Last month, the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, broke important historical ground by describing the Holocaust as “the most heinous crime to have occurred against humanity in the modern era.” Shortly afterwards, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif declared that he would not permit Iran’s reputation, such as it is, to be sullied […]
The United States, with Harry Truman as its president, recognized Israel only 11 minutes after its first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, declared statehood on May 14, 1948. And so Truman was immortalized by Zionists as a great supporter of Jewish statehood. But as John Judis points out in Genesis: Truman, American Jews, And The Origins […]
Old Bamburg, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is a time capsule — a stunning open-air museum of architectural styles. Bamburg’s collection of beautifully preserved Gothic, Romanesque, Baroque and Renaissance buildings, all located in a conveniently compact area ideal for strolling, transports a visitor back to pre-war Germany. During World War II, Bamberg was largely […]
Russia, backed by China, vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution on May 22 that would have empowered the International Criminal Court in The Hague to investigate the terrible contagion of war crimes in Syria. This was Russia’s fourth veto of a Security Council resolution dealing with the Syrian civil war, which broke out three […]
Menachem Begin, the prime minister of Israel from 1977 to 1983, was a man of war and a man of peace, but above all else, he was an ideologue who stuck steadfastly to his beliefs. A Zionist Revisionist in the mould of his hero, Vladimir Jabotinsky, Begin devoted himself, body and soul, to the attainment […]
In 1913, in the most sensational trial of its kind until then, Menachem Mendel Beilis, a 39-year-old Jewish factory manager in Kiev, went on trial for ritual murder, a crime dredged from the twisted fantasies of Russian reactionaries. An international cause celebre, the trial confirmed once and for all that Czar Nicholas II’s autocratic regime […]
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, faces a May 28 deadline to form what has almost always eluded the Palestinian movement — a national unity government that can speak with one voice, particularly with respect to Israel. It’s a daunting challenge, since the Palestinians have only once capitalized on this opportunity. In March […]
What does aging businessman Murray Schwartz do when his old-school bookshop goes belly up? John Turturro’s comedy, Fading Gigolo, which opens in Toronto on May 23, provides the answer: Schwartz (Woody Allen), in a radical makeover, becomes a pimp. In Fading Gigolo, set in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg district, Schwartz and his long-time employee, Fioravante (Turturro), are […]
Last week, as day time temperatures in Toronto reached a balmy 18 degrees celsius, Denver was walloped by a freak snowstorm. I counted my blessings as I lounged on my sun deck and gazed contentedly at a clear blue sky. Admittedly, my deck didn’t do very well over winter and isn’t in the best condition. […]
Concert pianist and Holocaust survivor Alice Herz-Sommer was 110 when she died in London last February. She passed away only two days before the movie in which she appeared, The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life, won the Academy Award for best documentary in the short subject category. It’s a pity she couldn’t […]