Israel has contravened international law by building settlements in the occupied West Bank and populating them with Jewish settlers, says prominent Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard. Through such methods since the 1967 Six Day War, Israel has “reengineered” the demography of the West Bank, which many Israelis regard as their ancestral homeland and which […]
It was a rescue mission that riveted a global audience. Three years ago this summer, Thailand was on tenterhooks as divers attempted to save 12 boys and their soccer coach trapped deep inside a flooded cave in the northern part of the country. Thai Navy Seals were called to save the boys, aged 11 to 16, […]
Asylum City, a gritty Israeli series bound to unsettle the average viewer, takes place in Tel Aviv’s African refugee community. Now available on Chaiflicks, a streaming network specializing in Jewish and Israeli content, Etan Zur’s drama unfolds in the dark underbelly of an impoverished neighborhood. Michal (Mali Levi), an Israeli activist who works with Eritrean […]
It was a bolt out of the blue and it fizzled spectacularly. On September 24, 300 Sunni and Shi’a Muslim Iraqis attended an unprecedented conference in northern Iraq during which they called for peace and reconciliation with Israel, Iraq’s longtime enemy. It took place in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, which has […]
Thousands of Italian women joined the anti-fascist resistance between September 1943, when Italy surrendered and joined the Allies, and April 1945, when Italy was finally liberated from the fascist regime and the German occupation. During this tumultuous 19-month period, Italian partisans fought not only the Germans, but clashed with Benito Mussolini’s Nazi-supported fascist government in […]
Meyer Lansky (1902-1983) was one of the dominant figures in the American underworld from the 1930s until his death. He was a key figure in the National Crime Syndicate, a confederation of Italian, Irish and Jewish gangsters, and one of the founders of Murder Inc., the enforcement arm of the mafia. Lansky, whose friends and […]
Jaguar, a six-part Netflix series set in Madrid in 1962, unfolds against the backdrop of World War II, Nazi concentration camps, and German war criminals enjoying the fruits of immunity in postwar Spain. A small band of Spaniards whose lives were upended by Nazi oppression plot to kidnap and bring to justice Aribert Heim, a […]
Helmut Oberlander died at home in Waterloo, Ontario, on September 23 “surrounded by loved ones,” according to his lawyer, Ronald Poulton. “A loving family man, he will be dearly missed.” As far as I’m concerned, he will not be missed. Not today. Not tomorrow. Or ever. Oberlander, an ethnic German from Ukraine, died peacefully at […]
Dmitriy Khavin’s 21-minute movie, Sukkot in Warsaw, offers a fleeting glimpse of Jewish life in contemporary Poland. Currently being screened online by the Toronto Jewish Film Foundation’s J-Flix program, it unfolds in Muranow, Warsaw’s old Jewish district, during the Sukkot holiday. This lean and all-too-brief documentary leaves viewers with an impression of a truncated community […]
Progressives in the Democratic Party in the United States are turning out to be a real thorn in Israel’s side. In the past few years, this pro-Palestinian group has lambasted Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and denounced Israel as an apartheid state. Of late, they have escalated their campaign by trying to deny military aid […]