Categories
Jewish Affairs

London’s Muslim Mayor Can Be A Role Model

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 […]

Categories
Jewish Affairs

Preserving The Memory Of The Holocaust In Poland

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 […]

Categories
Jewish Affairs

Donald Trump: A Magnet For Disaffected Americans

Donald Trump’s hostile takeover of the Republican Party constitutes one of the most astonishing and seismic events in modern American history. Trump, a property billionaire and reality TV celebrity, was regarded as the one of the least likely candidates to secure his party’s nomination when he entered the race as an underdog last June. Pundits […]

Categories
Jewish Affairs

A Message Of Hope, Faith And Courage From Poland

Poland was a charnel house during World War II, a place of death for Jews and Christians alike. Three million Christians and an equal number of Jews perished during Nazi Germany’s inhumane occupation of Poland. Amid the darkness, a small minority of decent, courageous Polish Christians risked their lives to help Jews, a crime punishable […]

Categories
Jewish Affairs

The Labor Party’s Self-Inflicted Wound

The Labor Party in Britain is mired in the muck of antisemitism, but it’s a self-inflicted wound. In the past few days, two of its members have been suspended for having brought the party into “disrepute.” Naseem Shah, an MP of Pakistani descent who represents the riding of Bradford West, stirred outrage following the disclosure […]

Categories
Jewish Affairs

Antisemitism Rears Its Ugly Head At Universities

Universities are supposed to be havens of civilized discourse where rationality, civility and tolerance prevail, but of late, this hallowed tradition has taken a battering in Britain and the United States. Consider these unsettling developments: Prior to her recent election as president of Britain’s National Union of Students, Malia Bouattia made comments that can only […]

Categories
Jewish Affairs

Poles Saved Jews Under The Noses of Nazis

An obscure village in a remote corner of southeast Poland, the kind you can drive through in seconds, was in the spotlight recently. On March 17, an array of personalities descended on Markowa, in Poland’s Podkarpacie district, for the official opening of The Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews in World War II. The ceremony, […]

Categories
Jewish Affairs

An Ill-Conceived Visit

Tellingly enough, neither the Israeli government nor Austria’s embassy in Tel Aviv were involved in planning Heinz-Christian Strache’s visit to Israel, which took place a few days ago and was organized by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party. One can understand why Strache, the leader of the far-right, xenophobic Austrian Freedom Party, is officially shunned […]

Categories
Jewish Affairs

A City In Poland Bereft Of Jews

Rzeszow, the largest city in southeastern Poland, is a paradigm for inconsolable loss. Like scores of Polish towns, cities and villages where Jews were demonized, marginalized and murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust, Rzeszow lost an important part of its multicultural heritage with the destruction of its substantial Jewish community. On the eve of […]

Categories
Jewish Affairs

Majdanek: The Best-Preserved Nazi Camp In Poland

Appropriately enough, the sky was gray and ominous on my first visit to Majdanek, the former Nazi concentration camp in eastern Poland. Adjacent to the city of Lublin, Majdanek is an eerie tableau of wooden barracks, guard towers, a gas chamber, a crematorium with an uncommonly high chimney and barbed wire fences. Even on a […]