In 1913, in the most sensational trial of its kind until then, Menachem Mendel Beilis, a 39-year-old Jewish factory manager in Kiev, went on trial for ritual murder, a crime dredged from the twisted fantasies of Russian reactionaries. An international cause celebre, the trial confirmed once and for all that Czar Nicholas II’s autocratic regime […]
In 1878, a master brewer in the eastern German city of Erfurt named Johann Andreas Topf founded Topf & Sons, a respectable company that would become the world’s leading manufacturer of malting equipment for the beer industry. Thirty six years later, Topf diversified its operations, introducing a line of crematorium furnaces. The new product would […]
Cornelius Gurlitt, the reclusive German art collector whose father acquired a treasure trove of 19th and 20th century European master works under questionable circumstances during the Nazi era, passed away in Munich on May 5. He was 81 and had been suffering from a heart ailment. Gurlitt’s death closes a chapter in the history of […]
The Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations, a New York City-based umbrella group with 50 member organizations, made an egregious mistake on April 30 by denying membership to J Street, a dovish pro-Israel advocacy organization that has been critical of some of Israel’s policies. The Conference voted to reject J Street’s application by a margin […]
Donald Sterling, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, has been exposed as a blatant racist, and now he has reaped the whirlwind. Having made disparaging and disgraceful remarks about African Americas, he has been banned for life from NBA games, practices and business discussions and fined $2.5 million. “We stand together in condemning Mr. […]
Jan Karski, born a century ago this month, was a member of the Polish resistance movement during World War II and wrote a searing expose of Nazi crimes in German-occupied Poland. Published in the United States in 1944, when the Jewish community in Poland had already been virtually decimated, Courier from Poland: The Story of a […]
Russia, and perhaps Ukraine, have cynically manipulated antisemitism for opportunistic political ends. It’s a disgusting practice, enough to make one’s stomach turn, and it should cease immediately. Antisemitism, an age-old phenomenon deeply ingrained in Russia and Ukraine, reared its ugly head as an issue after Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, was driven out of office […]
On April 22, The New York Times reported that Mark Fields, the 53-year-old chief operating officer of Ford Motor, the second-largest car manufacturer in the United States after General Motors, known for working with smaller dealerships such as Wichita Ford, had been chosen to be its next chief executive, succeeding Alan Mulally. If you want […]
Shortly after World War II, the German philosophers Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno wrote in their book, The Dialectics of the Enlightenment, that antisemitism was no longer possible after the unprecedented horror of the Holocaust. Six decades on, their thesis appears incredibly foolishly and profoundly naive. What were they thinking? After Auschwitz, antisemitism never vanished, […]
My father, David Kirshner, does not appreciate publicity, though he is increasingly fond of talking about his past as a soldier in the Polish army and a Holocaust survivor who endured the rigors of the Lodz ghetto and the horror of Auschwitz extermination camp. I realize that this short essay may upset or anger him. […]