A professor at the University of Houston and the Women’s Institute of Houston, Robert Zaretsky is also a culture columnist at the Forward.
Robert Zaretsky
By Robert Zaretsky
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Opinion Can Dominique Strauss-Kahn Reinvent Himself — as France’s Next President?
While there are no second acts in American lives, as F. Scott Fitzgerald famously claimed, there seems to be a French exception. Over the past several weeks, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the Jewish former French finance minister, former head of the International Monetary Fund, former front-runner for the French presidency, and former perp at Riker’s Island, has…
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Culture Where All the Reasons To Kill Are Absurd
By Kamel Daoud, translated from the French by John Cullen Other Press, 160 Pages, $14.95 Kamel Daoud kick-starts his novel with the line “Mama’s still alive today,” turning inside out the celebrated opening of Albert Camus’s “The Stranger”: “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know.” What would Camus say were he alive today,…
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Opinion Jean Zay, Resistance Fighter and Cannes Founder, Enters the Pantheon
One could hardly conceive of a greater contrast between the resorts and runways at Cannes and the sepulchers and silence at the Pantheon. The Mediterranean town is the capital of glitter and celebrity, while the Parisian monument is the twilit-resting place for those whose lives brought glory to the nation. This year, however, the red…
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Opinion It’s Not About Leaving France — Our Question Is How To Stay
“Is there a future for Jews in France?” I might just as well have poured a Dr Pepper into the wine glass of Nicolas Weill. The cultural and literary journalist for Le Monde looked at me from across our corner table in a small restaurant specializing in provincial fare. “This sort of question is an…
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Opinion How France’s Le Pen Family Feud Is Manna From Far Right Wing Heaven
When I arrived in Paris last week for a research trip, little had changed from my many previous trips. Though spring, the weather was drizzly and cold; despite the economic crisis, charming stores displayed tempting breads and books; and notwithstanding the “défense de fumer” signs, café terraces were dense with cigarette smoke. And while Marine…
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Culture The Novel France Can’t Put Down Depicts Muslim Future — Or Does It?
● Soumission By Michel Houellebecq French and European Publications Inc, 320 pages, $49.95 Though it pretends to be about France’s near future, Michel Houellebecq’s controversial “Soumission” is also about its recent past. Set in the year 2022, the novel portrays a country riven by conflicting ideologies and worldviews, teetering on the edge of civil war….
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Opinion Why ‘Jew’ Is Rarely Spoken Word in France — Even After Kosher Grocery Terror
Many observers, both French and foreign, have hailed Sunday’s march in Paris as a historic milestone. More than a million citizens, along with dozens of world leaders, joined together as a sign of resistance to last week’s acts of terrorism, and as the gauge for the persistence of democratic ideals. The event had all the…
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Opinion Was Terror Attack Tied to ‘Muslim Future’ Satire?
By now, news of the massacre at the offices of the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo has reached the U.S. In perhaps the fullest account on this side of the Atlantic, the New York Times reports that the masked assailants—two according to a witness, three according to the police—burst into the lobby of the paper’s offices…
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