Israel turned a new leaf on June 13 as Naftali Bennett supplanted Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister. This will be the first government in 12 years not led by Netanyahu, who was Israel’s longest serving prime minister. The Knesset approved the new government by a margin of 60 to 59, with one abstention, thereby ending […]
Germany’s invasion of western Poland on September 1, 1939 was matched by the Soviet Union’s conquest of eastern Poland 16 days later, as per their non-aggression pact to partition the country, signed on the eve of World War II. Germany violated the agreement in June 1941, conquering the rest of Poland en route to invading […]
Ed Holder, the mayor of London, Ontario, called it a crime “rooted in unspeakable hatred.” He was referring to the deadly hit-and-run incident on June 6 during which a 20-year-old local man intentionally drove his pickup truck into a Pakistani Muslim family out on a stroll. In one fell swoop, three generations of a single […]
He was a bootlegger, racketeer, gambler, murderer and casino operator. Active through the 1920s, 1930s and much of the 1940s, Benjamin (Bugsy) Siegel was a notorious Jewish gangster. A close associate of the hoodlums Meyer Lansky and Charles (Lucky) Luciano, he was a principal in the Syndicate, an amalgam of Italian, Irish and Jewish mobsters […]
With the end of Benjamin Netanyahu’s premiership fast approaching, several of his allies in Israel and abroad have engaged in what Prime Minister-designate Naftali Bennett has aptly described as “hysterical outbursts.” Aryeh Deri, the leader of the Shas Party, has claimed that the incoming government will endanger Israel. Moshe Gafni, the head of the United […]
Benjamin Netanyahu is laboring under a grand delusion. Having failed to form yet another right-wing government, he cannot come to grips with the “sacrilegious” notion that a rival, namely Naftali Bennett of the far right-wing Yamina Party, may soon replace him. Netanyahu is so delusional and so self-centred that he cannot imagine Bennett, or anyone […]
As colonial secretary in British Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s government from 1919 to 1922, Winston Churchill exerted considerable influence in moulding the Middle East. He was instrumental in laying the foundations of Iraq and Transjordan, the future Hashemite kingdom of Jordan. And in line with the seminal 1917 Balfour Declaration, he supported the establishment […]
Dror Moreh’s intensely engaging documentary, The Human Factor, bores into the decade-long period from 1990 until 2000, when the possibility of a peace agreement between Israel and its Arab neighbors seemed attainable. In his 108 minute film, which will be available on VOD platforms later this year, he focuses on Israel’s negotiations with the Palestinians […]
Benjamin Netanyahu’s unprecedented 15-year reign as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister is ending. On June 2, Netanyahu’s adversaries informed President Reuven Rivlin they had agreed to form a new coalition to supplant his right-wing government. The two leading figures in the so-called “change bloc” are Yair Lapid, 57, the leader of the centrist Yesh Atid Party, […]
Michael Igor Peschkowsky, a young Jewish immigrant from Nazi Germany, transformed himself into Mike Nichols in the United States. He became a struggling actor, an acclaimed standup comedian and a celebrated movie, theater and television director. Mark Harris, in his thorough biography, Mike Nichols: A life (Penguin Press), traces the trajectory of his luminous career. Born […]