In accordance with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent promise that security in Jerusalem will be restored, following an upsurge of violence in Israel’s capital in the past month or so, the Israeli government has resurrected its policy of demolishing the homes of terrorists. On Nov. 19, only a day after two Palestinian cousins from East […]
The American entertainer Bing Crosby was a ball of fire. He was a singer of style and distinction who’s still the most recorded performer in history. He was also a Hollywood film actor, ranking behind only Clark Gable and John Wayne as the most popular male actor of all time. Crosby, who died 37 years […]
What’s your favorite city? New York? San Francisco? Montreal? Vancouver? London? Paris? Hong Kong? Tokyo? Rio de Janeiro? Buenos Aires? Shanghai? Jerusalem? Istanbul? Cape Town? It’s a tossup, of course. I’ve visited all these cities and each one offers something special and different. So, no, I can’t rate them like cars or cafes. But if […]
Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher, which opens in Toronto and Vancouver on Nov. 28, leaves you perplexed, stunned and horrified. It’s a film that snares and entraps you in its iron grip. An American billionaire summons a 27-year-old wrestling champion to his mansion in the Pennsylvania woods, and life is never the same again for either of them. […]
The Israeli government recently decided it would not cooperate with a United Nations commission charged with investigating allegations that war crimes were committed by Israel and Hamas during their 50-day war in the Gaza Strip last summer. This comes as no surprise. Last August, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, […]
The rise and fall of totalitarianism in Italy is spelled out in elaborate detail in Fascism in Colour, now available on the Netflix streaming channel. Produced and directed by Chris Oxley, this two-part film charts Benito Mussolini’s path from fiery socialist to arch nationalist. Mussolini, the world’s first fascist dictator, turned his back on socialism after Italy’s disastrous defeat […]
Bite into a sweet, juicy California navel or valencia orange and a tantalizing aroma will instantaneously envelop you. The effect is particularly potent during the long, cold winter months, when days are short and sunlight is fairly scarce. For more than a century now, California has been synonymous with the orange, which originated in Asia […]
I discovered the Sinai Peninsula in the summer of 1967, shortly after Israel had conquered it in the Six Day War. Like so many other North Americans whose head had been turned by that war, I had come to Israel to be a volunteer on a kibbutz. A month or so into my stay, the […]
Forty five years ago, the then Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, myopically dismissed the notion that the Palestinians are a distinct and recognizable people. As she claimed, “It was not as if there was a Palestinian people in Palestine and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did […]
A period piece set in the last third of 19th century rural America, The Homesman is co-written and directed by Tommy Lee Jones, who stars in this brooding Western alongside Hilary Swank. Stark and austere, like the mid-western landscape in which it unfolds, The Homesman opens in Canada on Nov. 21, and is about a strong-willed woman […]