This autumn marks a quarter-century since the demise of the Communist dictatorships in central and eastern Europe. It all began on Sept. 11, 1989, when Hungary, which had opened its border with Austria four months earlier, gave permission for thousands of East Germans who had arrived on “vacations” to leave the country, in order to […]
Syria is the new Afghanistan. Following the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in 1979, thousands of foreign volunteers, many of them Muslims from the Arab world, streamed into that country to join American and Saudi-backed fighters battling the Red army. Three decades on, a similar phenomenon is unfolding in Syria as foreigners, mainly […]
Tranquility has belatedly returned to southern Israel and the Gaza Strip now that the Israeli government and Hamas have begun observing an open-ended Egyptian cease fire plan that went into effect on Aug. 26. In other words, we’re back to square one — to the situation that prevailed before the eruption of fullscale war on […]
There are countries that are known to punch above their weight. For better or worse, one of these of late has been the Gulf state of Qatar. A tiny country of 11,571 square kilometers jutting out from the Arabian peninsula into the Persian Gulf, its only land neighbor is Saudi Arabia. Most of its population is […]
If you liked the American television series Homeland, you’ll most probably like Prisoners of War, the Israeli version upon which it was based. Gideon Raff’s Prisoners of War, Israel’s highest rated TV drama of all time, has won nine Israeli Academy of Film & Television Awards over two seasons. It’s popularity stems from a strong […]
The Polish philosopher Jozef Tischner wrote, “When reflected in a crooked mirror, the face of a neighbor is distorted. The neighbor is always worse than we can imagine, he is false, treacherous, evil.” Tischner’s observations may be applied to Louise Steinman, an American Jew of Polish descent for whom Poland was “a black hole, a […]
U.S. President Barack Obama finds himself on the sharp horns of a dilemma following the barbaric beheading of James Foley, an American freelance journalist, on Aug. 19. Foley was the second American reporter since Daniel Pearl to be killed by crazed Islamic radicals. Foley was murdered by Islamic State, an extremist, bloodthirsty outfit bent on […]
Israel and Hamas have resumed fighting, having rejected each other’s irreconcilable demands at fruitless talks in Cairo under the auspices of Egypt. On Aug. 19, eight hours before the latest truce was to have expired, gunmen in the Gaza Strip fired rockets into Israel. In response, the Israeli and Palestinian delegations left Cairo, while Israel […]
It’s hard to believe that American universities, supposedly the havens of enlightenment, were once the nests of bigotry. But that’s exactly the point of Antisemitism on the Campus: Past & Present, published by Academic Studies Press. The first volume of a multidisciplinary series on antisemitism in the United States, this book of 21 essays, edited […]
A lush, palm-fringed island in the southern Indian state of Kerala, Fort Cochin is a cosmopolitan blend of cultures and an oasis of calm. Inhabited by Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Jews, it’s a mirror image of India’s rainbow of ethnic and religious groups. Part of greater Cochin, or Kochi, Fort Cochin faces the Arabian Sea […]