The American comedian Gilda Radner died prematurely in 1989 at 42 when she succumbed to cancer. What a loss it was to the entertainment industry. She had so much more to contribute. Lisa D’Apolito’s biopic, Gilda, which opens in Toronto on September 21 at the Hot Docs Bloor Cinema, brings her back for an fleeting […]
The first genocide of the 20th century occurred not in Europe but in South West Africa (now Namibia), a colony that Germany had annexed in the early 1880s. Now, a debate has emerged regarding the genocide and its meaning within German 20th-century history, particularly the extent to which it can be seen as a precursor to […]
Twenty five years after it was signed in Washington, D.C. by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, the Oslo peace accord has crumbled and ground to a complete halt. Widely regarded as a diplomatic breakthrough signifying the beginning of the end of Israel’s protracted conflict with the Palestinians, it aroused great […]
Should a genocidal killer be held in esteem? Should a school be named after him? Should a plaque in his honor be permitted to remain in the library of a major educational institution? Of course not! And yet this is precisely what happened in Lithuania when Jonas Noreika — a Nazi collaborator and an arch […]
On September 9, the populist Sweden Democrats received 17.9 percent of the popular vote in the Swedish general election, and ended the day as the country’s third largest political party. In 2010, they entered the Riksdag, Sweden’s parliament, with 5.7 percent of the vote. In 2014, they got 12.9 percent. One of its founders had […]
In what can only be described as a petty act of petulance, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently recalled Israel’s ambassador in Paraguay and closed the Israeli embassy in Asuncion. He made these rash decisions after Paraguay, in a dramatic reversal, moved its embassy in Jerusalem back to Tel Aviv. “Israel views with the utmost gravity the […]
U.S. President Donald Trump’s much-vaunted Middle East peace plan, the “ultimate deal” to resolve Israel’s protracted conflict with the Palestinians, was supposed to be unveiled this summer. Keenly aware of this timeline, Trump’s representatives in charge of the peace process, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, began distributing a draft of the proposal. They may have […]
James Grover McDonald, the first U.S. ambassador to Israel, kept a diary from the moment he arrived in the Jewish state in 1948 until the day he finished his duties in 1951. An academic and a journalist, he was personally chosen for the post by President Harry Truman after Washington’s recognition of Israel. At first, […]
The International Judo Federation issued an important announcement on September 3, one that bodes well for Israeli athletes. The federation disclosed that Israelis will be able to compete on equal terms at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam in the United Arab Emirates on October 25-27. This is doubtless a step in the right direction. At last […]
This year marks the 100th anniversary of World War I battles in Palestine waged by the Jewish Legion. The story of the Legion, officially the 38th, 39th and 40th Battalions of the British Royal Fusiliers, began with two Russian-born Zionists, Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky and Josef Trumpledor. Jabotinsky, one of the leading Zionists in Russia at […]