A professor at the University of Houston, Robert Zaretsky is also a culture columnist at the Forward.
Robert Zaretsky
By Robert Zaretsky
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Culture How Notre Dame Became A Symbol Of Inclusion For All Of Us
In early 1981, Pope John Paul II announced his choice as the new Archbishop of Paris, Jean-Marie Lustiger. Not only did Lustiger share the pope’s youth and dynamism, but he apparently shared his ethnic background. Lustiger was, in fact, widely (and not always kindly) known as “the Pole”—a reference to his parental heritage. Upon being…
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Culture 125 Years Later, The Dreyfus Affair Remains Unfortunately Relevant
One hundred and twenty-five years ago, on the morning of October 15, 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a staff member of the French military high command, kissed his wife and children good-bye at their Paris apartment. Neither he nor his family suspected they would not again see one another for four years. Ordered to report to…
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Culture Why Serge And Beate Klarsfeld Became Nazi Hunters
“My father had died in Auschwitz and I had behind me the suffering of French Jews. Beate carried with her the knowledge of Germany’s role in this suffering. Besides, we were naive and full of energy, so we did things we might not do when older and wiser.” Serge Klarsfeld paused and smiled at me….
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Culture In An Era Of Faux News, Let’s Set The Record Straight On Vichy France
The State Versus The Jews By Laurent Joly Grasset, 368 pages, 20,90 € In 1994, the French historians Henry Rousso and Éric Conan published “Vichy, un Passé Qui ne Passe pas.” While titled “Vichy: The Ever-Present Past” in the excellent American translation, the phrase nevertheless has a slightly different resonance in the original French. The…
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Culture Sartre, The Kavanaugh Hearings And The Politics Of ‘Bad Faith’
Bad faith is very much in the news. As the media relentlessly remind us, Republicans are tirelessly accusing Democrats of bad faith, while Democrats relentlessly blast Republicans for the same sin. But Jean-Paul Sartre, the thinker who immortalized the phrase, would argue that what he called “mauvaise foi” is not only quite different, but it…
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Culture Should Harvey Weinstein Make Us Rethink Roman Polanski? The French Say ‘Non!’
Last Monday evening, two very different groups gathered at Paris’ famed Cinémathèque française. While smartly dressed film directors and actors quickly filed through the front doors, dozens of warmly dressed protestors — along with two largely undressed members of the militant feminist group Femen — milled outside. Many carried signs that riffed on the message,…
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Culture Harvey Weinstein Loses His Honor — Putin And Mussolini Get To Keep Theirs
For most Americans, the words “Hollywood” and “légion d’honneur” bring to mind “The Revenge of the Pink Panther.” Among the movie’s classic scenes is when Peter Sellers’s Inspector Clouseau is awarded the medal. By turns, Sellers punctures a drum when he draws his sword, flails at a pigeon perched on his kepi, and becomes entangled…
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Opinion There Are No Adults In The White House. Worse, There Are No Mensches
The meaning of the Yiddish word “mensch” can scarce be conveyed in English. Literally a man, mensch means so much more than that. But it means so much more than that. A mensch is a good man, someone who can be relied upon to do the right thing. A mensch has integrity. He (or she!)…
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