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Middle East

Support For Israel In Canada Drops

Canadian support for Israel is on the decline, particularly among Canadians aged 18-34, according to surveys conducted by Forum Research Inc. in December 2012 and May 2014. In this age group, the polling company found, pro-Israel sentiment has dropped from 23 percent in 2012 to 12 percent this year. By contrast, pro-Palestinian opinion jumped from […]

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Arts

The Rudolf Hess Mission

It was one of the most quixotic episodes of World War II, conceived in utter secrecy and ending in abject failure. On May 10, 1941, Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler’s deputy, lowered himself into the cockpit of a twin-engine Messerschmitt aircraft and took off on a flight from Germany to Britain. He hoped his solo “mission […]

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Arts

The Other Goering

We’re all familiar with Hermann Goering, the bulky, self-indulgent Nazi who commanded the Luftwaffe, played a role in implementing the Holocaust and served as Adolf Hitler’s second in command. But Goering’s anti-Nazi brother, Albert, remains a cipher, an unknown quantity. Or at least until now. Thanks to Linda Parkhurst’s documentary, Goering’s Last Secret, available on […]

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Travel

Kazimierz — Outpost of The Past In Poland

Having read Thomas Keneally’s novel, Schindler’s List, Hollywood film director Steven Spielberg sought to turn it into one of his signature movies. But where would it be shot? Instead of some back lot studio in Los Angeles, he chose the southern Polish city of Krakow, where German manufacturer Oskar Schindler had saved hundreds of Jews by […]

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Middle East

United States Mending Relations With Egypt

As predicted by Egypt’s newly-elected president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, the United States has begun mending its bilateral relationship with Egypt, one of its most important allies in the Arab world. Less than a year after Washington imposed punitive measures on Egypt after the military-backed Egyptian government ousted the duly elected Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, and killed […]

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Arts

The Films of Satyajit Ray From TIFF

Satyajit Ray (1921-1992), one of the masters of the Indian cinema, is coming t0 Toronto through the medium of a retrospective of his prolific body of work. The Sun and the Moon: The Films of Satyajit Ray runs from July 3 to Aug. 17 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.   A sampler: Aparajito (Friday, July […]

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Jewish Affairs

Private Property Issue Looms Over Polish-Jewish Relations

Poland marked an historic anniversary on June 23. At a “Polish Freedom Gala” banquet, held at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto under the patronage of  President Bronislaw Komorowski, Poland hailed its return to the western democratic fold. Twenty five years ago this month, the Solidarity trade union movement staged a peaceful revolution that […]

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Middle East

Crisis In Iraq Replay Of Religious Animosities

The current crisis in Iraq is yet another replay of the historic power struggle and thinly-veiled animosities between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in the Middle East. When the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — an extremist Sunni group known as ISIS — invaded western and northern Iraq earlier this month, it enunciated its intentions […]

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Jewish Affairs

Roosevelt And The Jews

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal administration coincided with the emergence of state-sponsored antisemitism in Germany and the mass murder of  Jews during the Holocaust. How did Roosevelt respond to these shattering events? Ambivalently, conclude American University historians Richard Breitman and Allan Lichtman in their important and cogent book, FDR and the Jews, published by Harvard […]

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Arts

The Promised Land Is Lush And Theatrical

Andrzej Wajda’s The Promised Land, screened on June 17 by the Toronto International Film Festival and part of its ongoing retrospective on contemporary Polish cinema, transports us back to early 20th century Lodz, a multi-ethnic city in central Poland that brings the uglier aspects of the industrial revolution up close and personal. Based on a novel by […]