By an overwhelming margin of eight to one, the Israeli Supreme Court has belatedly but boldly challenged the blatantly unfair monopoly the Orthodox rabbinate has held regarding officially recognized conversions in Israel. On March 1, Chief Justice Esther Hayut ruled that non-Jews who convert to Judaism in Israel through the Reform and Conservative streams of […]
I used to be a big sports fan, but nowadays I seldom follow sporting events. When I do watch sports on television, I tune in to the track and field program at the summer Olympic Games or to the World Cup, the championship of soccer. So when I read that Netflix was planning to broadcast […]
With the March 23 election in Israel looming, Merav Michaeli, the new leader of Israel’s once dominant Labor Party, is working to restore it to its former preeminence. “The Labor Party is back on its feet,” she said during a Zoom lecture on February 25 sponsored by the American Friends for Peace Now. “We’re at […]
Thousands of starry-eyed young European men joined the Islamic State organization after its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, proclaimed what would be his short-lived caliphate in Syria and Iraq in 2014. They were predominately Muslims, but some were Christian converts to Islam. Two of the recruits, Ferhat Keskin, a German Muslim, and Oliver N, an Austrian […]
An unknown number of feral dogs, possibly thousands, wander the streets, alleys, roads and parks of Istanbul, passing the time of day and night, searching for scraps of food, and looking for shelter and companionship. Such strays were once caught and euthanized by the Turkish authorities, but no more. Now they roam freely and multiply, […]
Philippe Falardeau’s empathetic coming-of-age drama, My Salinger Year, which opens on VOD platforms and in selected theatres on March 5, unfolds in mid-1990s New York City as an aspiring writer struggles to find her voice. The central character, Joanna (played by the bright and vivacious Margaret Qualley), is ambitious. She wants to write novels, travel […]
When World War II ended in May of 1945, several million displaced Europeans, ranging from forced laborers to prisoners of war, found themselves in Germany, which Allied bombing raids had devastated and which was now occupied by American, British and Soviet armies. The vast majority of the refugees were repatriated to their respective homelands in […]
Several days ago, Nazi war criminal Friedrich Karl Berger was deported to Germany from the United States, where he had lived quietly for the past 62 years. Now 95, he served as an armed guard at a sub-camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp near Meppen, Germany. Removed from his home in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, under the […]
It’s hard to believe that this has happened, but incredibly enough, an employee of Poland’s embassy in London has launched an online campaign to burnish the legacy of a Polish nationalist who promoted an alliance between Poland and Nazi Germany and worked to cleanse Poland of Jews. As shocking as it sounds, Agata Supinska is […]
Among Israel’s most ardent supporters in the United States are evangelical Christians, who, by one estimate, comprise something like a quarter of the American electorate. Socially and politically conservative, and profoundly steeped in biblical lore, they are staunch allies of Israel’s right-wing government. Highly supportive of the settlement project in the West Bank and dismissive […]