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For a group of journalists and scholars, the Nazigate scandal in Parliament back in September seemed an entirely predictable outcome of a broader movement that, they argue, has distorted realities about the Holocaust for decades.

While the story has largely disappeared from international news headlines over the past month, those same journalists and scholars warn that the factors that made such a scandal possible remain deeply entrenched in the Canadian government and civil society.

In this article, we explore the history leading up to the moment when the House of Commons gave a standing ovation to Yaroslav Hunka, a Waffen SS veteran who was introduced as having fought against the Russians during the Second World War.

Some historians see public commemorations that ostensibly recognize victims of both Nazism and communism as part of the problem.

Following the Nazigate scandal, some media commentators and public officials downplayed its significance and suggested that Hunkas unit, the 14th Waffen SS Division, commonly referred to as the Galicia Division, was innocent of any war crimes.

On October 2, Politico ran an op-ed that suggested the public has been conditioned to believe that the Waffen SS primary task was committing genocide and claimed that describing every SS veteran as a criminal is an oversimplification of history. In 1946, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg declared the entire Waffen SS to be a criminal organization.

The Politico article echoed longstanding sentiments held among some nationalist Eastern European diaspora groups in Canada. To this day, monuments in Edmonton and Oakville honour veterans of the Galicia Division.

These venerations are typically justified by the fact that the veterans were nationalists who wanted to fight the Soviet Union. This narrative generally equates Nazism and communism as two equally deadly ideologies, and is reflected in Black Ribbon Day, also known as the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism.

It is an officially recognized public commemoration in Canada, but derided by critics as a negligent act of antisemitism and historical distortion for which the Canadian government bears considerable responsibility.

Historians and scholars have argued that Black Ribbon Day is inextricably linked with a revisionist historical theory known as the Double Genocide Theory. Advocates of this theory argue that the people of Europe suffered from two genocides: The first committed by the Soviet Union and the second by Nazi Germany.

The idea asserts that the people of Eastern Europe were caught between two equally tyrannical and genocidal superpowers, and that the genocide of the Jews by the Nazis came after the Soviet Union committed a genocide against the predominantly Christian population of Western Ukraine.

Black Ribbon Day is recognized by Canada, the United States and the European Union on August 23, the day that the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany was signed in 1939, and a little more than a week before the Nazis invaded Poland, starting the Second World War.

Critics say the problem with the Double Genocide Theory is twofold. First, it insinuates that the Holocaust was predicated on an earlier Soviet-led genocide. Second, by drawing a false equivalence, it trivializes the near universally accepted importance of the Holocaust as a genocide that is generally considered to be in a category of its own.

The industrialized mass murder of Jews in Europe via slave labour and death camps came about only after nearly a decade of state-sponsored dehumanization of the Jewish people by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. This genocide built on centuries of antisemitism that had been normalized by political and religious leadership, particularly the Roman Catholic Church.

No nation acted to prevent the genocide that was clearly going to happen, not least because of pervasive antisemitism and the common association of Jews with Bolshevism. When Jews came to Canada seeking asylum in June 1939, mere months before the Nazis invaded Poland, the Mackenzie-King government turned them away.

Roughly one in four Jews murdered during the Holocaust were killed with bullets, often by neighbours, with weapons handed out to local collaborators by the Nazis as they invaded the Soviet Union beginning in the summer of 1941. This happened before the Final Solution was adopted as official Nazi policy at the Wannsee Conference of 1942.

Even before Auschwitz and Sobibor began operating as extermination camps, Hitler found willing participants to carry out his plan among local fascist collaborators that emerged from the Baltics to the Balkans and the Black Sea.

Nearly all modern, international, legal understandings of human rights are themselves a consequence of the Holocaust. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and all the legislation, policies, laws and related declarations that have come since stated that it was conceived because of the Holocaust.

Among mainstream professional historians, the enduring consensus is that no other genocide in human history has affected as many people, been so destructive, reached such levels of unimaginable horror, or has been as impactful, as the Holocaust. In fact, to deny or distort the reality of the Holocaust is a crime in many countries.

The idea that the Holocaust was a reaction to earlier Soviet-led crimes, a position held by some commentators such as Askold Lozynskyj, a New York attorney, president of the Ukrainian Free University Foundation, and formerly president of the Ukrainian World Congress between 1998 and 2008, is highly criticized. The theory primarily refers to the Holodomor, the mass starvation, primarily of ethnic Ukrainians, during the Soviet famines of 1931-1933.

The Holodomor is considered to be a genocide by many historians and national governments, including Canada. However, the Holodomor is not generally considered to be a genocide of equal magnitude to the Holocaust.

Further, there is a substantial scholarly debate on whether the Holodomor fits the legal definition of a genocide. Stephen G. Wheatcroft, regarded by some as the foremost international expert on Soviet agricultural policies of the interwar period, has argued that while Stalin was criminally responsible for exacerbating the crisis, brutalizing peasants, and covering up the incompetence of the state and its agricultural and economic policies, the Holomodor was fundamentally accidental. The undisputed consensus among historians is that irrespective of the specific genocide debate, the Holodomor was a crime against humanity.

The problem, according to historian Dovid Katz, with the implicit argument of Black Ribbon Day and the Double Genocide Theory that the Holocaust was predicated on the Holodomor and that they are equivalent genocides is that this is based on the antisemitic myth of Bolshevism being a Jewish conspiracy.

In an interview with The Maple, Katz explained that far-right, ultranationalist, Eastern European historical revisionists are obsessed with revising the history of the Holocaust and Second World War by way of a number of cunning ruses. He explained:

Historians, and scholars interviewed for this article including Katz, Per Anders Rudling (an expert on Ukrainian ultranationalist collaborators) all pointed out that the first stage of the Holocaust began with the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, before the Wannsee Conference of 1942 when Hitler invoked the Final Solution for the murdering of Jews in Europe.

A consistent aspect of this phase of the Holocaust was enthusiastic support for the Nazis among the nationalist elements of the remaining local populations, despite many of these having no connection to the Holodomor or the Soviet famines of 1931-1933.

Commemorating Black Ribbon Day in Canada goes back at least as far as 1986. At the time, the new policies of glasnost and perestroika were opening Soviet society to reform, but this also brought about new challenges to Soviet authority by various ethnic communities within the union and its sphere of influence.

Long unanswered or repressed historical questions began to be asked. In a nearly simultaneous mirroring of what was occurring in the Soviet Union, North Americans began to ask hard questions of their own governments, particularly on the highly controversial and emotionally charged issue of alleged war criminals from Eastern Europe who had found refuge in Canada and the United States.

However, while the Americans created the Office of Special Investigations under the Justice Department in 1979, there was far less interest in investigating similar claims of war criminals having found refuge in Canada after the war. In fact, some researchers recall rumours of former Nazis freely wandering the streets of Canadian cities.

Alvin Finkel, emeritus professor of history at Athabasca University, told The Maple of a peculiar memory from his childhood growing up in the north end of Winnipeg.

Finkel recounted that his father pointed out people on the street, claiming they had fought with the SS, or had otherwise collaborated with the Nazis. Although it didnt mean much to Finkel as a child, as an adult it sparked his curiosity.

When Finkel began investigating the matter in the 1980s, he found substantial, albeit heavily redacted, records at Library and Archives Canada, and published an article on his findings in the Journal of Canadian Studies. But the newspapers werent interested.

The Globe and Mail told me that they'd already published on this, which was a lie, said Finkel. There was a little more honesty [from the Edmonton Journal], saying that they didn't want to offend the Ukrainian community in the city.

When prime minister Brian Mulroney convened the Deschnes Commission to finally investigate the matter in 1986, the commission was hamstrung. As explained by Karyn Ball, a University of Alberta professor who specializes in historical memory and the Holocaust: They set the parameters so narrowly for their investigation of criminality [of the Waffen SS], that they basically blocked out all the crimes that were committed by Waffen SS members before they joined it.

While some collaborators on the Eastern Front joined the SS directly, others volunteered for a wide variety of other Nazi military units, including auxiliary police, some of which were later reformed as SS units. Roman Shukhevych, who had led the Nazi-allied Ukrainian Insurgent Army, had previously commanded auxiliary police units of the wartime German army.

Per Anders Rudling explained in an interview with The Maple that commemorating Black Ribbon Day also coincided with the John Demjanjuk ordeal in the United States.

Demjanjuk was a Ukrainian-American autoworker who came to international attention in the mid-1980s when he was deported to Israel to stand trial for his actions as a death camp guard during the Second World War. Rudling noted that in a 1986 edition of Ukrainian Weekly the promotion of Black Ribbon Day shares editorial space with tributes to Demjanjuk, on how to raise money for him, and even an ad on how the Ukrainian nation is on trial in Israel.

Demjanjuk was ultimately convicted in 2012 as an accessory to mass murder while he was a death camp guard at Sobibor.

Support for Demjanjuk represented part of a larger trend. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of communism in Eastern Europe ushered in a new era of nationalism, as well as new opportunities for historical revisionism. In the 30 years since, a small cadre of far-right ultranationalists with particular influence both in Eastern Europe and on the international stage, have, as Katz explained, elevated some of the most brutal and prolific collaborators and perpetrators of the Holocaust to the status of national hero on the grounds that they were anti-Soviet activists.

Shukhevych, a Ukrainian Nazi collaborator responsible for the murders of tens of thousands, and who is commemorated with a monument in Canada, is one of the better known examples of this phenomenon.

Meanwhile, the Progress Report revealed last month that the University of Albertas Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) received donations and endowments worth $1.4 million in the names of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators. David Pugliese at the Ottawa Citizen reported this week that a panel to discuss the Waffen SS was quietly cancelled at the university after professors complained that the CIUS continues to engage in whitewashing Nazi crimes.

As Canadians are now acutely aware, some suspected Eastern European collaborators found postwar refuge in Canada precisely because they were considered reliably anti-communist.

Katz and Rudling believe that there are legitimate victims of communism, and that they ought to be commemorated, as a specific day of recognition provides an opportunity to educate and discuss the nuances and details of the historical record.

But Black Ribbon Day, they said, is too sullied by deliberate efforts to obfuscate historical reality to be of any use.

It is high time for Canada and the other leading democracies to establish a day to commemorate communisms victims, said Katz. It is time to relegate Black Ribbon Day to the proverbial dustbin, and to understand that efforts to downgrade the empirical reality of the Holocausts genocide must be resisted.

Taylor C. Noakes is an independent journalist and public historian from Montreal.

With files from Alex Cosh.

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'Nazigate' Has Been Quickly Forgotten, But Scholars Warn Its ... - The Maple

Over the past 10 years, as relations between the US and the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) have steadily deteriorated, analysts, policymakers and academics have debated whether they are embroiled in a cold war.

However, this debate is unnecessary, as the US-China enmity matches the textbook definition of a cold war, which is being played out in Taiwan, Ukraine and the Middle East.

When people ask whether the US and China are in a cold war, what they truly mean to ask is whether they are locked in a cold war similar to the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. The answer to that question is no, and the reasons are complex.

A cold war can be defined as a war being fought not in the traditional manner of clashing armies, but by all other means short of actual combat, in the words of Robert J. McMahon, a professor of history at Ohio State University.

A cold war is a condition of political and ideological tension, rivalry and non-violent conflict between major powers or blocs. It is typified by the absence of direct military engagement or declared hostilities. Instead, opposing nations or alliances compete through tactics such as espionage, propaganda and proxy conflicts.

A cold war is marked by the maintenance of a delicate balance of power and a climate of suspicion that might potentially escalate into open warfare.

Cold wars are relatively common. Examples from the 20th and 21st centuries include India and Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, North and South Korea and possibly India and China.

Cold wars are not new. The 19th-century Great Game, played out between the British and Russian empires in Central Asia, never escalated to open warfare. The same was true of the Scramble for Africa, where European powers competed against each other, with open combat being fought by proxies.

The US-Soviet Cold War was a prolonged geopolitical and ideological rivalry spanning from the end of World War II in 1945 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. During this time, Washington and Moscow, along with their respective allies, engaged amid political and military tensions, without their armies ever exchanging shots.

The Cold War was characterized by ideological competition, a battle of capitalism and democracy against communism and autocracy, a nuclear arms race and proxy conflicts, such as on the Korean Peninsula, and in Vietnam and Central America.

The two countries also spied on one another and both remained on constant alert, anticipating a nuclear exchange.

The ongoing cold war between the US and China is playing out on multiple fronts, with both nations seeking support, influence and political advantages in Taiwan, Ukraine and the Middle East. Chinas interest in Taiwan is straightforward, as it aims to annex the island nation, while the US supports Taiwan without seeking annexation.

In Ukraine, both countries are working through proxies: China supports Moscow, while the US and NATO support Kyiv. In the Middle East, the US provides direct support to Israel, while China indirectly supports Hamas and Hezbollah through its support for Tehran.

These proxy conflicts resemble events during the Cold War, but there are significant differences between the situation with China and the previous one with the Soviet Union.

First is economic competition. The US and China are major economic rivals, whereas the difference in wealth between the US and the Soviet Union was so immense that no competition was possible or necessary. China wants the yuan to replace the US dollar as the global exchange currency. The ruble, by contrast, was never even considered for global trade.

Second is coalitions and blocs. The Soviet Union built a bloc of Warsaw Pact and Soviet-allied states. China is building blocs through the Belt and Road Initiative, BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

However, the Soviet bloc was all or nothing. Members were bound by trade, economic, diplomatic and defense agreements, which excluded them from enacting independent foreign policies, while China-led groupings have no such agreements, nor exclusivity, neither is there a contractual loss of sovereignty for members.

Third is diplomacy. Beyond the Soviet-aligned nations, Moscow had no real diplomatic power. It did not dictate the behavior of nations outside of the bloc. China, by contrast, has convinced almost the entire world to adopt Beijings strategy for virus containment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, China is a plus member, dialogue partner or observer in numerous regional partnerships, such as the ASEAN Regional Forum, the Organization of American States, the China-Arab States Summit, the Gulf Cooperation Council, the China-Africa Cooperation Forum, the African Union and the Pacific Islands Forum.

Fourth is ideology. The Soviet Union and the PRC were and are driven by ideology. However, the Soviet Unions goal was to export communism, to convince other countries to adopt its system of governance and then to bring them into the fold as an official member. China, by contrast, has no interest in exporting socialism or changing the systems followed by other nations. Instead, Beijing just wants other nations to behave in a way that benefits it.

Fifth is proxy wars. It could be argued that the Korean War was a proxy war fought between the US and China, but it would be more accurate to say that it was a proxy war between the US and the Soviet Union, and that China was the proxy army. Apart from that conflict, the US and China have not really fought a proxy war. China backs Iran, and Iran backs Hamas and Hezbollah, but so far, the US has only fought Iran through proxies in Yemen and Syria. While China would have been happy to benefit from those conflicts, China was not very involved. This contrasts with the communist uprisings in Latin America in the 1980s, when Washington backed one side and Moscow backed the other.

Sixth is military buildup. The US and the Soviet Union were in a massive arms race, as well as a race to space. The US and China are also engaged in an arms race, but it does not have the feverish pace of the Cold War. One reason is that the US has had very clear arms superiority during the entire time of competition and will remain on top as long as the US Congress keeps approving large defense budgets. The space race is similar. The US was there first. The best China can do is tie. The US is much closer to achieving a crewed mission to Mars than China. Even if China wins the race to Mars, it would not have a fraction of the impact of the first American on the moon.

Seventh is espionage and intelligence. The Soviet Union and the US spied on each other, but it generally consisted of intelligence gathering related to the military, counterintelligence operations and military technology. China engages in economic-industrial espionage on a massive scale, to obtain US civilian and military technology, to earn money, as well as to bolster its military capabilities. Additionally, Chinas opportunities for espionage are far greater than those afforded the Soviet Union. Chinese comprise the largest percentage of foreign students in the US, and the US is home to about 2.4 million immigrants from China. Between 75,000 and 130,000 Americans live in China. Both countries are open for tourism. What is more, the US government funds joint research projects and labs in China, something that never happened during the Cold War.

The US-China cold war is here, but it is not identical to the competition with the Soviet Union.

However, like all cold wars, it will end either when it transitions to a hot war, or when one opponent loses the ability to compete.

Antonio Graceffo, a China economic analyst who holds a China MBA from Shanghai Jiaotong University, studies national defense at the American Military University in West Virginia.

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GREEN TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) Voters in Green Township removed five local officials in a recall election fueled by opposition to a Chinese company's plan to make components for electric vehicle batteries.

The township's supervisor, clerk, treasurer and two trustees all Republicans were defeated Tuesday by challengers who listed no party affiliation.

This recall shows how the community did not want this, recall advocate Lori Brock told The Detroit News, referring to the factory. This just means we have a voice again."

The five officials were part of a 7-0 vote last December supporting a factory by Gotion, a China-based manufacturer, in the Mecosta County township. The project, valued at more than $2 billion, could bring thousands of jobs.

It also has the support of state officials, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Millions of dollars in financial incentives have been approved.

But critics point to possible environmental impacts in the rural area, about 60 miles (95 kilometers) north of Grand Rapids, and concerns about national security. An opponent, former U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, said Chinese companies serve the Chinese government.

Jim Chapman, the township supervisor who was removed from office, has called the project a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Its called democracy, Chapman said after being removed by voters.

Before the recall election, Chuck Thelen, vice president for Gotion's North American operations, said the factory was a done deal" and that job applicants were being screened.

Earlier this year, he said there was no plot to make "Big Rapids a center to spread communism, a reference to a nearby city.

An opposition group, named the Mecosta Environmental and Security Alliance, has threatened to sue over environmental impacts.

Nearby in Big Rapids Township, Supervisor Bill Stanek also was recalled. He, too, supported the factory.

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Green Township voters remove 5 officials who support Gotion ... - FOX 17 West Michigan News

Published 1:28 pm Friday, November 10, 2023

By Frank S. Ravitch

When Louisiana passed a law in August 2023 requiring public schools to post In God We Trust in every classroom from elementary school to college the author of the bill claimedto be following a long-held tradition of displaying thenational motto, most notably on U.S. currency.

But even under recent Supreme Court precedents, the Louisiana law may violate theestablishment clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from promoting religion. I make this observation as one who has researched andwritten extensively on issues of religionin the public schools.

The Louisiana law specifies that the motto shall be displayed on a poster or framed document that is at least 11 inches by 14 inches. The motto shall be the central focus and shall be printed in a large, easily readable font. The law also states that teachers should instruct students about the phrase as a way of teaching patriotic customs.

Similar bills are being promoted by groups like theCongressional Prayer Caucus Foundation, a nonprofit that supports members of Congress who meet regularly todefend the role of prayer in government. To date, 26 states have considered bills requiring public schools to display the national motto. Seven states, including Louisiana,have passed lawsin this regard.

Recent shift in the law

The Supreme Court has long treated public schools as an area where government-promoted religious messaging is unconstitutional under the First Amendmentsestablishment clause. For example, the Supreme Court held in1962,1963,1992and2000that prayer in public schools is unconstitutional either because it favored or endorsed religion or because it created coercive pressure to religiously conform. In1980, the court also struck down a Kentucky law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in classrooms.

At the same time, the court has protected private religious expression for individual students and teachers in public schools.

The Louisiana law comes at a time ofrising concerns about Christian nationalismand on the heels of a pivotal court case. In the 2022 caseKennedy v. Bremerton School District, the court overturned more than 60 years of precedent when it ruled that a public school football coachs on-field, postgame prayer did not violate the establishment clause. In doing so, the court rejected long-standing legal tests, holding instead that courts should look tohistory and tradition.

The problem with using history and tradition as a broad test is that it can change from one context to the next. People including lawmakers are apt to ignore the negative and troubling lessons of U.S. religious history. Prior to the Kennedy decision, history and tradition were used by a majority of the court to decide establishment clause cases only in specific contexts, such aslegislative prayerandwar memorials.

Now, states like Louisiana are trying to use history and tradition to bring religion into public school classrooms.

A history of In God We Trust

Contrary to what people often assume, the phrase In God We Trust has not always been the national motto. Itfirst appeared on coinsin 1864, during the Civil War, and in the following decades it sparked controversy. In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt urged Congress todrop the phrase from new coins, saying it does positive harm, and is in effect irreverence, which comes dangerously close to sacrilege.

In 1956, amid the Cold War, In God we Trust became the national motto. The phrase first appeared on paper money the next year. It was a time of significant fear about communism and the Soviet Union, and atheism was viewed as part of the communist threat. Atheists weresubject to persecutionduring theRed Scareand afterward.

Since then, the motto has stuck. Over the years,legal challengesattempting to remove the phrase from money have failed. Courts have generally understood the term as a form ofceremonial deism or civic religion, meaning religious practices or expressions that are viewed as being merely customary cultural practices.

The future of the law

Even after the Kennedy ruling, the Louisiana law may still be unconstitutional because students are a captive audience in the classroom. Therefore, the mandate to hang the national motto in classrooms could be interpreted as a form of religious coercion.

But because the law requires a display rather than a religious exercise like school prayer, it may not violate what has come to be known as theindirect coercion test. This test prevents the government from conducting a formal religious exercise that places strong social or peer pressure on students to participate.

The outcome of any constitutional challenge to the Louisiana law is far from clear. Prior cases involving the Pledge of Allegiance offer one example. Though the Supreme Court dismissed on standing grounds theonly establishment clause challenge to the pledgeit has considered, lower courts have held that reciting the pledge in schools is constitutional for a variety of reasons.

These reasons include the idea that it is a form ofceremonial deismand the fact that since 1943 students have beenexempt from having to say the pledgeif it violates their faith to do so.

The Louisiana law, however, requires instruction about the national motto.

If the law is challenged in court and upheld, teachers could teach that the motto was adopted when the nation was emerging fromMcCarthyismand fear of communism was widespread. Moreover, they could teach that many people of faith throughout U.S. history would have viewed this sort of display as against U.S. ideals.

Division is likely

More than two centuries before Roosevelt argued that it was sacrilegious to put In God We Trust on coins, the Puritan minister and Colonist Roger Williams famously proclaimed that forced worship stinks in Gods nostrils. Williams founded the colony of Rhode Island, at least in part, to promote religious freedom.

Additionally, there is no prohibition on alternative designs for the national motto posters as long as the motto is the central focus of the poster. In Texas, a parent donated rainbow-colored In God We Trust signs and others written in Arabic, which were subsequentlyrejected by a local school board. This situation, which gained significant media attention, brought the exclusionary impact of these lawsinto public view.

It could be argued that accepting wall hangings that favor Christocentric viewpoints and rejecting those that reflect other religions or add symbols such as the rainbow isreligious discrimination by government. If so, schools might be required to post alternative motto designs that meet the letter of the new law in order to uphold free speech rights and prevent religious discrimination.

The Louisiana law would have been brazenly unconstitutional just two years ago. But after the Kennedy decision, the law may survive a potential legal challenge. Even if it does, one thing is for certain: It will be divisive.

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Louisiana's 'In God We Trust' law tests limits of religion in public ... - American Press

It is not the ambition of Czechast to provide you listeners with news and current affairs analysis on a regular basis. However, I thought it might be useful to give you some background information about this country and its peoples relationship with Israel and the Middle East in general, because its impossible to ignore whats been going on in Israel and the Gaza Strip since October 7th, 2023.

Irena Kalhousov is theDirector of the Herzl Center for Israeli Studies at Charles University in Prague. Among other things, we discuss thatCzechoslovakia was the only country willing to send arms to Israel when it was fighting for its survival in 1948. But as soon as the Communists consolidated their power after the coup d'etat of 1948, they made a ruthless U-turn in the official policy towards the Jewish state.

Irena Kalhousov|Photo: Michal Novotn, Charles University

Irena explainsthe Slnsk trial in 1952, which was a part of the Czechoslovak version of the Stalinist purges and trials in the Soviet Union. Just to explain briefly the context: Rudolf Slnsk who had been the General Secretary of the Communist Party, was arrested as the alleged leader of a conspiracy against Czechoslovakia. He and 13 other co defendants were also accused of Zionism, planning sabotage and it resulted in 14 executions, including Slnsk. Eleven of the executed were Jewish.

In February 1990, literally weeks after the fall of Communism, Czechoslovakia and Israel resumed diplomatic relations. Has it been a kind of smooth sailing ever since? Or were there some disagreements, quarrels? Those are some of the questions that Irena Kalhousov answers in this episode of Czechast.

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Czechast with Irena Kalhousov, Director of the Herzl Center for ... - Radio Prague International