Rocky Braat is that rarest of individuals: a selfless person who gives of himself completely, day in and day out. Braat, a young American who works in an Asian orphanage filled with HIV-infected children, is the subject of Steve Hoover’s moving documentary, Blood Brother, now playing in Toronto. The film, plodding at first, builds to an […]
Six years before South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela was released from imprisonment on Robben Island, launching his career as South Africa’s future first Black president and starting the historic process of phasing in Black majority rule, I visited South Africa in my capacity as a journalist. It was 1984 and South Africa, a pariah […]
The far-right National Democratic Party, known in German as the NPD, is an ugly, festering sore on Germany’s body politic. The NPD is shamelessly xenophobic, jingoistic, racist and, worst of all, antisemitic. Given Germany’s central role in the Holocaust, it beggars the imagination that there are still German politicians, even on the fringes of society, who […]
“These mountains are breathtaking — utterly different than anything we have seen. The peaks and forests and “tone” fulfill almost every ideal I have had of what ‘my’ mountains could be. The cold ice crashes down tremendous cliffs to the very edge of deep, somber forests. No dust here — all is snow, ice, clean […]
Panama, the lower-cost alternative to Costa Rica, is a land of sharp and mesmerizing contrasts. One day, I was perspiring in the sweltering tropical lowlands of Chiriqui province, or exploring a picturesque island in the Bocas del Toro archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. A few days later, and just a relatively short distance away, I […]
Tango originated in Buenos Aires in the late 19th century, but klezmer, a Russian Jewish genre, exerted an enormous influence on it. Jewish immigrants from the Russian empire began arriving in Argentina, a land of prosperity, hope and opportunity, toward the end of the 19th century. They brought their musical traditions with them, forever changing tango. […]
I had the privilege of knowing Joseph Baruch (J.B.) Salsberg, who was already a legendary figure when I met him in the autumn of 1974. I was a reporter on The Canadian Jewish News and he was one of its freelance columnists. Salsberg, tall, irrepressible, witty and always nattily dressed, would usually arrive at the […]
Shortly after the eruption of the popular uprising in Syria, in March 2011, the prime minister of neighboring Lebanon, Najib Mikati, announced he would hew to a policy of neutrality, or “disassociation”, so that his nation would not be dragged into the bloody mayhem of that conflagration. Lebanon, he declared, would support neither the Baathist […]
Gore Vidal, a son of privilege, left the American ruling class to become a constant thorn in its side. Through his novels, essays, plays and television appearances, he was a sharp critic of U.S. foreign policy and the “decadence” of political life in the United States. Articulate and outspoken, he was a celebrity intellectual, a student […]
The six-month interim accord signed by the world’s major powers and Iran in Geneva on Nov. 24 paves the way for a comprehensive agreement that may well permanently freeze, if not dismantle, Iran’s militarized nuclear program. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, having pressed for a much tougher outcome that would have neutralized Iran as a nuclear […]