Tel Aviv, Israel’s lively city set along the shores of the balmy Mediterranean Sea, tends to be architecturally drab. On closer inspection, it leaves a far more positive impression. Founded 105 years ago as a garden suburb of adjacent Jaffa, and now Israel’s cultural and commercial capital, Tel Aviv has the distinction of possessing one […]
Two Middle East powers upgraded their bilateral relations this week as Iran’s president visited Turkey. The president of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, declared that Hassan Rouhani’s visit marked a “new era” in Turkey’s sometimes fraught relationship with Iran. Rouhani, a self-styled reformer who has made it his mission to improve Iran’s foreign relations, was the first […]
Since the outbreak of civil war in Syria three years ago, critics have claimed, not without reason, that the United States has done far too little to arm non-jihadist rebels seeking to topple President Bashar Assad’s Baathist regime. A few days ago, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, officially confirmed this accusation. In […]
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s accession to Egypt’s presidency is yet another stunning blow to the already battered Muslim Brotherhood. Sisi, previously chief of staff of the armed forces and defence minister, defeated his only credible opponent, Hamdeen Sabahi, a disciple of the late Abdel Gamal Nasser, by a whopping margin in last month’s election. Sisi, who […]
Jody Shapiro’s bracing documentary on Burt Shavitz, the reclusive Jewish hippie who co-founded the Burt’s Bees personal care empire in the backwoods of Maine 30 years ago, paints a vivid portrait of a loner, curmudgeon and reluctant entrepreneur whose rags-to-riches story is a template of the possibilities of American capitalism. Burt’s Buzz, which opens in […]
Nearly six months before the United States declared war on Japan following its attack on Pearl Harbor, the syndicated columnist Stewart Alsop, writing in the Atlantic Monthly, warned, “To fight the war we will be sooner or later called upon to fight we need a crusading faith, the kind that inspired the soldiers of 1917.” […]
By the late 1940s, Iraq was home to 180,000 Jews, of whom 90,000 lived in Baghdad, the capital. It was an ancient community whose origins could be traced back two millenniums. But by 1951, Iraq was virtually bereft of Jews, with only 6,000 still remaining in the country. What happened? The simple answer: Israel. The […]
Spain has revealed both sides of its face in recent weeks. Insular, intolerant Spain reared its ugly head when 18,000 Spaniards posted nearly 18,000 antisemitic comments after Maccabi Tel Aviv defeated Real Madrid by a margin of 98-86 in the final game of the Euroleague basketball championship. Enlightened Spain surfaced when Spanish Interior Minister Jorge […]
Years ago, when I was a postgraduate student in Britain, I saw Andrzej Wajda’s classic movie, Ashes and Diamonds, and was bowled over by it. It left a powerful impression and became one of my all-time favourites films. Last week, I had the pleasure of watching it yet again, and I was just as impressed. Ashes and […]
Man-against-nature films are common-place, but in John Curran’s Tracks, scheduled to open in Canada on June 6, a plucky, courageous young lady takes on the elements in an epic 1,700 mile journey across the untamed, barely inhabited wilderness of western Australia. Tracks, an Australian movie based on a best selling book by Robyn Davidson, demolishes […]