Jewish History

Argentina seeks extradition of Iranian over AMIA bombing

Argentina on Wednesday asked Singapore and Malaysia Wednesday to extradite a former Iranian foreign minister whom it accuses of involvement in a 1994 bombing that killed 85 people at a Jewish community center, AFP reports. An investigating judge issued the request after learning that Ali Akbar Velayati, who is on the Interpol wanted list, was

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International, Jewish History

David Lee Preston: Will the GOP show principles, progress this week?

I’m following the Republican National Convention this week in Cleveland with particular interest, partly because I am a child of Holocaust survivors, and partly because of my relationships with two men who are no longer among us. One is Elie Wiesel, the Nobel laureate who died July 2, who famously beseeched President Ronald Reagan not

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Jewish History, USA

UNESCO hearing on ‘offensive’ Temple Mount resolution delayed

A series of controversial proposals being weighed by the United Nation”s Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) have been shelved yet again, following the terror attack in southern France and attempted coup in Turkey over the weekend. The current UNESCO session, which was meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, was ended early following disruptions caused by the

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Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Middle East

Alternative Jewish histories: Fun, instructive

What Ifs of Jewish History: From Abraham to Zionism edited by Gavriel D. Rosenfeld; (c) 2016 Cambridge University Press; ISBN 978110-7037625; 406 pages including notes and index; $34.99 hardback. By Mitchell J. Freedman POWAY, California –Counterfactuals or alternative histories remain controversial among historians mostly because it is an area where Literature with a capital L

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Jewish History

Artist Charlotte Salomon’s life told in free verse

By 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

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Jewish History

In memory of a fallen hero from Exodus-47

  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

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Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, Middle East, Obituaries & memorials, USA

Europe’s Continuing Fixation on Jews Must Not Grip U.S.

“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

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International, Jewish History, Middle East, USA

The Last Nazi Hunter

Efraim 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

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International, Jewish History

Nazi Policy and Black Victims

Before, 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

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Edwin Black, International, Jewish History, USA

Family donates Survivor Henry Oertelt’s effects to Holocaust Museum

FORT 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

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International, Jewish History, USA