With yesterday’s passage of the first part of the Israeli government’s divisive proposal to overhaul the judiciary, Israel’s domestic crisis has ominously deepened, throwing Israel into its worst domestic crisis in decades. Not since the 1993 Oslo peace process and Israel’s 2005 unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip has Israel been so internally splintered and […]
Anthony Bourdain, the bestselling author and successful television host, hanged himself in a rustic hotel in Kaysersberg, France, on June 8, 2018 at the height of his fame. He was 61. At his death, he was in the midst of filming the latest episode of his immensely popular food and travel show, Parts Unknown, which […]
The Israeli historical drama, The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, is back for a second season on Netflix, and that’s good news. Based on a novel by Sarit Yishai-Levy, and unfolding in Hebrew, Ladino and English over 16 episodes, it is about the joys, disappointments and travails of a Sephardi family in Jerusalem during the British […]
With its recognition of Morocco’s territorial claim to the disputed Western Sahara region, Israel has taken a giant leap forward to consolidate its bilateral relations with that North African Arab nation. Israel officially recognized Morocco’s claim on July 17, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent King Mohammed VI a letter affirming Israel’s decision to “recognize […]
Judging by recent events, Israel’s alliance with the United States, its most important and enduring ally, has entered an unsettling period of turbulence. U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s divisive plan to overhaul Israel’s judicial system and has expressed public support for the mass demonstrations breaking out in Israel […]
Robert F. Kennedy, the attorney-general in John F. Kennedy’s administration and the victim of an assassination in 1968, must surely be spinning in his grave. Kennedy’s son, Robert Jr., a candidate running against President Joe Biden for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, claims that the coronavirus pandemic was “ethnically targeted” to spare Chinese and Jewish […]
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s two-day visit to Baku recently underscored Israel’s burgeoning ties with Azerbaijan, a secular Muslim state which shares a border with Iran, Israel’s arch enemy. Gallant arrived in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, on July 13 with the objective of upgrading Israel’s strategic relationship with Azerbaijan in such key sectors as security, diplomacy […]
Tensions along Israel’s tense border with Lebanon have been escalating of late. Over the past four months, Hezbollah — the Lebanese Shi’a militia which has repeatedly confronted Israel in armed clashes since its founding in the early 1980s — has grown increasingly bolder and dangerously overconfident. Hezbollah, a proxy of Iran and an ally of […]
Six months after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his intention to overhaul Israel’s judiciary, thereby setting off recurring nation-wide protests, the debate over his contentious and controversial plan is still boiling over furiously and has yet to be resolved by compromise. The ongoing turmoil has split the country into two warring camps. This does not […]
Thirty five years have passed since Crossing Delancey was released in the United States. A low-budget romantic comedy directed by the late Joan Micklin Silver, who died three years ago, it shot into cinematic fame after a succession of favorable reviews. Screened on the Turner Classic Movies channel recently, this likeable film, set in New […]