By Joe Spier JERUSALEM– As I walk the grounds of Yad Vashem, I approach the Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles. At the entrance stand three plaques placed in an honored position. Raul Wallenberg, whose exploits in saving over 100,000 Jewish lives are well known, Irena Sendler, not so well known, saved 2,500 Jewish children from the […]
The village that saved the Jews Read More »
International, Jewish History, Middle EastBy Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — Life is full of strange coincidences. I first encountered the story of Charlotte Salomon about twenty years ago, when an exhibition of her work, a series of paintings with captions describing her life and entitled Life? Or Theatre? was held at the Royal Academy in London. It made
Artist Charlotte Salomon’s life told in free verse Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Jewish History
By Jerry Klinger July 18, 1947, in international waters off the coast of Sinai, a shadowing British battle fleet attacked an unarmed American Chesapeake Bay steamer, the President Warfield. They had been shadowing the lumbering vessel since she left Sete in France. A warning to stop and submit to boarding came from the light cruiser
In memory of a fallen hero from Exodus-47 Read More »
Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, Middle East, Obituaries & memorials, USAAUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU, Poland – A sombre and visibly moved Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wiped away tears several times Sunday as he paid his respects at the biggest and most notorious of the network of death camps run by the Nazis. Walking alongside Auschwitz survivor Nate Leipciger of Toronto and the President of the Montreal Board of
Emotional day as Trudeau pays respects at Auschwitz Read More »
International, Jewish History“The fiercest arguments we have in parliament are over Israel.” These words, spoken by the chairman of the Dutch Foreign Affairs Committee, startled me. But they failed to faze the other committee members from the both the left and right. On the contrary, they all readily agreed. In the end, only I displayed surprise. “Let
Europe’s Continuing Fixation on Jews Must Not Grip U.S. Read More »
International, Jewish History, Middle East, USAEfraim Zuroff has accomplished much in his long career, but there’s one thing he’s particularly proud of: He’s the most hated Jew in Lithuania. His Lithuanian friend Ruta Vanagaite agrees: She called him a “mammoth,” a “boogeyman” and the “ruiner of reputations”—and that’s just in the introduction to a book they co-authored. Last summer, in
The Last Nazi Hunter Read More »
International, Jewish HistoryBefore, During, and After the Holocaust—from Africa to Berlin to North Carolina (c) By Edwin Black In recent years, some in the African-American community have expressed a disconnect to Holocaust topics, seeing the genocide of Jews as someone else’s nightmare. After all, African-Americans are still struggling to achieve general recognition of the barbarity of the
Nazi Policy and Black Victims Read More »
Edwin Black, International, Jewish History, USAFORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (Press Release) — Corey Samuels’ journey to tell the story of her grandfather, Holocaust survivor Henry Oertelt recently culminated in an emotional donation of Oertelt’s personal belongings to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Oertelt had been liberated by General Patton’s Third Army during the Flossenburg death march in April 1945. He arrived in St. Paul, Minnesota, in
Family donates Survivor Henry Oertelt’s effects to Holocaust Museum Read More »
International, Jewish History, USABy Edwin Black After Hitler’s defeat in May 1945, many Nazis melted away from the Reich, smuggled out by such organizations as the infamous Odessa group andthe lesser-known Catholic lay network Intermarium, as well as the CIA and KGB. They ensured the continuation of the Nazi legacy in the postwar Arab world. Egypt was a prime
When Iraq expelled its Jews to Israel Read More »
Jewish History, Middle East
By Stanley Tiger SAN DIEGO–How does one mourn the passing of a prophet? Elie Wiesel was as close to a prophet as we can get in the modern world. It was not so much the winning of the Nobel Peace Prize that impressed me. It certainly put him on the map and made him a
Elie Wiesel was a modern day prophet Read More »
Jewish History, Obituaries & memorialsPresident Andrzej Duda on Monday pledged to fight racism and anti-Semitism 70 years after dozens of Polish Holocaust survivors were massacred in a brutal pogrom. “It’s the army and militia that opened fire first” on the Jewish inhabitants of the southern city of Kielce, Duda said during ceremonies marking the anniversary. He described the communist
Poland commemorates ‘bestial’ massacre of Holocaust survivors Read More »
International, Jewish HistoryThe great French writer Victor Hugo once said that “adversity makes men.” There is no one in the history of humanity for whom this is more true than the late great Elie Wiesel. The world has lost one of its premier moral voices. His early life was fashioned in darkness, but he brought light to
Three Things I Learned From Elie Wiesel Read More »
International, Jewish HistoryMiyuki Kita, an American Studies professor at the University of Kitakyushu in southern Japan, has focused her entire academic career on Jewish political activism in the United States. Her town has no Jewish community. “Japanese students know only Martin Luther King, Jr., and regard him as the only hero of the civil rights movement,” said
Students learn about Jewish civil rights activism — in Japan Read More »
International, Jewish History, USABy Rabbi Ben Kamin OCEANSIDE, California — We met more than once and even exchanged some letters in handwritten Hebrew. This was because he was eminently approachable and unimpressed with his fame. But it was our very first encounter that immediately came to mind when the news came of the death of Elie Wiesel—the poet
The first time Wiesel smiled after the Holocaust Read More »
International, Jewish History