Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, has a lot of explaining to do following a disturbing report indicating it sells white supremacist, neo-Nazi and antisemitic merchandise on its platforms. This can be very distressing for many, but imagine the people that make money through Amazon affiliate programs as well as use FBA to earn money […]
Pope Francis recently issued a decree recognizing the “heroic virtues” of Cardinal August Hlond, the Roman Catholic primate in Poland from the 1920s to the 1940s. It brought Hlond one step closer to sainthood, an exalted status he surely does not deserve. One of his foremost admirers, the Polish priest Boguslaw Koziol, is arguing his […]
Syria’s current offensive to recapture Daraa province from anti-regime rebels is giving Israel cause for concern. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began sending reinforcements to southwestern Syria in mid-May in a bid to stamp out the last embers of the rebellion there. On June 19, the Syrian army, assisted by Russian airpower, Iranian advisers, Hezbollah ground troops […]
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Three Identical Strangers
When Bobby Shafran began his first semester at an upstate New York community college nearly 40 years ago, he was greeted effusively by some students. The warm reception puzzled him, since he had never set foot on the campus. He soon learned he had been mistaken for another student, Edward (Eddy) Galland, who looked almost […]
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Mary Shelley
As the acclaimed author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (1797-1851) was the first science fiction novelist. Her transition from cloistered young woman to acclaimed writer is the subject of Haifaa Al Mansour’s appealing feature film, Mary Shelley, which opens in Canada on July 13. A period piece in terms of atmosphere and language, this evocative movie […]
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A Deadly Legacy
In one of the most iconic photographs of World War I, printed by the mass-circulation Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung in August 1914, a young German soldier mounted on a horse reaches down to two civilians to bid farewell as his cavalry battalion makes its way to the front from Berlin’s elegant Unter den Linden thoroughfare. Unbeknownst to readers […]
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Boundaries: A Hollywood Road Movie
Shana Feste’s Boundaries, which opens in Canada on July 6, falls back on an old Hollywood cliche to fairly good effect. She places three people in a car and sends them off on a road trip from Seattle to Los Angeles. The travellers are Laura (Vera Farmiga), a single mother struggling with financial problems; Henry […]
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Rise And Kill First
Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country whose very existence is challenged. Given its array of enemies, ranging from Iran and Hezbollah to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Israel has devised a policy of assassinating its foes. Since its founding 70 years ago, Israel has assassinated more people than any other Western nation. […]
I worked as a journalist in Washington, D.C. during the 1980s, but until I spoke at a conference here toward the end of June, I hadn’t been back since 1993. In his recently published book, War Beyond Words: Languages of Remembrance from the Great War to the Present, Yale University historian Jay Winter makes the […]
El Al, the Israeli flagship carrier, struck a blow for gender equality a few days ago when it announced it will no longer accommodate unjust and unreasonable demands by ultra-Orthodox Jews not to be seated next to women on flights. “Any discrimination by passengers is absolutely forbidden,” El Al chief executive officer Gonen Usishkin said […]