Police in the Canadian city of London, Ontario, are now in the midst of ascertaining whether an antisemitic article published in an Arabic-language community newspaper recently promoted or incited hatred against Jews, or was simply a manifestation of free speech. In its June/July edition, Al Saraha, distributed in the city’s Middle Eastern grocery stores and […]
As Poles wrestle with the extremely complex legacy of the Holocaust in Poland, where three million Polish Jews perished in six short years, a cabinet minister in Poland’s government has suggested that historical accounts of the 1941 pogrom in the town of Jedwabne may be nothing more than “very biased opinions.” As reported by the […]
The death of Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel recently signified not only the passing of a distinguished novelist but the passing of another Holocaust survivor. Six million European Jews perished during the Holocaust, a meticulously organized and unprecedented campaign of genocide conceived by the Nazi regime and implemented by Germany and its allies and accomplices […]
Seventy years ago this month, Poland was shaken by the worst pogrom in postwar Europe. In an outburst of antisemitic violence, 42 Polish Jews were killed by a mob in the southeastern city of Kielce, touching off the departure of tens of thousands of Jews from Poland and staining Poland’s international image. This week, Poles […]
Donald Trump’s suitability as a candidate for the highest office in the land has been called into question yet again. Trump, whose bluster and demagoguery have manifested themselves time and time again during this divisive U.S. presidential campaign, posted an inflammatory image on Twitter recently that brings to mind classical antisemitic tropes about Jews. In […]
The latest edition of Outlook magazine, dated Spring 2016, arrived in my mailbox on June 6, and much to my surprise, a headline at the bottom of the catchy cover blared, “Farewell Issue.” I needn’t have been surprised. Outlook, which billed itself as Canada’s only progressive Jewish magazine and which I read for some 30 […]
Genya Kirshner, my beloved mother, ended her long and arduous journey on Friday, May 27 at about 1:30 p.m. on a hospital bed in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada. She was 100, five months short of her 101st birthday. As my old friend Henry Srebrnik wrote today, I was fortunate to have had her for so […]
Poland has experienced a Jewish revival since the end of the Communist era and the advent of democracy in 1989. And there is no better symbol of that remarkable phenomenon than the Lauder Morasha Middle School in Warsaw, which is marking its 22nd anniversary this year. Although it’s generously supported by grants from the Ronald […]
Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim mayor of London, can be a role model to his fellow Muslims if he continues to preach the virtues of tolerance and coexistence. At a time when radical Islam is making disturbing inroads in western European Muslim communities, Khan is setting an example by standing up to this destructive phenomenon […]
Few of the countries invaded and plundered by Germany during World War II endured a fate as terrible as that of Poland. Six million of its inhabitants — three million Christians and an equal number of Jews — perished during the course of the Nazi occupation. They were murdered, felled by starvation and disease, and killed […]