The Debt, a thriller directed by John Madden, seamlessly blends two interlocking themes: the Holocaust and vengeance, as exacted by Israel’s external intelligence agency, the Mossad. Now available on Netflix, it flits between the mid-1960s and the late 1990s and is set in Israel, East Berlin and Kiev. The plot is familiar, reminiscent of Israel’s […]
David Koffman asks a pointed question in the introductory essay of his book, No Better Home? Jews, Canada, and the Sense of Belonging (University of Toronto Press): “Has there ever been a better home for the Jews than Canada?” As he observes in this volume of perceptive and erudite essays, which grew out of a […]
The 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Russia was a moment of emancipation and liberation for oppressed Russian Jews, a deliverance from the injustices of the previous czarist regime. But within months of seizing power, the Bolshevik leadership was faced by the specter of pogroms in the former Pale of Settlement, a region of western Russia where […]
The new Israeli government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has flunked its first major test. Just days after alternate prime minister and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said that the illegal West Bank outpost of Evyatar would be torn down in compliance with a direct and unambiguous army order, the Samaria Regional Council, a pro-settler organization, […]
Canadian aficionados of Israeli television dramas will be pleased to hear that the Toronto Jewish Film Festival is streaming the first nine episodes of the latest one, The Chef, in its North American premiere. It will be available online until July 11. Created and directed by Erez Kavel and Orit Dabush, it is mostly set in […]
Jews, Muslims, immigrants and left-wing politicians have faced an upsurge of violence in Germany in the past five years, reports Evan Williams in his gripping documentary, Germany’s Neo-Nazis & The Far Right, which will be broadcast on the PBS network and on YouTube on Tuesday, June 29 at 10 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time). Williams, a […]
Regrettably, the lower chamber of Poland’s Parliament, the Sejm, is considering a bill to limit the ability of Jewish and non-Jewish claimants to seek restitution for property confiscated by the Nazis during the Holocaust and nationalized by the Communist regime during the postwar period. This mean-spirited bill sailed through the first of three readings last week and […]
Seventy three Democrats in the House of Representatives recently sent U.S. President Joe Biden a letter asking him to reverse his predecessor’s policy on Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians. Contending that Donald Trump’s Republican administration had abandoned the United States’ “longstanding, bipartisan” approach, the legislators affirmed their support for a two-state solution and urged Biden […]
President Joe Biden has been saying for months now that the United States’ return to the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement will be no simple matter. He is correct, of course. Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, rashly withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and then proceeded to impose almost 2,000 sanctions on Iran and launch a campaign […]
Lewis Milestone was a major figure in the Hollywood film industry during its golden era from the 1920s to the 1950s. One of its most imaginative and prolific directors, he churned out 38 films over a 37-year period from 1925 to 1962, amassing 28 Academy Award nominations and winning three Oscars. Several of his movies […]