The current map of the Middle East is an artificial construct, having been conceived and drawn up by European colonial powers during a period of tumult, dissolution and intrigue. As a result of the upheavals unleashed by the outbreak of World War I, the Ottoman Empire lost its territorial foothold in the Arab world. This […]
Ukraine has loomed large in Jewish history, a point that comes across clearly enough in A Journey Through The Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter: From Antiquity to 1914, a cross-Canada travelling exhibition which runs in Toronto until July 19. First shown in Vaughan, a suburb north of Toronto, and then in Winnipeg, a major center of the Ukrainian […]
What a waste of talent. This epitaph immediately comes to mind when Amy Winehouse’s name is mentioned. One of the greatest jazz vocalists of our times, she was probably as gifted as Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. But being self-destructive, she was bound to fall, as Asif Kapadia’s biopic, Amy, strongly suggests. Dead at 27, […]
She was the original red hot mama. Bold, bawdy and brassy, and invariably attired in feathers, sequins and jewels, Sophie Tucker was a huge star in her day, enjoying a 60-year career in vaudeville, Broadway, radio, film and television. William Gazecki’s documentary, The Outrageous Sophie Tucker, distributed by Menemsha Films, draws a rounded portrait of […]
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 […]