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Commentary

Jesse Jackson: A Flawed Fighter For Justice And Equality

Jesse Jackson, the American civil rights leader who died on February 17 at the age of 84, had a mercurial relationship with the Jewish community in the United States. An ordained Baptist minister who was born and came of age when segregation and Jim Crow laws and regulations oppressed African Americans, he was a protege […]

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Commentary

Trump Has Crossed A Red Line

Being the president of the United States, the world’s preeminent superpower, Donald Trump acts as if he can arbitrarily impose his views or diktats on whatever nation he fancies. Since his inaugural more than a year ago, he has pressured Canada to relinquish its sovereignty and join the American union as the 51st state and […]

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Television

Field Agent 566

Eli Cohen has been a household name in Israel for decades. Sixty one years after his execution in Damascus, he is remembered as probably the greatest spy who ever worked for the Mossad, Israel’s external intelligence agency. Cohen arrived in Syria, Israel’s virulently hostile neighbor, in 1962 under cover as a Syrian Arab emigre from […]

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Middle East

Trump Is Keeping His Options Open Regarding Iran

Donald Trump is engaged in a guessing game with respect to Iran. Since Iran’s brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters last month, the American president has spoken out from both sides of his mouth about an issue that could well trigger a war in the Middle East. While he has threatened to attack Iran, he has […]

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Books

Philip Roth: Stung By Life

Philip Roth, the late Jewish American novelist and short story writer, was consumed by four related topics — the Jewish community, Israel, the Holocaust and antisemitism. His interlocking  preoccupations were reflected in his breakout novella, Goodbye, Columbus And Five Short Stories and in intense novels such as The Counterlife, Operation Shylock and The Plot Against […]

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Commentary

Canada Should Release The Final Nazi War Criminals Report

It is long past time for the Canadian government to release the final report of the Commission of Inquiry On War Criminals In Canada. The commission, whose mandate was to deal with the explosive issue of suspected Nazi war criminals admitted into Canada, was chaired by Jules Deschenes, a retired Quebec Superior Court judge. He […]

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Middle East

Iran And The U.S. May Be On A Collision Course

The first set of talks between the United States and Iran in nearly a year took place in Oman on February 6 amid mutual mistrust and fears that diplomacy may fail and give way to a renewal of war in the Middle East. Last June, Israel attacked its arch enemy, Iran, bombing its nuclear and […]

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Commentary

JD Vance Creates Unease In The American Jewish Community

Controversial comments by U.S. Vice President JD Vance have set off ripples of unease in the American Jewish community. Vance, a friend of Tucker Carlson — a conservative podcaster  who has been accused of dabbling in antisemitism — has conveyed the impression that he tolerates antisemites in the isolationist “Make America Great Again” wing of […]

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Books

Bernie For Burlington

At the ripe old age of 84, the political war horse Bernie Sanders is still going strong. The longest serving independent in U.S. congressional history, he has been fixture in American politics since the early 1980s. He was mayor of Burlington, the biggest city in the state of Vermont, from 1981 to 1989. He was […]

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Commentary

West Bank Settler Violence Is On The Upswing

Jewish settler violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is on the upswing, and Israel is doing virtually nothing to stop it. The attacks have occurred on almost a daily basis, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing nationalist government has taken scarcely any steps to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators. The Institute for National […]