Let’s be realistic. The American-brokered Middle East peace talks, revived late last July by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry amid an aura of cautious optimism, are as good as dead, having crumbled more than three weeks before the April 29 expiry date. The talks had been faltering long before they broke down at […]
The novelist Arnold Zweig succinctly described the old quarter of Erfurt, a city in eastern Germany, as “a picture book of German history.” It was a fair assessment. Martin Luther, the theologian whose ideas gave rise to Lutheranism, studied and worked here as a monk in the 16th century. The Kramerbrucke, the longest covered bridge […]
My father, David Kirshner, does not appreciate publicity, though he is increasingly fond of talking about his past as a soldier in the Polish army and a Holocaust survivor who endured the rigors of the Lodz ghetto and the horror of Auschwitz extermination camp. I realize that this short essay may upset or anger him. […]
In a disturbing development which should set off alarm bells in Europe, nearly one million Hungarians voted for Jobbik, The Movement for a Better Hungary, in Hungary’s April 6 national election. Twenty percent of voters cast their ballots for Jobbik, making it the second largest bloc in parliament. Responding to Jobbik’s electoral success, the president […]
Hasn’t nearly everyone, at one time or other, been seized by a fleeting desire to flee civilization and find peace and contentment on an uninhabited tropical island? Friedrich Ritter and Dore Strauch, residents of Berlin, were two such dreamers. In July 1929, they set sail from Amsterdam, bound for the Galapagos Islands, which the British […]
Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s hawkish defence minister, needs a lesson or two in diplomacy, if not common sense. In the past few weeks, Yaalon, one of the most senior officials in the Israeli government, has made disparaging comments about Israel’s chief ally and benefactor, the United States. Yaalon fired off his first fusillade recently when he […]
Concerned by the serious strains clouding its strategic relationship with Saudi Arabia, the United States is striving to patch up yawning differences with its oil-rich Arab ally over key regional issues. Late last week, U.S. President Barack Obama visited Riyadh, the Saudi capital, in an attempt to improve relations. It was his second trip to […]
Quedlinburg, a somnolent town of 28,000 in the foothills of the Harz Mountains, is caught in something of a time warp. Quedlinburg’s historic 1,300 half-timbered buildings are its chief claim to fame, attracting visitors from all over Germany, the rest of Europe and from around the world. For that reason, Quedlinburg has been a UNESCO World […]
On March 26, Field Marshal Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt’s minister of defence and strongman, announced his resignation from the army and his decision to run for the presidency. No one was surprised by the announcement. It had been widely expected. Sisi’s ascendancy in Egyptian politics has been nothing short of meteoric. Hosni Mubarak appointed him head […]
On Aug. 3, 1492, Christopher Columbus set sail from Spain for the New World, ushering in an era of boundless exploration that changed the world. He started his historic voyage one day after a royal decree, signed by Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, went into effect. The decree, which ordered all professing Jews […]