African and Jewish Americans have been bound together in a deeply intertwined relationship despite their historical, religious and cultural differences and divergent priorities. Since the formation of the American republic more than two centuries ago, they have been mocked and feared as they have tried to tear down the walls of hatred and prejudice, says […]
Frederik Forsyth’s novel, The Odessa File, was an amalgam of fact and fiction. So is Ronald Neame’s eponymous feature film, which was adapted from Forsyth’s best-seller and released in 1974. A hard-hitting thriller, it is driven by several interlocking themes: Israel’s quest for survival. The Holocaust. The attempt by diehard Nazis to evade justice. The […]
Mundek Lukawiecki’s son, Simon, knew nothing about his father’s past until he was an adult. A survivor of the Holocaust in Poland, Lukawiecki did not talk about that horrendous period and acted as if the mass murder of Polish Jews had never even occurred. In 1993, Lukawiecki switched course, telling his story to Yad Vashem, […]
This was the moment Israel had been waiting for with profound anticipation. On January 26, the Israeli army announced that the remains of Ran Gvili, the last hostage in the Gaza Strip, had been found. With this momentous announcement, Israelis unburdened themselves of a trauma that had weighed on them for the past two years. […]
Elie Wiesel, the late Jewish novelist and human rights activist, was deeply affected by the Holocaust. He was personally traumatized by it and drew on its horrors as a writer. Oren Rudavsky’s documentary, Elie Wiesel: Soul On Fire, which is scheduled to be broadcast by the PBS network on Tuesday, January 27 at 9 p.m. […]
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is unyielding in his refusal to create a state commission of inquiry to investigate Hamas’ one-day invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023, the worst military and intelligence failure in Israel’s history. Claiming the lives of roughly 1,200 people and resulting in the abduction of 251 Israelis and foreign nationals, […]
Certain Polish nationalists were prepared to reach an accommodation with Nazi Germany, despite its record of atrocities in Poland. As might be recalled, six million Polish citizens, including three million Jews, perished during the six-year German occupation. The Israeli historian Yaacov Falkov meticulously documents the sporadic negotiations between the Polish government-in-exile in Britain and Germany […]
On June 18, 1941, Warner Bros. released Underground, an anti-Nazi propaganda movie designed to whip up animus against the fascist regime in Germany. It appeared in U.S. theatres shortly before the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union and six months before the United States abandoned its status as a neutral power and entered World War II […]
The arson fire that recently damaged Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, the oldest synagogue in the southern state of Mississippi, caught my attention. Jackson is not a common destination for Canadian tourists, but almost 16 years ago, my youngest daughter and I explored Mississippi during an intriguing one-week trip and spent a couple of days in […]
There was a discernible disconnect between U.S. President Donald Trump’s fiery rhetoric to intervene in Iran’s anti-government protests and his failure to act on his threats. According to Iran Human Rights, at least 3,428 Iranian protesters were killed and thousands were injured during the nation-wide demonstrations. Convulsing the country for about two weeks from December […]