With the passing of Shimon Peres on September 28, Israel has lost the last of its major founding fathers. Peres, who was 93, had a career in public service that spanned more than six decades. He held almost every senior post in Israeli politics, including those of prime minister, foreign minister, defence minister, finance minister […]
Tens of thousands of foreign jihadists have flocked to the Middle East to fight forIslamic State, which also known goes under the name of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. By all estimates, 60 to 150 of its recruits have been Canadian citizens, a somber fact that emerges in Mark Bourrie’s The Killing Game: Martyrdom, […]
I was surprised to read recently that China has cracked down on the minuscule Jewish community of Kaifeng. Historically, China has been a haven for Jews and one of the very few countries that has been free of antisemitism. As part of President Xi Jinping’s campaign against unapproved religious faiths and foreign influence, the Chinese […]
The late Assi Dayan was a chartered member of Israel’s secular cultural elite, but in David Volach’s meloncholic My Father My Lord, he plays David Eidelman, a deeply pious Israeli Orthodox rabbi who’s dealing with the emotional fallout of a personal tragedy. In the first scene of the film, scheduled to be presented by the Toronto […]
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, […]