When I read CNN’s piece about a pro-Israel group sharing with the Trump administration a Palestine activist “deportation” list, I immediately thought of Edwin Black’s foreword in IBM and the Holocaust, in which he questioned where the Nazis got their lists in the first place. That got me thinking about Occupied France during World War [...]
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US federal judge orders temporary halt to Voice of America shutdown
US District Judge J. Paul Oetken granted on Friday a restraining order temporarily blocking the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) from carrying out President Donald Trump’s directive to terminate Voice of America (VOA) employees, cancel employee work contracts, and to close USAGM offices. Following the decision, RSF announced in a press release that [...]
US judge denies Trump request to lift deportation ban on Venezuelans
The chief judge of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, James Boasberg, issued an opinion on Monday, denying the Trump administration’s request to lift the two-week deportation ban on Venezuelans. He stated: “There is…a strong public interest in preventing the mistaken deportation of people based on categories they have no right to [...]
Australia court convicts first man for transmitting extremist material online
The Perth District Court on Thursday convicted a 19-year-old man for sharing Islamic State beheading videos online via social media. The conviction, followed by a sentence of three years imprisonment, marks the first since the enactment of Australia’s new counterterrorism laws in 2024. According to the Australian Federal Police, the content found on the man’s [...]
Russia paramilitary unit leader sentenced to life for war crimes by Finland court
The Helsinki District Court in Finland on Friday sentenced a 38-year-old man to life for committing war crimes in Ukraine. Voislav Torden, 38, a Russian-Norwegian better known as Yan Petrovskiy, was a deputy leader of a neo-Nazi paramilitary unit called Rusich, during Russia’s first attacks on Ukraine in 2014. According to the prosecutors, Petrovskyi was [...]
Letter From an Academic Listserv Jail: Silence in the Face of Growing Authoritarianism
I was recently removed from an academic listserv for expressing my concerns about the administration of Donald Trump. This type of self-censorship permeating across sectors, including academia, is a troubling sign of our times. In some ways I feel as though we are living in 1933 Germany, when Adolf Hitler took power and rapidly dismantled [...]
US Supreme Court reopens case over rightful ownership of Nazi-looted painting
The US Supreme Court on Monday revived a case on the fate of “Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain,” a painting by French impressionist Camille Pissarro now worth millions. The court ordered that the case be reconsidered under a recently-passed California law intended to make it easier for Holocaust survivors and their families [...]
Sovereignty and Immortality: Deciphering the Ultimate Promise of World Politics
Human beings rarely participate in world politics directly, but they do get involved as individual members of separate sovereign states. Normally, the expected costs and benefits of such indirect participation remain tangible expressions of secular considerations. Though far less decipherable and recognizable, these expressions may also include implicit promises of personal immortality. There is meaningful [...]
A Jewish Response to the Resumption of US Firing-Squad Executions
On Friday, March 7, just ahead of the Jewish Sabbath, a South Carolina firing squad will shoot to death my longtime pen pal and friend Brad Sigmon. This will mark the first American firing squad execution to take place in 15 years. Accordingly, it will be the first since I co-founded the 3,800+-member-strong L’chaim! Jews [...]
A Dark and Slippery Slope: Ignoring the Law on the Battlefield
The recent decision by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to dismiss the Judge Advocate Generals (JAGs) of the Army, Navy, and Air Force marks a troubling departure from the decades-long commitment of the US military to uphold the laws of armed conflict. This decision raises urgent concerns about the future of military engagement, the preservation of [...]