Dramatic reunions are the stock-in-trade of We’ll Meet Again, the PBS series hosted by Ann Curry. In the latest installment, Surviving the Holocaust, which will be broadcast on Tuesday, November 20 at 8 p.m. (check local listings), two Jewish men discover the power of friendship. Benjamin Lesser, a Polish Jew from Krakow, is a survivor […]
For as long as I’ve been teaching university courses on nationalism, the literature in the field has contrasted civic and ethnic nationalism. The former was seen as liberal and inclusive, while the latter, in which sovereignty was based on ethnic self-determination, was viewed somewhat suspiciously. It had, some felt, the potential of veering off into […]
Is there a child who has not read the books of the late British author Roald Dahl? Talented and prolific, he wrote such classics as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Witches, both of which were read by millions of children, including my two daughters. Dahl’s books, having been translated into numerous languages, have […]
World War I was, without a doubt, the costliest mistake ever made by international leaders. It dragged on for four years and cost some 16 million lives. It also destroyed the European political order, bringing four dynasties to their knees, as the Austro-Hungarian, German, and tsarist Russian empires all collapsed, along with the Ottoman Empire. […]
The founder of the modern Turkish state, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, died eight decades ago, on November 10, 1938. But is his legacy now being buried alongside him in his Ankara mausoleum? Ataturk, known originally as Mustafa Kemal, built the Turkish Republic on the ruins of the decayed Ottoman Empire, which was defeated and stripped of […]
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, […]