Irving Abella left an indelible mark as a scholar, particularly after the publication of his landmark book, None Is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933-1948, in 1982. From that point onward, he and his co-author, Harold Troper, were recognized as two of the most preeminent Canadian historians of their generation. A stinging […]
With sadness and resignation, I regret to say that the world’s oldest and most durable hatred is burning bright yet again. Reports released in recent days by Tel Aviv University’s Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, the Anti-Defamation League in the United States, and B’nai Brith in Canada point in only one disconcerting […]
Mel Mermelstein was a fearless fighter and a loyal son who kept faith with his doomed father. Bound by a solemn pledge to him to perpetuate the memory of the Holocaust, he successfully sued American Holocaust deniers in a celebrated case that exposed them as malicious liars and forced them to pay a hefty financial […]
A historic resolution condemning Holocaust denial and distortion was passed by the United Nations General Assembly yesterday. It was sponsored by Israel, co-sponsored by Germany and backed by the United States and Russia. Its passage was intended to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the diabolical Wannsee Conference in Berlin, during which 15 high-ranking Nazi […]
One can readily understand why American Jews were rattled by the hostage incident at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, last Saturday. Although the four Jewish hostages escaped unharmed after 11 hours of captivity, and Muslim attacker Malik Faisal Akram was killed, the standoff left a bitter aftertaste in the mouths of Jews. In a […]
In what amounted to a settling of accounts, some Holocaust survivors in postwar Poland tried to avenge the deaths of their loved ones by exacting punishment on Poles who murdered Jews. These survivors regarded revenge as a therapeutic sacred right and duty, said Polish historian Katarzyna Person in a zoom lecture earlier this month sponsored […]
The Senate in Romania passed a law recently requiring high schools and vocational schools to teach a course on the Holocaust and the Jewish people. Due to be introduced in 2023, its contents will be fleshed out by the Ministry of Education in consultation with the Elie Wiesel Institute for the Study of the Holocaust […]
Nazis in Germany and neo-Nazis throughout the world have exploited music and song as instruments of unity, camaraderie and aggression, panelists at an online seminar said recently. During the forum, sponsored by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City, two academics, a former white supremacist and a journalist from Italy spoke of […]
Scattered throughout Poland are synagogues in various architectural styles that once served a large and venerable Jewish community. Found in towns ranging from Zamosc and Orla to Krasnik and Lancut, they remind Poles and foreign visitors alike that Poland was home to one of the most vibrant and important Jewish centers in the Diaspora before the […]
A trial is currently under way in a U.S. federal court pitting 24 white supremacists and neo-Nazis against nine plaintiffs who suffered psychological and physical trauma during a violent Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in the summer of 2017. The rally, which took place from August 11-12, began on a Friday night as hundreds of white […]