October 24, 2016
9:37 am

Patrick Cockburn was The Independent's Jerusalem correspondent from 1995-1999. (courtesy)

Middle East’s ‘demons’ now an unstoppable force, writes veteran correspondent

In book of on-scene diaries ‘The Age of Jihad,’ Patrick Cockburn describes why the sectarian holy war in the Middle East is now an unclosable Pandora’s box

By JP O’ Malley

October 10, 2016
10:27 pm

Masha Gessen, author of 'Where the Jews Aren't.' (Lee Towndrow)

Author opens the Pandora’s box of Russia’s curious autonomous Jewish ghost town

While Chaim Weitzman and Nahum Sokolow were in Britain campaigning for a Zionist state, the Bolsheviks were busy implementing their own vision — in the USSR

By JP O’ Malley

September 19, 2016
10:00 pm

Leon Trotsky in Mexico with some American friends, shortly before his 1940 assassination. (Public domain)

Trotsky’s day out: How a visit to NYC influenced the Bolshevik revolution

Author Kenneth Ackerman explores the life of the Jewish radical in the weeks leading up to the overthrow of the Russian Provisional Government

By JP O’ Malley

September 3, 2016
6:50 am

Author and forensic architect Eyal Weizman has designed a virtual model of Saydnaya prison in Syria, where thousands have been held and tortured by the Assad regime. (YouTube screenshot)

Israeli expat architect turns forensic investigator for human rights violations

Working with Amnesty International and far-left NGO B’Tselem, Eyal Weizman explores the ‘structures of domination’ behind politicized architecture, including in the West Bank

By JP O’ Malley

July 21, 2016
2:07 am

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is greeted by members of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, March 3, 2015. (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)

Emotion on the wane, are US-Israel ties ‘becoming purely transactional’?

The Jewish state has not ‘outgrown’ its relationship with America, say co-authors of ‘Our Separate Ways,’ but it’s at ‘an unprecedented period of tumultuous change’

By JP O’ Malley

July 7, 2016
11:47 am

Benjamin Netanyahu, center, holds a Likud faction meeting in front of a photo of former party leader Menachem Begin at the Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem on March 14, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Seeing Begin as the beginning of the end for traditional Zionism

The 40-year-old Jabotinsky resurgence is responsible for marginalizing peace talks, historian Milton Viorst claims in his newest book

By JP O’ Malley

July 6, 2016
5:00 am

Shadi Hamid is a senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. and the author of books and scholarly works dealing with the Middle East. (Screenshot: YouTube)

The West fundamentally misunderstands the ethos of the ‘caliphate,’ writes Muslim author

In a region rocked by residual effects of imperialism, ‘Israel-Palestine has almost become an afterthought,’ says Brookings Institution’s Shadi Hamid

By JP O’ Malley

May 3, 2016
1:56 pm

Author Rita Gabis was born to a Lithuanian Catholic mother, and a Jewish father. (Rina Castelnuovo)

The realization your grandfather may have murdered thousands of Jews

Lithuania’s Holocaust skeletons come to light in Rita Gabis’s book, which explores the 220,000 Lithuanian Jews killed during WWII — and the people who let it happen

By JP O’ Malley

April 7, 2016
5:35 pm

Detail from a painting depicting blood libel in St. Paul's Church in Sandomierz, Poland. (public domain, Wikimedia Commons)Detail from a painting depicting blood libel in St. Paul's Church in Sandomierz, Poland. (public domain, Wikimedia Commons)

How a 12th century murder became an international Jewish conspiracy

Blood libel, the myth of Jews killing Christian children, has taken on its own life — and that of many Jews — since a Benedictine monk penned the first chronicled fabrication, says author E.M. Rose

By JP O’ Malley

April 5, 2016
4:06 pm

Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany, 1939. (Bundesarchiv, Bild via Wikimedia Commons)

UK author exposes the oft-forgotten horrors of a Nazi death camp for women

In ‘If This Is a Woman,’ Sarah Helm goes inside Germany’s Ravensbrück, where up to 90,000 women perished during the Holocaust

By JP O’ Malley

January 19, 2016
5:28 pm

Benjamin Amsellem, right, a Jewish teacher stabbed by a 15-year-old with a machete who claimed Islamic State inspiration, speaks to the press as he leaves the main police headquarters in Marseille, southeastern France, January 12, 2016. (AFP/ BORIS HORVAT)

French Jewish-Muslim relations are always troubled, says historian

New book by Ethan B. Katz probes the complex political problems — bound up in issues of race, cultural diversity and religion — that continue to plague the Fifth Republic today

By JP O’ Malley

January 17, 2016
2:32 pm

German-Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt (courtesy)

Hannah Arendt’s angst was born in the US, says author

New book ‘Arendt And America’ discusses how the philosopher’s residence in New York shaped — or distorted — her worldview

By JP O’ Malley

December 18, 2015
4:37 pm

Director Woody Allen poses for photographers during a photo call for the film 'Irrational Man,' at the 68th Cannes International Film Festival in southern France, Friday, May 15, 2015. (Joel Ryan/Invision/AP)

Woody Allen bio spotlights cinematic nebbish’s life and loves

David Evanier’s ‘Woody’ argues that from the beginning of his career, Allen has always put his Jewishness at the forefront of his work

By JP O’ Malley

October 15, 2015
4:15 am

Polish author reopens minefield of who killed Jedwabne’s Jews

In an English translation of her book ‘The Crime and the Silence,’ journalist Anna Bikont sheds more light on the WWII massacre of hundreds of Jews in occupied Poland

By JP O’ Malley

August 13, 2015
6:47 am

Residents of Memphis's historic Pinch neighborhood, early 1900s, from left to right: Solomon Peiser, Tailor, Mr. Klink, Milkman, Postman, Italian Restaurant Owner, Mr. Nearn, Irish Policeman. (c 2015 Center for Southern Folklore Archives. From The Peiser Family Collection)

Fact and fiction collide in Memphis’s historical ‘the Pinch’ neighborhood

A new novel by Steve Stern dips its toes halfway between the real world and fantasy, which is, the author claims, ‘a Jewish thing’

By JP O’ Malley

Writer: JP O’ Malley

Middle East’s ‘demons’ now an unstoppable force, writes veteran correspondent

In book of on-scene diaries ‘The Age of Jihad,’ Patrick Cockburn describes why the sectarian holy war in the Middle East is now an unclosable Pandora’s box

Author opens the Pandora’s box of Russia’s curious autonomous Jewish ghost town

While Chaim Weitzman and Nahum Sokolow were in Britain campaigning for a Zionist state, the Bolsheviks were busy implementing their own vision — in the USSR

Trotsky’s day out: How a visit to NYC influenced the Bolshevik revolution

Author Kenneth Ackerman explores the life of the Jewish radical in the weeks leading up to the overthrow of the Russian Provisional Government

Israeli expat architect turns forensic investigator for human rights violations

Working with Amnesty International and far-left NGO B’Tselem, Eyal Weizman explores the ‘structures of domination’ behind politicized architecture, including in the West Bank

Emotion on the wane, are US-Israel ties ‘becoming purely transactional’?

The Jewish state has not ‘outgrown’ its relationship with America, say co-authors of ‘Our Separate Ways,’ but it’s at ‘an unprecedented period of tumultuous change’

Seeing Begin as the beginning of the end for traditional Zionism

The 40-year-old Jabotinsky resurgence is responsible for marginalizing peace talks, historian Milton Viorst claims in his newest book

The West fundamentally misunderstands the ethos of the ‘caliphate,’ writes Muslim author

In a region rocked by residual effects of imperialism, ‘Israel-Palestine has almost become an afterthought,’ says Brookings Institution’s Shadi Hamid

The realization your grandfather may have murdered thousands of Jews

Lithuania’s Holocaust skeletons come to light in Rita Gabis’s book, which explores the 220,000 Lithuanian Jews killed during WWII — and the people who let it happen

How a 12th century murder became an international Jewish conspiracy

Blood libel, the myth of Jews killing Christian children, has taken on its own life — and that of many Jews — since a Benedictine monk penned the first chronicled fabrication, says author E.M. Rose

UK author exposes the oft-forgotten horrors of a Nazi death camp for women

In ‘If This Is a Woman,’ Sarah Helm goes inside Germany’s Ravensbrück, where up to 90,000 women perished during the Holocaust

French Jewish-Muslim relations are always troubled, says historian

New book by Ethan B. Katz probes the complex political problems — bound up in issues of race, cultural diversity and religion — that continue to plague the Fifth Republic today

Hannah Arendt’s angst was born in the US, says author

New book ‘Arendt And America’ discusses how the philosopher’s residence in New York shaped — or distorted — her worldview

Woody Allen bio spotlights cinematic nebbish’s life and loves

David Evanier’s ‘Woody’ argues that from the beginning of his career, Allen has always put his Jewishness at the forefront of his work

Polish author reopens minefield of who killed Jedwabne’s Jews

In an English translation of her book ‘The Crime and the Silence,’ journalist Anna Bikont sheds more light on the WWII massacre of hundreds of Jews in occupied Poland

Fact and fiction collide in Memphis’s historical ‘the Pinch’ neighborhood

A new novel by Steve Stern dips its toes halfway between the real world and fantasy, which is, the author claims, ‘a Jewish thing’

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