It was indeed a “sad day” for Israel, as Ehud Olmert himself murmured after a judge in Tel Aviv’s district court sentenced him to six years imprisonment on charges of corruption. Olmert now has the dubious distinction of being the first former Israeli prime minister to be saddled with the indignity of a criminal record. […]
When Germany entered World War I a century ago this summer, millions of Germans saw them off in a burst of patriotism, assuming that a great victory was imminent. Swept up by the nationalist fervour, 100,000 German Jewish men joined the ranks of the armed forces. Of these, 80,000 served on the front lines and almost […]
In 1878, a master brewer in the eastern German city of Erfurt named Johann Andreas Topf founded Topf & Sons, a respectable company that would become the world’s leading manufacturer of malting equipment for the beer industry. Thirty six years later, Topf diversified its operations, introducing a line of crematorium furnaces. The new product would […]
A rebellious French girl on the cusp of womanhood blatantly defies middle-class norms and conventions in Francois Ozon’s provocative movie, Young & Beautiful, scheduled to open in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver on May 16. This erotically-charged French film unfolds over the four seasons of a year as Isabelle (Marine Vacth), an attractive high school student, […]
Cornelius Gurlitt, the reclusive German art collector whose father acquired a treasure trove of 19th and 20th century European master works under questionable circumstances during the Nazi era, passed away in Munich on May 5. He was 81 and had been suffering from a heart ailment. Gurlitt’s death closes a chapter in the history of […]
The late George Plimpton (1927-2003) was a Renaissance Man — a writer, editor, athlete and actor. One of the founders of The Paris Review, as well as a successful sports writer, he’s the subject of Plimpton, a PBS biopic due to be broadcast on Friday, May 16 at 9 p.m. as part of its acclaimed American […]
Montreal documentarian Abbey Jack Neidik is a secular Jew, but he can see the wisdom of the ages in traditional Judaism. This attitude works itself deeply into his latest documentary, Shekinah: The Intimate Life of Hasidic Women, which is coming to Toronto next week. Neidik’s film — which will be screened at the Carlton Cinema […]
As Syrians slaughter each other in an increasingly vicious civil war whose death toll now exceeds 150,000 and whose outcome is still uncertain, Israel is straining to remain aloof from that conflict. Israel’s policy of neutrality was succinctly summed up by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last June: “Israel is not interested in intervening, as long […]
At the behest of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1,600 scientists from Germany were brought to the United States in a secret operation from 1945 to 1952. With the Cold War heating up, their expertise in such fields as rocketry, biological and chemical weapons, aviation and space medicine was highly valued by the American […]
Thousands of books have been published about World War II, but Lizzie Collingham’s book, The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food (Penguin), is unique. As far as I know, it’s the first that examines the role food played in that protracted conflict. Collingham’s topic, often overlooked by historians, is extremely […]