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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Books 100 Years Later, Revisiting Franz Kafka’s ‘The Trial’ and World War I
This year marks the centennial of two landmarks of modernity: World War I and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.” Both events have their origins in 1914, but neither ever truly ended: Upon his death in 1924, Kafka left behind an unfinished manuscript, while the peacemakers at Versailles left behind an unresolved war. Beyond their incomplete natures,…
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Opinion France’s Quickly Changing Face
Last week, as France woke up to the results of the second round of municipal elections, the on-line newspaper Rue 89 breathlessly announced: “Miracle at Lourdes!” The event, to be sure, was more dazzling than a cripple throwing off her crutches or a blind man again seeing: a Socialist had won the mayor’s race! It…
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Culture Martin Heidegger’s Black Notebooks Reignite Charges of Anti-Semitism
On this side of the Atlantic, the imminent publication in Germany of Martin Heidegger’s “Black Notebooks” (“Schwarzen Hefte”) has caused few if any ripples. For better or worse, the philosopher who theorized about “absence from the world” has been largely absent from our world. Yet in Europe, a surf-like pounding in newspapers and magazines has…
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Opinion Why All of France Should Shiver When Demonstrators Shout: ‘Jews Out’
Eighty years ago, on February 6, 1934, the French Republic had a near-death experience. On that wintry evening, tens of thousands of protestors, mostly young and mostly male, massed along the boulevards of Paris. Their aim was to bring down the Republic—or, as they called it, “la gueuse” or whore. In the eyes of contemporaries,…
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Culture Dreyfus Affair Continues To Intrigue and Confound After a Century
● An Officer and a Spy By Robert Harris Knopf, 448 pages, $27.95 ● Dreyfus: Politics, Emotion, and the Scandal of the Century By Ruth Harris Picador, 572 pages, $28 Why is it that people named Harris tend to have affairs with the Dreyfus Affair? Just three years ago, the British historian Ruth Harris published…
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Opinion Tunisia Makes Progress on Minority Rights — And the World Ignores It
“News of disaster is the only narrative people need. The darker the news, the grander the narrative.” This observation, made by a character in Don DeLillo’s novel Mao II, has never seemed truer than today. Just ask the citizens of Tunisia, who are marking on January 14 the third anniversary of the overthrow of Zine…
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Opinion How ‘Quenelle’ Salute Creator Dieudonne Built Bridge to Anti-Semitic Far Fight
The comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, according to French authorities, is under investigation for inciting racial hatred. They have also urged city officials to consider barring Dieudonné from public performances during his upcoming tour. Prodding the government to act was the video clip of Dieudonné’s current show in Paris, when he mentions the name of Patrick…
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Opinion Roma Girl’s Deportation Drama Forces France To Relive Holocaust History
It’s déjà vu all over again for the French, with memories of the past washing up against experiences in the present. Tragically, an innocent teenage girl named Leonarda Dibrani has served as the spark for the most recent episode of this recurring national trauma. Two weeks ago, the French police stopped a bus taking Leonarda…
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