Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, recently wrapped up a five-day visit to Japan which focused on economic, diplomatic and security issues. He and Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, agreed, among other things, to upgrade defence cooperation and bolster economic ties. It marked the first visit to Japan by an Israeli prime minister in more than […]
Pope Francis I was in the Middle East — Jordan, the Palestinian autonomous areas of the West Bank and Israel — on a pilgrimage this week. It was be his second trip outside Rome since becoming head of the Roman Catholic Church. To say that the church historically has had a contentious relationship with the Jewish […]
Russia, backed by China, vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution on May 22 that would have empowered the International Criminal Court in The Hague to investigate the terrible contagion of war crimes in Syria. This was Russia’s fourth veto of a Security Council resolution dealing with the Syrian civil war, which broke out three […]
Menachem Begin, the prime minister of Israel from 1977 to 1983, was a man of war and a man of peace, but above all else, he was an ideologue who stuck steadfastly to his beliefs. A Zionist Revisionist in the mould of his hero, Vladimir Jabotinsky, Begin devoted himself, body and soul, to the attainment […]
In 1913, in the most sensational trial of its kind until then, Menachem Mendel Beilis, a 39-year-old Jewish factory manager in Kiev, went on trial for ritual murder, a crime dredged from the twisted fantasies of Russian reactionaries. An international cause celebre, the trial confirmed once and for all that Czar Nicholas II’s autocratic regime […]
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, faces a May 28 deadline to form what has almost always eluded the Palestinian movement — a national unity government that can speak with one voice, particularly with respect to Israel. It’s a daunting challenge, since the Palestinians have only once capitalized on this opportunity. In March […]
What does aging businessman Murray Schwartz do when his old-school bookshop goes belly up? John Turturro’s comedy, Fading Gigolo, which opens in Toronto on May 23, provides the answer: Schwartz (Woody Allen), in a radical makeover, becomes a pimp. In Fading Gigolo, set in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg district, Schwartz and his long-time employee, Fioravante (Turturro), are […]
Last week, as day time temperatures in Toronto reached a balmy 18 degrees celsius, Denver was walloped by a freak snowstorm. I counted my blessings as I lounged on my sun deck and gazed contentedly at a clear blue sky. Admittedly, my deck didn’t do very well over winter and isn’t in the best condition. […]
Concert pianist and Holocaust survivor Alice Herz-Sommer was 110 when she died in London last February. She passed away only two days before the movie in which she appeared, The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life, won the Academy Award for best documentary in the short subject category. It’s a pity she couldn’t […]
As almost everyone who watches newscasts knows, Donald Sterling, the elderly and foolish billionaire who is owner of the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association, has become the object of intense – many would say excessive – media coverage. Sometimes it seems that the story is getting more airtime on American networks like […]