The Toronto International Film Festival, in conjunction with Human Rights Watch, is presenting the Human Rights Watch Film Festival from March 24 to April 2 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. There are eight films on the program, three of which I preview here. Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians is broadly the theme of The Wanted […]
Lacey Schwartz comes from a long line of New York Jews whose ancestors immigrated to the United States from Eastern Europe. Raised in a white milieu, she had no reason to think she was anything but a caucasian. But with the disclosure that her biological father was an African American, she was thrown into an […]
Say hello to Seymour Bernstein, a man of many parts. A former concert pianist whose recitals garnered rave reviews in The New York Times, he gave up celebrity at the age of 50 to dedicate himself exclusively to teaching. Now, at 87, he continues to give private and master classes. Yet Bernstein is more than […]
Like many East European immigrants of his generation, Ivan Yuriiv arrived in Canada after World War II and made a life for himself and his family in Toronto. He died in obscurity in 1970. If he had he lived longer, Yuriiv might not have enjoyed such a quiet and uneventful life as a new Canadian. […]
The six major powers are working day and night to draft the outline of an acceptable nuclear agreement with Iran before the March 24 deadline. In President Barack Obama’s estimation, the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany have offered Iran an “extraordinarily reasonable deal,” contrary to claims by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu […]
Islamic State, the jihadist organization bent on conquering Iraq and Syria and establishing a caliphate in the Middle East, has sunk to a new despicable low following disclosures that its fighters vandalized priceless archeological treasures in the Iraqi city of Mosul and bulldozed the ancient Assyrian cities of Nimrud and Hatra. These barbarian desecrations, which […]
The communist approach to the Holocaust was, in a word, bloodless. While the Soviet Union and the mostly compliant satellite states in Eastern Europe never entirely banned discussion and memorialization of the Holocaust, they often muffled the full story of the extermination of six million Jews and dissolved it into the general narrative of the […]
The third season of House of Cards, now available on Netflix, is almost as sizzling and compelling as the first two seasons. Francis Underwood (Kevin Spacey) and his wife, Claire (Robin Wright), are the ultimate power couple. He’s the president of the United States and she’s the first lady. Spacey and Wright, as usual, deliver […]
Global warming is a hoax. Cigarettes have no impact on your health. The Arctic icecaps are not melting. Arrant nonsense such as this is disseminated by an army of paid lobbyists whose aim is to befuddle the public and protect their clients’ financial interests. For some 50 years, these glib publicists worked hand-in-glove with the […]
Talk about being caught in a time warp. Antigua, a United Nations World Heritage site, is one of the oldest and best preserved towns in Guatemala and indeed in Latin America. As you walk on its cobble-stone streets, passing pastel-colored Spanish-style buildings with red tile roofs, you feel as if you’ve been transported back to […]