diaspora

As an active member of the Jewish community in Chile, a small minority making up only 0.1% of our country's population, far too often I have had to step up and defend you, Israeli tourists, as well as other Jews visiting here. 

They left after Venezuelan secret police raided a Jewish club in 2007, and after the local synagogue was ransacked by unidentified thugs two years later. They left after President Hugo Chavez expelled Israel's ambassador to Caracas, and when he called on Venezuela's Jews to condemn Israel for its actions in Gaza in 2009.

A new exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington celebrates Indian-American culture, history and experiences, as Diksha Basu reports. When you enter Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation, you are greeted by loud Hindi film music and a vinyl record from Mughal-E-Azam, one of the most iconic Bollywood films.

A narrow majority of voters in Switzerland approved proposals on Sunday that would reintroduce restrictions on the number of foreigners who are allowed to live and work in the country, a move that could have far-reaching implications for Switzerland’s relations with the European Union.

Canada’s rush to support democracy in Ukraine has echoes of an earlier time. In 1991, as the Soviet Union was collapsing, Canada was the first country to recognize Ukraine, following a national referendum in which more than 90 per cent of the country voted for independence. 

Several weeks ago, Club Deportivo Palestino, a top Chilean football team, was banned from wearing their shirt after it caused an international dispute, because the shirts depicted a map of pre-1948 Palestine in the shape of the number 1, denying any Israeli claim to the land. The cartographical choices we make are a fairly accurate barometer of an individual’s perspective. It shows how we wish to frame a debate.

Romania has announced its doors are wide open to the Chinese after Canada tightened its immigration policy. Chinese looking to migrate to the southeast European country would be warmly welcomed, former Romanian prime minister Petre Roman said on a trip to Beijing.

Not too long ago I was standing in line in a holiday resort in the Dominican Republic when a man in front of me bellowed at his son: “Yuval, atah honek et ha-tur” [“Yuval, you’re holding up the line.”] Most American Jews have been here before: We overhear Hebrew, we discover a surreptitious Israeli in our midst, the Diaspora Jew’s sense of kinship is triggered.

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