In the spring of 1933, less than four months after Adolf Hitler’s accession to power, four Jewish inmates in the newly opened Dachau concentration camp were killed while supposedly trying to escape. In fact, they were murdered by SS guards, who fired the opening shots of an incremental process which culminated in the Holocaust. The […]
Fifteen years after its unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon, this combustible area remains a thorn in Israel’s side and a potential threat to regional peace. Since completing its hasty pullout on May 24, 2000, Israel has fought a war with Hezbollah — the Lebanese Shiite movement aligned with Iran and Syria — and may yet […]
Even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new Israeli government was sworn in on May 14, the 34th since 1949, he reiterated his interest in enlarging his cabinet and making it more representative of the country. In the general election on March 17, the Likud won 30 seats, more than any other party. In lengthy negotiations […]
Midway through Saint Laurent, Bertrand Bonello’s buoyant biopic, one of Yves Saint Laurent’s world-weary assistants says, “Fashion passes like a train.” It’s a relevant observation. Like the advertising business, fashion is fleeting, susceptible to rapidly changing tastes. The famous French couturier Saint Laurent (1936-2008) was acutely aware of this occupational hazard, but never allowed it […]
Facing increased harassment and persecution, several thousand German Jews still in Berlin after the outbreak of World War II went into hiding. Marie Jalowicz Simon was one of these so-called “submarines.” Living under an assumed name and shuttling between a succession of safe houses, she survived the tyranny of Nazism by the skin of her […]
Historians never tire of reflecting on Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States. Since his assassination 150 years ago, just days after the Civil War had ended, he has been probed and analyzed in an avalanche of some 16,000 books. With all this ink having been spilled in the cause of scrutinizing an […]
Sobibor, in eastern Poland, was a destination from which one did not usually return. This Nazi extermination camp consumed its Jewish victims with rapidity and ferocity. But in 1943, at the height of the Holocaust, a few hundred of its prisoners made a daring, unprecedented break for freedom. This little-known incident is the subject of […]
It’s finally here. Spring, I mean. After another brutal and seemingly endless Canadian winter, the second one in a row to hammer Toronto, the harbingers of fine weather are finally beckoning. The sun is stronger and warmer, its blissful rays intensely yellow. Dormant lawns have turned bright green. Blue bells, as well as a profusion […]
The Palestinians can’t get their act together, no matter how often and how hard they try. A little more than a year after signing a national reconciliation agreement — which Israel vigorously opposed and denounced as inimical to peace — Fatah and Hamas remain at loggerheads over a litany of divisive issues. As a result, […]
At the ripe old age of 93, fashion icon Iris Apfel is still busy, active, engaged and alert. According to her housekeeper, she answers about 50 phone calls a day, far more than most people in their prime. As Apfel admits, she’d be depressed if the telephone stopped ringing. There’s little danger of that. Despite […]