As Allied armies battered the Wehrmacht on all fronts toward the close of World War II, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler issued an order that all cultural artifacts the Nazis had looted from Jewish collectors, museums and churches should be destroyed. These ran the gamut from paintings and drawings to sculptures and illuminated manuscripts, all worth a […]
Holland, though remarkably small in size, has produced a stunning constellation of great painters from Frans Hals to Vincent van Gogh, both of whom have enriched the canvas of Western civilization. Some of their finest paintings and drawings are found in two museums in Amsterdam, Holland’s major city. The Van Gogh Museum has the distinction […]
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, dedicated to the proposition that Israel’s existence is illegitimate, has achieved a string of successes since its founding eleven years ago. It’s no longer a marginal group in the shadows struggling for recognition. Created by a coalition of non-governmental Palestinian organizations, it draws inspiration and strength from a BDS […]
Thirty six years have elapsed since the release of Michael Apted’s moving biopic, Coal Miner’s Daughter, starring Sissy Spacek as the American country singer Loretta Lynn. Spacek won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Lynn, whose rags-to-riches story evoked high emotion. Nearly four decades on, at the age of 83, Lynn — a member […]
The classic disaster movie, with its thrills and chills, is a perennial Hollywood staple. The Wave, directed by Roar Uthaug, comes to us from an unexpected source — Norway. Scheduled to open in Canada on March 4, it’s based on an actual incident in 1934 during which a Norwegian town was flooded and destroyed by […]
Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, the two “outsiders” contesting, respectively, the Republican and Democratic nominations for the American presidency, each seem to regard the two Roosevelt presidents as models. Trump is an economic nationalist who advocates a robust and nativist foreign policy — a platform very similar to that of President Theodore Roosevelt, the Republican […]
The Jewish-run tavern was an iconic feature of rural Poland for hundreds of years. “It was etched into the Polish landscape,” American scholar Glenn Dynner says. These taverns, which existed until the late 19th century, were centers of leisure, business and life-cycle events, even after Poland lost its independence and was reduced to a partitioned entity […]
The Toronto International Film Festival’s subscription series, Food on Film, will be back for a fifth season starting on March 2. Bringing together film fans, foodies and chefs, it will be hosted by author James Beard and culinary photographer Naomi Duguid. Fusing culinary themes with cinema and culture, it’ll present six screenings followed by discussions. Here’s […]
The name of the game in Auschwitz-Birkenau today is preservation, preservation, preservation. “I want to preserve its authenticity and humanity,” Piotr Cywinski, the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oswiecim, Poland, said in Toronto yesterday. Cywinski, who has been leading conservation efforts at the infamous Nazi camp since his appointment a decade ago, was […]
We live in an age of rampant terrorism, a grotesque phenomenon that manifests itself these days particularly in the Middle East. In countries such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Israel, terrorism has become pervasive, wiping out lives, destroying property and creating a climate of uncertainty and angst. With the rise of Al Qaeda and Islamic […]