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 […]
Contemporary Israeli food is a fusion of diverse cuisines. Foreign conquerors, from the Greeks and the Romans to the Crusaders and the Ottomans, have swept through Israel, leaving behind gastronomic traces. But Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jewish immigrants, as well as Palestinian Arabs, have had the greatest impact on Israeli food, judging by Abraham’s Kitchen: Israeli and […]
Al Jolson was in a class all by himself. From about 1912 until 1934, he was the most highly paid entertainer in the United States. What Enrico Caruso was to opera, Jolson was to popular song. Jolson’s friend, the comedian George Burns, once said, “There was nobody as good as Jolson. When he got through, […]
Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939 and of the Soviet Union in 1941 set off mass migrations of Polish Jews eastward. Precise figures are hard to come by, but hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens participated in this desperate flight for survival. This topic was the subject of a conference at the Polin Museum of […]
Pandemics have shaped the world and Jews, in particular, have been victimized by them. Jeremy Brown, the author of The Eleventh Plague: Jews and Pandemics from the Bible to Covid-19 (Oxford University Press), argues that pandemics, such as the bubonic plague and typhus, have impacted Jews profoundly. “It was a story of which I was […]
Fredericka Mandelbaum was no ordinary immigrant. A German Jew, she arrived in New York City in a near penniless state in 1850. Within a few years, she had created one of the first organized crime rings in the United States. One of the most infamous underworld figures in the last half of the 19th century, […]