Is Russia running out of patience with Israel’s ongoing air campaign in Syria? Is Russia planning to curb them? These questions bubbled to the surface late last month after two related developments. First, the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, citing a “well-informed” Russian source, claimed that Russia is planning a shift in its current policy […]
The German word “zeitgeist” denotes the spirit of an era and could easily apply to Nazi Germany’s genocidal project to exterminate European Jews during the Holocaust. In just six short years, from 1939 to 1945, the deranged leaders of what had been a cultured and civilized country embarked on an unprecedented campaign of ethnic cleansing […]
Alfred Ker, the prominent German Jewish theater critic and essayist, was hounded out of Germany after the rise of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime. He never returned, migrating from one country to the next with his family and living out the rest of his life in Britain, his adopted homeland. Ker’s daughter, Judith Kerr, became a […]
Ty Roberts’ 12 Mighty Orphans, which opens in Canada on August 6, is an uplifting account of triumph over adversity. Inspired by true events, and taking place in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1938, it reaffirms the adage that a lot can be wrung from little. A football coach arrives at an orphanage and, against all odds, […]
We’ve reached a critical point in the global battle to obliterate the coronavirus pandemic, which has so far killed about four million people, battered national economies, and upended lives on a monumental and frightening scale. Hundreds of millions of people have done their duty and submitted to vaccinations. But far too many steadfastly refuse to […]
Most Jews in Russia after the 1917 communist revolution were anti-Bolshevik. But within two years of that historic upheaval, which transformed tsarist Russia into the Soviet Union, the majority of Russian Jews had flocked into the Bolshevik camp. At the root of this transformation were the 1,500 pogroms unleashed by the Russian civil war from […]
The Algerian judoka Fethi Nourine and his coach, Amar Benikhlef, should be expelled at once from the International Judo Federation after their insulting behavior on the first day of the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Nourine withdrew from the under-73 kilogram event when he learned that his opponent would be Tohar Butbul, an Israeli. In line […]
Julia Haart, formerly known as Julia Hendler, is at the core of My Unorthodox Life, a new nine-part Netflix reality series. Haart, 50, is a success story, one of the founders and the co-owner of the Manhattan-based Elite World Group, a global modelling and talent agency. A liberated women today, she once lived a cloistered […]
The Tokyo Olympic Games began with the usual flourishes, but the abrupt dismissal of Kentaro Kobayashi as the creative director of its opening ceremony lends some credence to the theory that it may be jinxed. Kobayashi was sacked on July 22, only one day before the start of the summer Games, after a disturbing video emerged in […]
A classic of the Israeli cinema, Eran Riklis’ Cup Final is still as fresh and relevant as it was in 1991, the year of its release to critical acclaim. Currently being presented online by the Toronto Jewish Film Foundation, Cup Final is a reference to the much anticipated World Cup match that would determine the […]