For March 5th, at Tcritic we recall a controversial historical icon in life and death - Joseph Stalin, who died on March 5, 1953. Makes sense that someone as notorious as Stalin would spawn an explosion of t-shirts bearing his image. Interesting to see how a cultural revolution turned into a fashion...

Avigdor Lieberman isn’t like you or me. Most of us go about our lives trying to follow the rules and when we break them by say, speeding or jaywalking we take our punishment and accept it. Perhaps reluctantly, but we accept it. Not so Lieberman. The laws don’t apply to him. And when he i...

I met Mike Huckabee once, briefly, and he was extremely charming. He offered up more of what I’d seen in the best of Mike Huckabee on television—a charismatic, friendly guy who laced his conservatism with real Christian values like generosity and humility. And then there’s this guy: &#...

On the first day of the Jewish month Adar, the Talmud enjoins us to “increase happiness.� It is, after all, the month that holds Purim, when we express our gratitude to G-d for delivering the Jews in ancient Persia from their enemies, and when we give alms to the poor and gifts of food to one an...

Katyn." title="Gloves and death: Danuta Stenka in Katyn." / Katyn Running time 118 minutes Written by Andrzej Wajda, Wladyslaw Pasikowski, Andrzej Mularczyk, Przemyslaw Nowakowski Directed by Andrzej Wajda Starring Artur Zmijewski, Maja Ostaszewska, Maja Komorowska, Wladyslaw Kowalski Andrzej Wajdaâ...

File:Joseph Stalin.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia In reflecting on Communism and Stalinism one can not wash away the millions of dead in the collectivization of the 1920s.  I never cried much for the dead of the purges since with the exception of a few it was really the punishment of th...

Santa and his helpers stand under palm trees at Baghdad’s first public Christmas festiv By Nancy Morgan As we come to the end of a turbulent year, a new poll pretty much sums up the state of our country: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are now the most admired man and woman in America, accord...

KARAGANDA, Kazakhstan (JTA) -- Liza Luchanskiy was born to a poor, Yiddish-speaking family in Berdichev, the historic, heavily Jewish city deep in the Pale of Settlement. Lured by Soviet promises of equality, she became a communist true believer, working her way up to serve on a committee in Siberia...

A novel of the Russian Revolution and a young aristocrat turned perfect Communist housewife — and double agent — from the author of the biography “Young Stalin.�...

Sacha Zimmerman approvingly cites this New York article. Alas, she doesn't deal with its fundamental problems, most notably its reliance on anecdotes and otherwise less-than-impartial data and the fact that it's not clear what an increase in female drinking would have to do with feminism even if it ...