It was a moment that almost perfectly defined thisweek\’s United Jewish Appeal young leadership conference inWashington. In one section of the vast Washington Hilton ballroom,hundreds of young Jews were intently listening as special U.S. peaceenvoy Dennis Ross and Israeli Ambassador Eliahu Ben-Elissar gavesharply differing views of the current Israeli-Palestinianstalemate.
What a peculiar piece of work is \”Bent.\” The film version ofMartin Sherman\’s play, first presented on the London stage in 1979,and later on Broadway, has taken almost 20 years to come to thescreen. It\’s not difficult to see why. Not only is it turgid stuff,with a paucity of unfilmable ideas, but in an industry that sometimesseems to specialize in specious history, it will be hard to matchthis one for irresponsibility.
There was no question: Of the three rabbis sitting up on the dais at UCLA Hillel,Rabbi Shlomo Riskin had the toughest sell. After all, audiences who come to hear panels on pluralism usually bristle at Orthodoxy\’s seeming exclusivity.
With a week-long celebration to mark theopening of the Arnold Schoenberg Center, Vienna heaped honors on theseminal composer of 20th-century music, while visibly agonizing overthe sins of its Nazi past.
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