The village of Le Chambon-sur-Lievre is extremely remote. High in the mountains of southern France, it’s protected by a shield of escarpments and rivers. During the winter months from October to April, heavy snow drifts cut it off from the world for weeks at a time. Thanks in part to its location, Le Chambon was […]
In The Notebook, which opens in Toronto and Montreal on Sept. 26, Hungarian film director Janos Szasz transports a viewer into a Darwinian world where only the fittest survive. It’s August 1944 and Hungary is at war. A soldier returns from the front and is reunited with his wife and two pre-pubescent twin sons. He […]
How did Canada respond, publicly and institutionally, to the rise of Nazism in Germany? Part of the answer is found in Nazi Germany, Canadian Responses: Confronting Antisemitism in the Shadow of War (McGill-Queen’s University Press). A book of essays by Canadian academics, it explores a number of overlapping issues — Canada’s reaction to Nazism, Canada’s […]
The creation of Israel in 1948 was a joyous event in Jewish history, but a catastrophe for Palestinian Arabs. Six Arab armies invaded the new Jewish state after David Ben-Gurion’s declaration of independence, while Palestinian fighters continued their guerrilla war against Israel. During the fighting, eight out of 10 Palestinians fled or were driven out, […]
In a shameful surrender to ignorance and malice, South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress, has condemned Israel as “a state founded on the basis of apartheid.” Accordingly, the creation of Israel was “a crime against humanity.” This statement, issued by ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe in conjunction with the Communist Party, the Congress of […]
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is a mensch, which, in Yiddish, means a decent and upright person. She proved it yet again on Sept. 14 at a rally in Berlin where she praised the Jewish community and condemned antisemitism. “That far more than 100,000 Jews are now living in Germany is something of a miracle,” […]
Life brings abrupt and nasty surprises, as New York City gay couple George (Alfred Molina) and Benjamin (John Lithgow) discover one fine sunny day in Ira Sachs’ mellow film, Love Is Strange, which starts its run in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver on Sept. 19. The pair are resting in bed in the quiet opening scene. […]
President Barack Obama has promised to “systematically degrade” and “ultimately destroy” the Sunni jihadist organization Islamic State, and now he must make good on his ambitious pledge. It’s a tall and complex order and it won’t be easy to fulfill. Indeed, Obama may fail. “This isn’t going to be fireworks over Baghdad,” said Obama in […]
Belatedly, Greece has passed legislation banning the scourge of Holocaust denial, thereby becoming one of the last member states of the European Union to take this important step in reining in racists. Better late than never. More than one year in the making, the new law also imposes tougher penalties for the dissemination of hate […]
Oil and water don’t mix, but business and politics do, judging by the 942 kilometre-long oil pipeline from Kirkuk in Iraq to Haifa in Palestine, construction of which was completed in the mid-1930s. Built by the Iraq Petroleum Company and operational from 1935 to 1948, the strategically important pipeline drove British policy in the Middle […]