Venice is the famous city of romance, where boatmen serenade visitors with operatic arias in gondolas that glide through canals under charming bridges. Old buildings reflect in the water like an impressionist canvas of shimmering colors. Pink, red and orange blossoms hang from flower boxes on apartment windowsills, reflected in the water as exotic water lilies.
On the Web page of Marcel Marceau, whose appellation as \”the world\’s greatest mime\” is so universal that it seems part of his name, his biography begins in 1946, when he enrolled in a theater arts school in Paris.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued a list of bands that promote racist, bigoted or hateful ideas. The list Bigots Who Rock: An ADL List of Hate Music Groups identifies 541 bands, primarily based in the United States and Europe, that use hate-filled lyrics or have active links to organized hate groups.
\”There was no shouting or wailing,\” recalls a Nazi army veteran in wonder after watching Polish Jews digging their own graves before being machine-gunned. \”There was a deadly silence.\”
It was early June, and the clock was ticking ominously for composer William Goldstein.
A film on the Nazi-era rescue of refugee children, most of them Jewish, has been nominated for an Oscar in the documentary feature category.
\nIn our Jan. 26 issue, veteran screenwriter Henry Bean told The Journal he wasn\’t sure his provocative directorial debut, \”The Believer,\” inspired by the true story of a Jewish Nazi, would be well-received at Sundance. He\’d heard that distributors were wary of the controversial subject matter. So he was shocked last week when his film won the festival\’s Grand Jury Prize, the top award in the dramatic competition — prompting serious discussions with potential distributors. Now that \”The Believer\” seems poised to have an audience, at least with the art-house crowd, Bean has a particular group of viewers in mind. \”There is no audience I\’d rather show this to than one of anti-Semites and neo-Nazis,\” he told The Journal. \”I\’d love to know what they think.\”
My great-uncle, Jacques Graubart, came to town last weekend. Jacques, a fit and vigorous 79, has always been the superhero against whom I\’ve measured my life. Jacques entered the Resistance when he was 19 and rowed hundreds of Jews to safety from occupied France into Switzerland. He was caught frequently by the French and escaped every time but the last time. Incarcerated by the Nazis in a series of concentration camps, Jacques survived a death march of prisoners that began with 1,400 and ended with himself and only three others alive.
On Nov. 15, the Los Angeles Zimriyah Chorale, along with other Los Angeles choral groups, left for a European trip that included performances in Prague and, most notably, Nuremberg, where the chorale participated, on Nov. 25 and 26, in performances of Leonard Bernstein\’s \”Symphony No. 3, Kaddish,\” in a concert hall built on the site of the famous Nazi Nuremberg rallies of the 1930s.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.