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Jewish Affairs

Le Pen Gets A Kick In The Rear

Whatever you may think of her, Marine Le Pen certainly has the courage of her convictions. Last week, the leader of France’s far right National Front party officially distanced herself from her father, Jean Marie Le Pen, its founder and honorary chairman, in an astonishing parting of the ways. Ms. Le Pen, who has been […]

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Jewish Affairs

Turkey And Holocaust Commemoration

When International Holocaust Remembrance Day was marked around the world on January 27, Turkey responded by sending high-ranking government officials to a ceremony in Istanbul and its foreign minister to a commemorative event in the former Auschwitz extermination camp. Turkey’s formal interest in the Holocaust may have come as a surprise to some, but Turkey has […]

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Jewish Affairs

The Ukrainians And The Holocaust

Like many East European immigrants of his generation, Ivan Yuriiv arrived in Canada after World War II and made a life for himself and his family in Toronto. He died in obscurity in 1970. If he had he lived longer, Yuriiv might not have enjoyed such a quiet and uneventful life as a new Canadian. […]

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Jewish Affairs

Arab List May Hold Balance Of Power

Ayman, Odeh, the leader of the newly-formed Arab List, seems confident his political bloc will fare reasonably well in Israel’s March 17 general election. “By forming a single list, we hope to win more seats and weigh in more heavily on decisions taken in this country, ” he said shortly after four Israeli Arab political parties […]

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Jewish Affairs

Say No To Netanyahu’s Call

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for mass Jewish emigration from Europe is well-intentioned, but ultimately unhelpful and maybe even counter-productive. Netanyahu issued his appeal earlier this month, shortly after a 37-year-old Jewish Danish citizen named Dan Uzan was fatally shot in front of a synagogue in Copenhagen, Denmark, by a Dane of Palestinian origin, […]

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Jewish Affairs

Dumas’ Antisemitic Slur

At a moment when antisemitism in Europe is visibly on the rise, it’s shocking and distressing that no less a person than Roland Dumas, the former foreign minister of France, is pouring oil on the fire rather than trying to douse it. Dumas, who served under the late Francois Mitterrand, said in an interview recently […]

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Jewish Affairs

Photographs From The Lodz Ghetto

Thanks to a gift from the Archive of Modern Conflict, the Art Gallery of Ontario, in Toronto, possesses the world’s largest collection of photographs from the Lodz ghetto, the last one in German-occupied Poland to be liquidated by the Nazis. Taken by Henryk Ross (1910-1991), one of the few survivors, they offer a rare and […]

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Jewish Affairs

The Spectre Of Antisemitism

As the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz was marked earlier this week, Ronald Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress, issued a dire warning. Antisemitism, he declared, is on the upswing. Speaking about three weeks after a Muslim jihadist killed four Jews in a kosher supermarket in Paris, Lauder said, “For a […]

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Jewish Affairs

A Doll In Auschwitz

Seventy years ago today, January 27, the Red Army liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazi concentration camp in southern Poland. Seven decades on, it remains an enduring and searing symbol of unimaginable cruelty and depravity. At the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum on the grounds of the camp, where 1.1 million people perished, the full magnitude of Nazi crimes […]

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Jewish Affairs

Cover-Up In Argentina

The sordid Alberto Nisman affair currently unfolding in Argentina has all the ingredients of a taut Hollywood thriller: a terrorist attack that levels a building in the heart of Buenos Aires and kills scores of Jews, an Argentinian government investigation that peters out under suspicious circumstances, and the cold-blooded, mysterious murder of a fearless special […]