Categories
Commentary

Valerie Really Messed Up

Yes, Valerie, you really screwed up. Big time. Your profuse apologies, masking stupidity, have been duly noted. What impelled you, a self-styled progressive and supporter of the Democratic Party, to retweet a despicable link that veered into the swamp of antisemitism? The writer whose link you foolishly retweeted accused American Jews of being a driving […]

Categories
Film

Rebel In The Rye

Jerome David Salinger’s iconic novel about adolescent angst and alienation, The Catcher in the Rye, has sold 65 million copies in 30 countries since its publication in 1951. Acclaimed as a masterpiece of American literature, it catapulted its author to fame, a status he categorically rejected as he withdrew  from the limelight. Having moved from […]

Categories
Film

Loving Vincent (Van Gogh) Is Visually Stunning

Six years in the making, Loving Vincent expands the boundaries of filmmaking.  Shot as a live-action movie with actors and then hand-painted, frame by frame, by a team of 125 artists, this is an animated drama of uncommon vitality and creativity. Scheduled to open in Toronto on October 6, it’s a visually stunning and innovative production […]

Categories
Guest Voices

A “Second Israel” In The Middle East

In the recent Kurdish referendum on independence, the citizens of the Kurdish autonomous region of northern Iraq, to no one’s surprise, voted overwhelmingly, at 91.83 percent,  to create a sovereign state. In the run-up to the vote, opponents of the move tried to smear the Kurds by claiming they were, in effect, in the pay […]

Categories
Travel

Romance of Aviation Evoked At Florida Theme Parks

The history and romance of aviation are evoked at two tourist-friendly facilities in Florida — Fantasy of Flight in Polk City and the Florida Air Museum in neighboring Lakeland. Fantasy of Flight, near Disney World in Orlando, possesses the world’ largest collection of vintage aircraft and enables visitors to experience biplane and hot air balloon […]

Categories
Commentary

The Fate of Raoul Wallenberg

Raoul Wallenberg, the Swede who saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, was officially declared dead by Sweden in 2016. But 72 years after he vanished into thin air, the circumstances of his disappearance and the precise date of his death are still a mystery, much to his family’s anguish and frustration. Wallenberg […]

Categories
Television

The Eichmann Show

The trial of Adolf Eichmann in Israel in 1961 was an historic event. For the first and only time, a major Nazi war criminal would face justice in the Jewish state. Recognizing its importance, the international media sent correspondents to cover it. Israel considered the possibility of filming the trial for posterity, but there was one […]

Categories
Television

The Vietnam War: An Excellent PBS Series

The Vietnam War was my war, so to speak. Let me explain. As it inexorably escalated from an insurgency in the 1950s into a full-blown conflict in the 1960s, prompting anti-war protests in the United States and other countries, I watched it unfold from the safety of my home in Montreal. I read David Halberstam’s […]

Categories
Middle East

Trump Could Walk Away From The Iran Nuclear Accord

The Iran nuclear agreement, the object of Donald Trump’s withering wrath, could well be in jeopardy. The U.S. president has denigrated the accord, signed by Iran and six major powers in Geneva in the summer of 2015, as “one of the worst deals I’ve ever seen.” Furthermore, he has threatened to abandon it unless it is […]

Categories
Middle East

Haredi Jews Should Serve In Israeli Military

Draft- dodging seems to come naturally to the ultra-Orthodox, or haredi, community in Israel. While tens of thousands of new recruits are called up annually to do their national service, risking life and limb to protect their fellow citizens, the vast majority of able-bodied haredi men shamelessly shirk their duty, claiming that their Torah studies […]