Avi Shlaim’s intriguing, ideologically-driven book, Three Worlds: Memoirs Of An Arab Jew (OneWorld), is a bitter-sweet autobiography of an accomplished Iraqi Jew who left his homeland under duress, an impassioned look back at Iraq’s lost Jewish community, and a stinging critique of Zionism and Israel. He acknowledges that this is a “revisionist tract,” a “challenge […]
Four million Jews were murdered in German extermination camps or succumbed to hunger and disease in Nazi ghettos during the Holocaust. A further two million Jews were killed by German firing squads, mainly in the Soviet Union and Poland. The cold-blooded shooters belonged to Einsatzgruppen mobile killing units and some 130 police battalions. Their overarching […]
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau waited nearly a week before releasing a belated apology for the horrendous and avoidable mixup that brought shame to Canada, resulted in the resignation of the Speaker of Parliament, and presumably embarrassed Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s first Jewish head of state and a Jew whose relatives were murdered during […]
The second season of Zeynap Gunay’s melodrama, The Club, which is now available on Netflix, tends to be melancholic. But in the tenth and final episode, the gloom dissipates and the light shines in. The main characters in this Turkish production, set in Istanbul in the late 1950s and 1960, are: Matilda (Gokce Bahadir), an […]
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s recent visit to Canada was terribly marred by a shameful and embarrassing incident that was clearly avoidable and that should never have taken place. During Zelensky’s appearance in the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa, the Speaker of the House of Commons, Anthony Rota, introduced a special guest. He was Yaroslav Hunka, a […]
Nearly 25 years have elapsed since a seminal conference in Washington dealt with the greatest cultural robbery of the 20th century. Prior to and during World War II, Nazi Germany went on a systematic rampage, looting paintings, drawings, sculptures, books and religious items from their rightful Jewish owners. The Nazis forced them to sell these […]
Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman made a remarkable disclosure a few days ago when he told Fox News that Saudi Arabia and Israel are moving “closer” each day to a historic normalization agreement. Salman, the de facto ruler of the oil-rich desert kingdom, issued this encouraging comment following an interview with the Atlantic magazine […]
Donald Trump, the former president of the United States and the current frontrunner for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, is peddling incendiary and dangerous rhetoric about American Jewish voters. On his Truth Social website on September 17, he posted a Rosh Hashanah greeting that was both self-congratulatory and unsettling. Under his portrait and against the […]
It is abundantly clear that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intention to radically overhaul the judiciary, a highly contentious and divisive proposal that has sparked months of nation-wide protests and exposed deep political and social rifts in Israeli society, has adversely affected the armed forces and emboldened Israel’s external enemies. In recent weeks, senior military intelligence […]
Randol (Randy) Schoenberg’s obsessive quest to plumb the depths of his family’s history led him and his son on a journey of discovery in Europe. Their eye-opening trip is the subject of Matthew Mishory’s absorbing documentary, Fioretta, which will be screened in its world premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival on September 30. Shortly afterward, […]