Ops & Blogs | The Times of Israel » Stephen D Smith

Ghetto Fighter’s Last Stand

Stephen D Smith — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:03:20 +0000

Simcha Rotem cuts a lonely figure as he walks from the VIP section on the Warsaw Ghetto Plaza to the empty podium. Age has given him a slight stoop, but there is confidence in his step. The last survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto command group stands tall and still speaks in clearly enunciated Polish. 70 [...]

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Words Ultimately Lethal

Stephen D Smith — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 00:13:25 +0000

A few weeks ago several Jerusalem Beitar football fans were charged with racism for chanting at two new Muslim Chechyan players, ‘May your village burn’. A Muslim woman was recently attacked after Purim at a light rail stop in Jerusalem. Now, rocks have been thrown in a Jerusalem street at a Muslim woman’s car and [...]

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Hold AIPAC in Warsaw Next Year!

Stephen D Smith — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 06:04:22 +0000

There were three strawberries in the glass on the table. They were part of the Bar Mitzvah spread, so I presumed they were dessert. Only later would I discover they were the whole reason to be there. Earlier that day I had been in Park East Synagogue, New York, where there were a good number [...]

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Schindler’s List: Is it Really 20 Years?

Stephen D Smith — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 22:01:59 +0000

Am I getting old, or is it that my life is just flashing before my eyes? It is twenty years to the day that Steven Spielberg and his crew arrived on set for their first day of production of a movie that would arguably go on have greater global impact than any movie he had [...]

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What if Ted was Jewish?

Stephen D Smith — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 05:41:23 +0000

Seth MacFarlane had me squirming during the Oscars ceremony on several occasions, especially his ‘losers’ song at the end of the show, just as the ‘losers’ filed out. Truth is, he knew, as do we all, that there were no losers in the Dolby Theater, even if they did not all go home clutching a [...]

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Oxford Anti-Israel Walkout: An Insult to Everyone

Stephen D Smith — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 15:19:19 +0000

It has long been obvious that the British university boycott on Israeli colleagues was antisemitism dressed as anti-Zionism. It has been an ongoing insult to all academics and students, wherever they are. The University campus is the last place to ban Israelis from public discussion in an open society. This week, when British MP George [...]

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