Turkey was plunged into chaos on July 15 after a faction within the Turkish armed forces calling itself the “Peace at Home Council” launched a coup. Tanks were deployed in major cities, Turkish airspace was closed and international flights were suspended. More than 160 civilians were killed and 1,440 wounded. The authorities said 104 suspected coup-plotters had […]
Sizing up the Iran nuclear agreement on its first anniversary on July 14, U.S. President Barack Obama said it had “succeeded in rolling back Iran’s nuclear program (and) avoiding further conflict.” Sticking to the same theme, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the landmark accord, signed by Iran and six major powers in Vienna, has […]
Bad Reichenhall, a neat and attractive town in southern Germany, is ringed by the crystalline Bavarian Alps. It’s surely one of the most beautiful places in Europe. I was born here after the most destructive war in history. A destination which attracted more than one million visitors last year, it draws nature buffs, mountain climbers, […]
Judging by Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry’s surprise visit to Israel a few days ago, Egypt has begun playing a more active diplomatic role in the virtually impossible quest to settle Israel’s perennial conflict with the Palestinians. Shoukry, the first Egyptian foreign minister to set foot on Israeli soil in nine years, held intensive talks […]
Hirokazu Koreeda’s serene and affecting Japanese film, Our Little Sister, which opens in Canada on July 22, focuses on three sisters who yearn for a sense of family and find it, remarkably enough, after meeting their younger step-sister. The Koda sisters, all in their 20s and single, live in their late grandmother’s rustic cottage in a […]
It was like a bolt out of the blue. Ten years ago this month, the Second Lebanon War erupted, catching Israelis and Israel’s political and military leadership by surprise. The Lebanese border region had been fairly quiet until then, but on July 12, 2006, it exploded in fury, enveloping Israel in a 34-day war with […]
Its awkward title notwithstanding, NSU German History X, a new Netflix original drama, is addictively compelling. Unfolding in German, with English sub-titles, this three-part series deconstructs the rise and fall of the National Socialist Underground, a neo-Nazi terrorist organization in Germany which murdered eight Turkish German citizens and one Greek immigrant between 2000 and 2006. […]
The death of Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel recently signified not only the passing of a distinguished novelist but the passing of another Holocaust survivor. Six million European Jews perished during the Holocaust, a meticulously organized and unprecedented campaign of genocide conceived by the Nazi regime and implemented by Germany and its allies and accomplices […]
Seventy years ago this month, Poland was shaken by the worst pogrom in postwar Europe. In an outburst of antisemitic violence, 42 Polish Jews were killed by a mob in the southeastern city of Kielce, touching off the departure of tens of thousands of Jews from Poland and staining Poland’s international image. This week, Poles […]
Donald Trump’s suitability as a candidate for the highest office in the land has been called into question yet again. Trump, whose bluster and demagoguery have manifested themselves time and time again during this divisive U.S. presidential campaign, posted an inflammatory image on Twitter recently that brings to mind classical antisemitic tropes about Jews. In […]