The legalization of cannabis in Western countries may well have inspired the creation of the six-part French-language comedy series, Family Business, which is now available on the Netflix streaming network. The plot is very current. The Hazans operate a modest kosher butcher shop in the Marais, a once heavily Jewish-populated neighborhood in Paris. It’s a […]
Israel’s bilateral relationship with Russia today is generally cordial. Certainly, it is far better than it was during the Cold War, when Russia unilaterally severed diplomatic relations with Israel twice, first in 1953 and then during the 1967 Six Day War. Nonetheless, given Russia’s close ties with Israel’s arch enemies, Syria and Iran, Israel must […]
It would seem that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the heir to the Saudi throne, has gotten away with murder. Nine months after reportedly ordering the assassination of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey, an unusually grisly killing that shocked even hardened observers, Prince Mohammed, the de-facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, is back on […]
In this age of female empowerment, Tracy Edwards is a shining role model. Thirty years ago, Edwards had the distinction of being the first women to skipper a boat in the gruelling Whitbread Round-the-World Yacht Race (which has since been renamed the Volvo Ocean Race). She was 26, a slip of a girl, when she […]
Petra was on my mind. This fantastical archaeological site in southwest Jordan, set amid a remote, desolate and brooding sandstone mountain range 900 meters above sea level, had captured my imagination. I had read about Petra in history books, watched documentaries about it, and seen tantalizing glimpses of it in Steven Spielberg’s adventure movie, Indiana Jones […]
James Fields Jr., 22, is a murderer who richly deserves to pay the penalty for his crime. Two years ago in August, during a white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, he deliberately drove his car into a crowd of racially diverse counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal, and injuring many other […]
The American Library Association passed a commendable but long overdue resolution at its convention in Washington, D.C. last week by voting to remove Melvil Dewey’s name from its most prestigious professional award, the Melvil Dewey Medal. It is given to a recipient who has demonstrated “creative leadership of a high order” in fields ranging from library […]
Imagine a wedding without a bride or a bridegroom. The two-day “Peace to Prosperity” workshop in Bahrain, which took place in Manama from June 25-26, pretty much conformed to this scenario. Designed to promote the economic benefits of a peace agreement between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, […]
In an unprecedented tripartite summit, the national security advisors of Israel, the United States and Russia — Meir Ben-Shabbat, John Bolton and Nikolai Patrushev — conferred in Jerusalem on June 25 to discuss some of the key problems that afflict the Middle East today and roil their respective bilateral relations. Topping the agenda were a […]
The glory that was ancient Greece and Rome reveals itself in the ruins of Jerash, the largest Greco-Roman archeological site in Jordan. Forty eight kilometres north of Amman, Jordan’s capital, Jerash was founded as a Greek city by Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC and was conquered by the Romans in 63 BC. […]