Maggie Smith, the British actress who portrays a prim and proper aristocrat in the popular series, Downton Abbey, transforms herself into a homeless person in The Lady in the Van, which opens in Canada on February 5. It’s quite an astonishing makeover. As Margaret Shepherd, a woman whose current circumstance are jarringly at odds with […]
The American ambassador to Israel and the secretary-general of the United Nations have both issued no-nonsense warnings regarding the pitfalls of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. Call them inconvenient truths. To no one’s surprise, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded harshly to their collective words of wisdom, thereby confirming the widely-held assumption that […]
David Kirshner, my loud, lively, gregarious, boisterous and unforgettable father, departed from this vale of tears in the early hours of January 20 as I slept soundly. The shattering news was conveyed to me, in the dead of winter, by my younger sister, Shirley, whose frantic message awoke me with a start. I was thus […]
Five years on, the Arab Spring has turned to winter, its bright hopes dashed in all but Tunisia, and the Arab world is worse off than ever. Egypt has come full circle, once again chafing under an authoritarian-military dictatorship, while Libya, Syria and Yemen have fared even worse, descending into chaos and civil war. […]
David Stoliar, the sole survivor of a shipwreck which graphically symbolized the world’s indifference to Jewish suffering during the Holocaust, has died. Stoliar, The New York Times reported on January 23, passed away in Bend, Oregon, on May 1, 2014. He was 91. I interviewed Stoliar in connection with the release of The Struma, a […]
The fifth anniversary of the seminal uprising in Egypt is upon us. On January 25, 2011, thousands of Egyptians from all walks of life converged on Cairo’s Tahrir Square to demand an end to autocracy, a staple in Egypt’s governance. “They weren’t merely trying to overthrow a despicable regime,” writes the American journalist Thanassis Cambanis […]
The late Mike Nichols was a man for all seasons. In an illustrious 50-year career, which ended with his death in 2014, he was an actor, comedian and movie director. Nichols, who was equally at home in theatre as in film, is the subject of a documentary scheduled to be broadcast by the PBS network […]
In the spring of 2001, George W. Bush, the then president of the United States, asked his friend, Robert W. Jordan, a Dallas lawyer, to be America’s 25th ambassador to Saudi Arabia, a major U.S. ally in the Middle East and an active participant in regional developments, its autocratic system of government and its intolerance of […]
A new phase in Iran’s often contentious relationship with the West unfolded a few days ago when the United States and European countries lifted economic sanctions against Iran. They were withdrawn following the release of a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency that the Iranian government had fulfilled its promise to curb its controversial […]
When it comes to women’s rights, Saudi Arabia is arguably the most repressive society on earth. Most of the kingdom’s subjects are members of the Wahhabi branch of Sunni Islam, often described as “ultraconservative” or “puritanical.” Known as Muwahhidun, they adhere to the strict Hanbali school of jurisprudence. This form of Islam particularly affects the position […]