The Blogs   >   Sheldon Kirshner

January 26, 2017
6:28 pm

Foiling Nazi Germany’s Plan To Go Nuclear

About a month before World War II broke out, the eminent scientist Albert Einstein sent U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt a letter imploring him to develop an atomic weapon......

 

January 24, 2017
4:09 pm

Selling Hitler

Nicholas O'Shaughnessy, in his magisterial work, Selling Hitler (Oxford University Press), asks an oft-posed question: "How was it possible for a nation as sophisticated as Germany to regress in......

 

January 22, 2017
8:09 pm

Scandalous Words

Nearly 12 years ago, in Berlin, I covered the official opening of one of the most important and poignant monuments in Germany, the Holocaust Memorial to the Murdered Jews......

 

January 19, 2017
4:44 pm

Misguided Court Verdict

A regional court in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia has upheld the bizarre and troubling verdict of a lower court. Last week, the regional court ruled that the firebombing......

 

January 17, 2017
6:11 pm

Donald Trump And Israel

Benjamin Netanyahu could hardly contain himself after Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in last November’s U.S. presidential election. In a video congratulating him on his victory, the Israeli prime minister,......

 

January 14, 2017
10:10 pm

Gentleman’s Agreement Revisited

Reviewing Gentleman's Agreement in the November 12, 1947 edition of The New York Times, movie critic Bosley Crowther wrote: "To millions of people throughout the country, it should bring......

 

January 13, 2017
9:48 pm

The Paris Mideast Peace Conference Is Not “Rigged.”

Contrary to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's assertion, the forthcoming Middle East peace conference, scheduled to be held in Paris on January 15 under the auspices of France, is......

 

January 12, 2017
7:27 pm

Common Sense From Germany’s Vice Chancellor

Common sense is a quality all too often in short supply among politically correct politicians. Sigmar Gabriel, the vice chancellor of Germany and the leader of the left-of-center Social......

 

January 11, 2017
12:26 am

Battling Islamic State In Syria

Tens of thousands of foreign volunteers have flocked to the ranks of Islamic State, the jihadist organization that has deeply entrenched itself in Iraq and Syria and carried out......

 

January 9, 2017
11:29 pm

Israel’s Failed Lavi Fighter Jet Program

Does anyone still remember the Lavi? In case you’ve forgotten,  the Lavi was a new-generation, high-performance made-in-Israel fighter aircraft that would have been the workhorse of the Israeli Air Force......

 

January 8, 2017
10:18 pm

Argentina Reopens An Explosive Case

To its credit, the highest criminal appeals court in Argentina has reopened a murky and convoluted case relating to the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentina's history, the bombing of the......

 

January 7, 2017
5:20 pm

Past Life: An Israeli Film On The Holocaust

Avi Nesher's Past Life summons up the terrors of the Holocaust. Scheduled to be presented by the Toronto Jewish Film Foundation's Chai Tea series on January 15 at the ...

 

January 3, 2017
11:10 pm

Israel’s Self-Inflicted Wound

The prime minister of Israel doth protest too much. Benjamin Netanyahu reacted ferociously to the passage late last year of a United Nations Security Council resolution which condemned Israeli settlements......

 

January 1, 2017
12:59 am

Family Of Fear

Agata Tuszynska, an eminent Polish poet and cultural historian, found out she was Jewish at the age of 19. Until that moment, she had never met a Jew, nor......

 

December 30, 2016
11:58 pm

U.S.-Iran Tensions Topic Of New Book

For the past three and a half decades, Iran, formerly a staunch U.S. ally, has been a thorn in the side of the United States. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution,......