Christophe Lebold’s lyrical biography of the Canadian singer and literary figure, Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw The Angels Fall (ECW Press), is definitive in its comprehensiveness. The author, a professor of literature at the University of Strasbourg in France, befriended Cohen, and his admiration of him shines through the pages of this massive book, […]
Jan Grabowski, the Polish Canadian historian, grapples with an extremely sensitive topic in his latest book, Whitewash: Poland And The Jews (New Jewish Press/University of Toronto). A specialist in Polish-Jewish relations during World War II, he examines the degree to which the previous right-wing government in Poland attempted to control the narrative regarding the role […]
October 7, 2023, a day of infamy when hordes of Hamas terrorists invaded Israel in an unprecedented attack, was Marsha Lederman’s “last normal night.” Lederman is a child of Holocaust survivors from Poland who grew up haunted by nightmares of being hunted by Nazis. This “ludicrous, irrational fear came to life” as Hamas gunmen wreaked […]
On January 25, 2011, the Los Angeles-based journalist and publisher Elio Zarmati received a phone call from an old friend in Switzerland he had grown up with in Egypt. Their conversation was about the popular uprising, centered in and around Cairo’s Tahrir Square, that had erupted in Egypt and would lead to the resignation of […]
Germany, in 1941, launched a vigorous propaganda campaign to curry favor with Muslims in the Middle East, the Balkans, Crimea and the Caucasus, territories the German army had conquered or intended to capture. Two of Germany’s major allies, Italy and Japan, made similar efforts to recruit Muslims on their side during World War II. Germany’s […]
April 9, 1940 and October 1, 1943 were the darkest days in the history of the Jewish community in Denmark. These momentous dates are inextricably bound up with two separate but related events: Germany’s invasion of Denmark — the first country in Western Europe to be occupied by the Nazis — and Germany’s belated attempt […]
There has been a noticeable shift among some young American Jews regarding their attitude to Israel. In short, they are far more critical of Israel than their fathers or grandfathers. This seismic transformation, having brewed for years, has accelerated since the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023 and Israel’s ferocious military response, which degenerated into […]
Adam Raz, in his meticulously researched book, Loot: How Israel Stole Palestinian Property (Verso), exposes an extremely sensitive and explosive issue, one that Israelis cannot conveniently sweep under a rug. Raz, an Israeli human rights researcher and historian, deals with the plunder of moveable property left behind by Palestinian Arabs who fled or were forced […]
We live in a turbulent age of dislocation. Far-right ethno- nationalism is surging. Extreme left-wing ideologies are on the uptick. Radical Islamist movements have become increasingly influential. Amid these developments, democracy has come under siege and a strain of antisemitism masquerading as anti-Zionism has emerged. Shalom Lappin examines these unsettling trends in The New Antisemitism: […]
The deadly attack launched by Hamas in Israel on October 7, 2023 was not only the latest chapter in Israel’s decades-long struggle with the Palestinians. It was also a sign of Iran’s ascendancy as a major power in the Middle East and an illustration of the Axis of Resistance alliance it had formed to harass […]