Canada, belatedly, has come clean. On the eve of the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the infamous nation-wide pogrom in Germany orchestrated by Adolf Hitler’s amoral Nazi regime, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued an apology concerning Canada’s callous and shameful refusal to grant asylum to hundreds of desperate German Jewish refugees. In a searingly honest and heartfelt […]
November 9 marks the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the pogrom ordered by Adolf Hitler in which more than 1,000 synagogues were set on fire or destroyed, and at least 91 Jews murdered, in more than 1,000 cities and towns across Germany. Most articles and books about Hitler deal with his antisemitism and military aggression. But Hitler […]
Like everyone else who watched his popular CNN television program, Parts Unknown, I was shocked by Anthony Bourdain’s suicide last June. Sadly, he was only 61. A celebrity chef of partial Jewish ancestry, he brought a palpable sense of joie de vivre to his vivid presentations. Whether in Burma, Canada, Israel, Spain, China or Thailand, he delved […]
The 40th edition of the Cairo International Film Festival, which will take place from November 20-29, made news recently by cancelling an award due to be given to the French Jewish movie director Claude Lelouch. Lelouch, whose film A Man and a Woman won the coveted Palme d’Or prize at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival, […]
When U.S. President Donald Trump visited the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh on October 30 to pay his respects to the 11 victims of the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history, he was greeted by only two well-wishers — the rabbi of the synagogue, Jeffery Myers, and Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron […]
Christian Petzold’s newest film, Transit, which opens at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox on November 9, is a meditation about exile, rootlessness and trauma. Petzold bends time itself to rework Anna Seghers’ 1944 novel about a German refugee in Paris who assumes another man’s identity to save himself from fascist barbarians marching toward the city. This […]
For the long-suffering Polish nation, which had lost its sovereignty by the end of the 18th century, the end of World War I entailed more than an end to the fighting. November 11, 1918, the date of the armistice that ended what was then called The Great War, also provided a promise to recreate a […]
Israel, a small country with precious few natural resources, has developed a remarkable culture of innovation that is the envy of nations. Thanks to its technological breakthroughs, Israel is helping to feed the hungry, making the desert bloom and curing the sick, among other stellar achievements. As a result, Israel has produced more start-up ventures than […]
Jonathan Weisman’s cri de coeur, Semitism: Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump (St. Martin’s Press), is unsettling. Published several months before 11 Jews were slaughtered by a crazed neo-Nazi in the Tree of Life Congregation massacre in Pittsburgh on October 27, it’s a polemic on the alt-right and antisemitism set against the […]
In 20 terrifying, blood-soaked minutes on the morning of October 27, a neo-Nazi lunatic filled with hatred of Jews went on a murderous rampage, leaving the Jewish community in Pittsburgh shaken to its core and traumatized. Brandishing an assault rifle and several handguns, and shouting antisemitic slurs like “all Jews must die,” Robert Bowers, a […]