Historians never tire of reflecting on Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States. Since his assassination 150 years ago, just days after the Civil War had ended, he has been probed and analyzed in an avalanche of some 16,000 books. With all this ink having been spilled in the cause of scrutinizing an […]
Sobibor, in eastern Poland, was a destination from which one did not usually return. This Nazi extermination camp consumed its Jewish victims with rapidity and ferocity. But in 1943, at the height of the Holocaust, a few hundred of its prisoners made a daring, unprecedented break for freedom. This little-known incident is the subject of […]
At the ripe old age of 93, fashion icon Iris Apfel is still busy, active, engaged and alert. According to her housekeeper, she answers about 50 phone calls a day, far more than most people in their prime. As Apfel admits, she’d be depressed if the telephone stopped ringing. There’s little danger of that. Despite […]
Israeli film director Eran Riklis can thank Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for his unintended publicity on behalf of his latest movie, Dancing Arabs, which opens in Toronto on May 15. During the recent election campaign, Netanyahu resorted to anti-Arab scare-mongering tactics in a desperate bid to whip up votes for his right-wing Likud party, […]
The American Ballet Theatre, one of the world’s most renowned dance companies, is synonymous with excellence in the arts. On the occasion of its 75th anniversary, the PBS network is presenting Ric Burns’ newest documentary, American Ballet Theatre: A History, on Friday, May 15 at 9 p.m. (check local listings) as part of its American […]
Christian Petzold’s German movie, Phoenix, unfolds in postwar Germany as a German Jewish survivor of the Holocaust scours Berlin for her missing husband. By chance or design, the film opens in Canada on May 8, just a day after the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Nelly (Nina Hoss), the survivor, […]
Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies 70 years ago on May 7, ending World War II in Europe. Germany’s abject defeat could be ascribed, in part, to the ferocious Allied bombing campaign of its homeland and industrial heartland. Britain and the United States bombed German cities mercilessly, working on the assumption that the air raids […]
The Jews of Italy have survived four major plagues through the centuries — religious persecution, ghettoization, fascism and the Holocaust — and have endured. Sara Reguer, the chair of the Department of Judaic Studies at Brooklyn College, relates their 2,000-year history in a cogent and deeply-researched book, The Most Tenacious Of Minorities, published by Academic […]
Californians Jeff and Jodie Morgan offer a contemporary approach to eating and drinking in the Jewish tradition. The Covenant Kitchen: Food and Wine for the New Jewish Table (Random House) is billed as the first kosher cookbook that pairs food with wine. It’s a fresh approach that will surely please gourmets and wine aficionados alike. […]
Jews in Palestine were not handed political sovereignty on a silver platter. Not by a long shot. As Bruce Hoffman observes in Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle For Israel, 1917-1947 (Alfred A. Knopf), they achieved statehood through diplomacy and civil disobedience but above all through armed resistance and terrorist violence. In this magisterial account, told mostly […]