persecution
Laughing at Putin is a powerful form of protest
A constant round of fines, surveillance and detention is alleviated by jokes, mischief and a joyous love affair for Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina
A death sentence for Afghanistan’s women judges
Threatened with beheading by the Taliban in 2021, some judges managed to flee the country. But many remain in hiding, having destroyed all evidence of their qualifications
Should family history, however painful, be memorialised forever?
What to hold on to and what to let go of is Samantha Ellis’s dilemma when trying to explain the complexities of their Judeo-Iraqi heritage to her young son
The horror of Hungary in the second world war
Having suffered heavy casualties fighting the Soviets as part of the Axis alliance, the country was then occupied by the Nazis, which led to wholesale carnage during the siege of Budapest in 1945
An outcast among outcasts: Katerina, by Aharon Appelfeld, reviewed
A peasant girl flees her abusive home, to find happiness working for Jewish families in the lush Carpathian countryside – until anti-Semitic pogroms change everything irrevocably
The roots of anti-Semitism in Europe
The original blood libel, which materialised after the First Crusade in the 11th century, proved a turning point for Jews, as a wave of religious frenzy swept communities away
A Native American tragedy: Wandering Stars, by Tommy Orange, reviewed
Shocked to find that his Cheyenne forebears had been imprisoned in Florida, Orange was inspired to write a story of displacement and abuse spanning generations
Centuries of martyrs
There is no redemption in this account of the birth of Latin Christendom, with ‘heretics’ suffering cruelly for the beliefs, just as Christian martyrs had under the Romans
Across the wire at Belsen
Hannah Pick-Goslar, a survivor of the Holocaust and Anne’s friend in Amsterdam, movingly describes their snatched conversations in Belsen before Anne disappeared forever
Prophesying doom
Janine di Giovanni’s book begins in a Paris apartment during the first lockdown. She’s at a friend’s home, which she…
The Pope’s moment
On Tuesday, Pope Francis set foot in the United States for the first time in his life. His plane touched…
No dumb waiter
Comedians always like to claim that they started making jokes after childhoods made harsh by poverty; that at a formative…
Lords and protectors
There are still some sizeable holes in early modern English history and one of them is what we know —…
High Life
This Christmas our thoughts need to be with our fellow Christians who are being threatened in the Bible lands. No…
Pants to the fatties
It’s becoming impossible to find knickers in my size
Letters
Nursing standards Sir: I share Mary Dejevsky’s concern regarding the impact of tired, overworked nurses on the quality of patient…
The power of the word
The recorder of early Jewish history has two sources of evidence. One is the Bible. Its centrality was brought home…
