Jews in the United States have embraced a liberal political ethos since the 18th century, claims an American scholar. This ethos, developed and nurtured by German Jews, was challenged by new immigrants from Eastern Europe after the great migrations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but their challenge was handily rebuffed, University of […]
Category: Jewish Affairs
Opposition has arisen to a sensible proposal by American businessman/philanthropist Sigmund Rolat to build a memorial in Warsaw to honor Polish Christians who risked their lives to rescue Jews during the Holocaust. Rolat, a Holocaust survivor from Poland, hopes it can be built in Warsaw’s former Nazi ghetto, next to the new Museum of the […]
American white supremacist Frazier Glenn Miller Jr. was recently convicted of capital murder, reinforcing the thesis that the overwhelming majority of extremist-related murders in the United States in the last decade have been committed by racists of his ilk. Miller, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, attacked two Jewish institutions in Kansas on April 13, […]
Categories
Iran Nuclear Deal Splits Jews
The nuclear agreement signed by six world powers and Iran in July has split the American Jewish community institutionally and politically like no other event in memory. Taking their cue from the Israeli government, major Jewish organizations and federations, as well as conservative and Orthodox Jews, have generally come out against it. Supporting it, in the […]
Categories
Milestone In Germany
In a long overdue development that speaks to Germany’s ongoing efforts to acknowledge its Nazi past and achieve a historic reconciliation with Jews, a major university in Germany plans to establish a permanent academic chair in Holocaust studies in 2017. The scholar who’ll fill the position will also be in charge of Frankfurt’s Fritz Bauer […]
Categories
The Struggle Of Our Generation
Ten years after four homegrown Muslim radicals attacked London’s transportation system, killing 52 civilians and wounding more than 700, Prime Minister David Cameron has laid out a “counter-extremist strategy” to confront the scourge of Islamic radicalism in Britain. In an important speech in Birmingham on July 20, Cameron correctly described the ongoing battle against Islamic […]
In a historic 12-week trial which ended in Germany on July 15, Oskar Groning — a former SS soldier who was posted to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp from 1942 to 1944 — was convicted of complicity in mass murder and sentenced to four years in prison. Groning, now 94, was not a major figure in […]
Categories
Orthodox Monopoly Must End
Israel, in many respects, is a shining beacon of openness and tolerance. Judging by its multiplicity of political parties, its transparent governing institutions and its splendid arts scene, Israel is far and away the most vibrant democratic society in the Middle East. Yet Israel’s body politic is sullied by an unsightly stain. Since the advent […]
Categories
The Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter
Ukraine has loomed large in Jewish history, a point that comes across clearly enough in A Journey Through The Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter: From Antiquity to 1914, a cross-Canada travelling exhibition which runs in Toronto until July 19. First shown in Vaughan, a suburb north of Toronto, and then in Winnipeg, a major center of the Ukrainian […]
Categories
German Muslims And The Holocaust
The southern German state of Bavaria is trying to resolve a vexing issue. Should Muslim high school students in all grades be required to visit former concentration camps, or the new Nazi documentation center in Munich, as part of their studies on the Holocaust? It’s a very German problem for a number of compelling reasons. […]