Philip Roth, the late Jewish American novelist and short story writer, was consumed by four related topics — the Jewish community, Israel, the Holocaust and antisemitism. His interlocking  preoccupations were reflected in his breakout novella, Goodbye, Columbus And Five Short Stories and in intense novels such as The Counterlife, Operation Shylock and The Plot Against […]
It is long past time for the Canadian government to release the final report of the Commission of Inquiry On War Criminals In Canada. The commission, whose mandate was to deal with the explosive issue of suspected Nazi war criminals admitted into Canada, was chaired by Jules Deschenes, a retired Quebec Superior Court judge. He […]
The first set of talks between the United States and Iran in nearly a year took place in Oman on February 6 amid mutual mistrust and fears that diplomacy may fail and give way to a renewal of war in the Middle East. Last June, Israel attacked its arch enemy, Iran, bombing its nuclear and […]
Controversial comments by U.S. Vice President JD Vance have set off ripples of unease in the American Jewish community. Vance, a friend of Tucker Carlson — a conservative podcaster  who has been accused of dabbling in antisemitism — has conveyed the impression that he tolerates antisemites in the isolationist “Make America Great Again” wing of […]
At the ripe old age of 84, the political war horse Bernie Sanders is still going strong. The longest serving independent in U.S. congressional history, he has been fixture in American politics since the early 1980s. He was mayor of Burlington, the biggest city in the state of Vermont, from 1981 to 1989. He was […]
Jewish settler violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is on the upswing, and Israel is doing virtually nothing to stop it. The attacks have occurred on almost a daily basis, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing nationalist government has taken scarcely any steps to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators. The Institute for National […]
African and Jewish Americans have been bound together in a deeply intertwined relationship despite their historical, religious and cultural differences and divergent priorities. Since the formation of the American republic more than two centuries ago, they have been mocked and feared as they have tried to tear down the walls of hatred and prejudice, says […]
Frederik Forsyth’s novel, The Odessa File, was an amalgam of fact and fiction. So is Ronald Neame’s eponymous feature film, which was adapted from Forsyth’s best-seller and released in 1974. A hard-hitting thriller, it is driven by several interlocking themes: Israel’s quest for survival. The Holocaust. The attempt by diehard Nazis to evade justice. The […]
Mundek Lukawiecki’s son, Simon, knew nothing about his father’s past until he was an adult. A survivor of the Holocaust in Poland, Lukawiecki did not talk about that horrendous period and acted as if the mass murder of Polish Jews had never even occurred. In 1993, Lukawiecki switched course, telling his story to Yad Vashem, […]
This was the moment Israel had been waiting for with profound anticipation. On January 26, the Israeli army announced that the remains of Ran Gvili, the last hostage in the Gaza Strip, had been found. With this momentous announcement, Israelis unburdened themselves of a trauma that had weighed on them for the past two years. […]