bornstein, a fervent […]
Woody Allen’s latest feature film, Irrational Man, turns on moral quandaries and dilemmas. Scheduled to open in Canadian theaters on July 24, it stars Joaquin Phoenix as a depressed professor of philosophy, Emma Stone as his infatuated student and Parker Posey as her older romantic rival. Allen, in this thoughtful movie about the frailties of […]