Among Sephardic Jews of my grandmother’s generation, there was a popular, if unproven, belief that Gen. Francisco Franco, the military dictator who ruled Spain from 1939 until his death in … more

What makes us happy — or unhappy? The 2018 edition of the World Happiness Report, published annually by a group of United Nations-linked development experts, asserts that a … more

Mention the name “Celine” to most people in the United States—or Europe, for that matter—and they will think you’re talking about the long-serving Canadian pop diva. But … more

Queen Elizabeth II is marking her 66th year of reign in 2018, which by any standard is an extraordinarily long time for a single individual to be a head of state. (By comparison, King David is … more

I interviewed Mateusz Morawiecki, the prime minister of Poland, during his September visit to New York. The public-relations maven who arranged the meeting pitched Morawiecki — then … more

Flush from his victory over far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in the French elections last July, President Emmanuel Macron decided to address head on the horrific murder of a Jewish pensioner in … more

Who owns the Holocaust? That, ultimately, is the key question posed by the impending legislation in Poland that will criminalize any discussion, or investigation, or mere mention, of incidents of … more

Recently, I’ve been nursing some concerns about the way the Israeli government is handling its response to the BDS campaign against the Jewish state, and with it the wider challenges of … more

In his important book, “Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition,” the scholar David Nirenberg makes the persuasive case that Islam has faced similar theological challenges to Christianity in … more

In a bid to show the world what responsible, considered citizens they are, Iran’s leaders last week hosted their annual, gloriously named, “Tehran Security Conference.” The … more