With a deafening blast from its foghorn, the R.M.S. Segwun, North America’s oldest operating steamship, set off from its base in Gravenhurst, Ontario, for a serene two-hour cruise of Muskoka Bay and the broader expanses of Lake Muskoka. My wife and I were aboard as it left Gravenhurst’s historic Wharf district on a pleasant sunny […]
Polls suggest that a considerable proportion of Israeli Jews regard Barack Obama as antagonistic to Israel. Last winter, a survey released by Panels Politics in Tel Aviv ranked him as the “worst” U.S. president in 30 years by 63 percent of Jewish Israelis. Do they live in a parallel universe? As the facts suggest, Obama […]
Deep in the vast Amazon rainforest are Indians living primitive lives in complete isolation. Totally untouched by modernity, they resemble our Stone Age ancestors. According to experts, several thousand such Indians belonging to a multitude of tribes have yet to make contact with the outside world. Once in a blue moon, explorers report sightings of […]
Norman Oppenheimer, the main character in Israeli director Joseph Cedar’s first English-language film, Norman: The Moderate Rise And Tragic Fall Of A New York Fixer, is a man in motion. People think they know Norman, yet no one really knows him. He’s omnipresent, yet he’s elusive. Norman reminds a viewer of Jay Gatsby, the alluring and […]
It’s been 15 years since the infamous United Nations World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, known as Durban I, was held in the South African beach resort city of Durban from Aug. 31 to Sept. 8, 2001. It was chaired by then South African Foreign Minister Jacob Zuma, the country’s current […]
Emil Ben Shimon’s Hebrew-language movie, The Women’s Balcony, takes a viewer into a divided Sephardic Jewish community in Jerusalem. Premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival, it’s about tradition, friendship, faith and rebellion. The opening scene sets the tone. On a beautiful Saturday morning, with the rays of the sun glinting off beige stone buildings, […]
Jews in Canada live a charmed life. Living in a liberal democracy defined by such values as fairness, tolerance and inclusion, Jews have it good here, though Canada definitely has its share of bigots and racists. Before World War II, Canada was a far different country, a place where racism was depressingly common. Ira Robinson, […]
A two-day road trip which showcases the magnificent scenery and delectable gastronomic delights of southern France perks up Eleanor Coppola’s Paris Can Wait, which was screened at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival. This an old-school 1950s movie, and Coppola has resurrected it in style. Starring Diane Lane as the wife of a busy, penny-pinching […]
To put it bluntly, Holocaust denial is the stock-in-trade of antisemites. In their zeal to defame Jews, defend Nazi Germany and rehabilitate Adolf Hitler, they dredge up factually baseless arguments. Their claims are absurd: The number of Jewish victims was drastically inflated to benefit Jews and Israel. Jews succumbed to disease and were not murdered […]
If it were left to some Israeli generals, Israel and the Palestinians would be closer to bridging their differences and reaching a two-state solution, says American journalist J.J. Goldberg, the former editor-in-chief of the Forward, a major Jewish newspaper and website in the United States. Suggesting they’re far more pragmatic and realistic than Israeli Prime […]