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Sheldon Kirshner

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Jun 17, 2026, 8:47 PM

Israel’s Next Leader

Israel's forthcoming general election is due to take place in September or October, and if the pollsters are correct Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will fail to capture enough Knesset seats to cobble together yet another right-wing coalition. Public opinion surveys...

Jun 16, 2026, 5:59 AM

A Memorandum Of Understanding Ends The Iran War

There has been a negotiated end to the war in Iran, but the volatile issues that triggered it have yet to be resolved. After nearly three months of arduous negotiations punctuated by periodic armed clashes, the United States and Iran...

Jun 13, 2026, 5:12 PM

Israel’s Dilemma In Lebanon

Has Iran constrained Israel's freedom of action in Lebanon? That's the burning question observers have asked following Israel's latest clashes with Iran on June 7 and June 8. The events that led to these flareups began when Hezbollah, Iran's chief proxy...

Jun 11, 2026, 4:32 PM

Erno "Zvi" Spiegel is an unsung hero of the Holocaust – a nearly forgotten Hungarian Jew who saved young Jewish twins in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in Poland from looming death. An inmate in the camp since May 1944, he...

Jun 9, 2026, 6:02 PM

Iran Trying To Impose A New Equation In Mideast

Iran's ballistic missile attacks against Israel on June 7 and June 8 were stunning yet not surprising. Iran – Israel's arch enemy and Hezbollah's chief ally in the Middle East – attacked Israel in retaliation for an Israeli air strike...

Jun 8, 2026, 5:19 AM

Canada’s “Crisis Of Antisemitism”

Prime Minister Mark Carney finally delivered a long overdue public statement on the unsettling spike of antisemitic incidents in Canada. On June 1, in a candid speech at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto, he condemned these assaults, acknowledged that the...

Jun 6, 2026, 9:56 AM

Cuz You’re Ugly

Sharon Angelhart's Hebrew-language movie, Cuz You're Ugly, is a closely-observed character study of an obese and unattractive young woman who craves intimacy and recognition. It will be screened at the forthcoming Toronto Jewish Film Festival, which started on June 4...

Jun 5, 2026, 6:29 AM

I Had The Heart

Oliver Kolker's Spanish-language movie, I Had The Heart, engages all the senses. A drama from Argentina with pronounced musical elements, it takes place in Buenos Aires as a handicapped mechanic rises to stardom as a tango singer. It will be...

Jun 4, 2026, 7:28 AM

We Met At Grossinger’s

Grossinger's, the renowned Borscht Belt resort, is lovingly profiled in a nostalgic documentary by Paula Eiselt. We Met At Grossinger's will be screened at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, which runs from June 4-14. A year-round destination whose clientele was...

Jun 3, 2026, 5:46 AM

One of the most unusual episodes in the annals of the Arab-Israeli conflict took place in the early 1980s when the former queen of Jordan was directly drawn into the mechanics of a prisoner exchange between Israel and the...

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About Me

Sheldon Kirshner is a journalist in Toronto. He writes at his online journal, SheldonKirshner.com