JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
History fated Emile Zola and Alfred Dreyfus to forever be footnotes in each other’s stories. Dreyfus, a military officer wrongly convicted of treason, sparked an antisemitism scandal that split French society into factions. Zola, the celebrated writer who penned the famed pro-Dreyfus open letter “J’Accuse,” would face legal trouble of his own for doing so….
“An Officer and a Spy,” Roman Polanski’s 2019 movie about the Dreyfus Affair, is spare, modern and steeped in controversy. If it weren’t for the horses and high boots, you’d forget you’re watching the past. If it weren’t for the fact that Polanski directed it, you would have seen it by now. The movie does…
Sometimes you need a large amount of bile in a short period of time — for, say, a home improvement project, or a reenactment of medieval medical practices Let’s make our own! We’ll start by reading this news: Roman Polanski, who in 1977 pled guilty to raping a 13-year-old girl — he had, he later…
The infamous story of the 1894 conspiracy against French Jewish Captain Alfred Dreyfus for treason is being dramatized at Brooklyn’s BAM Fisher in a multi-media production, “The Dreyfus Affair,” based on texts and music from that period. The performance by The Ensemble for the Romantic Century (ERC) includes excerpts from the politically charged opera “La…
Log into Twitter in Israel and you’ll see “Dreyfus” trending. The reason is Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s choice of words in his response to France’s effort to host an international conference on Middle East peace in January. “This is a modern version of the Dreyfus trial,” Lieberman said, referring to the infamous case of Alfred…
The Jewish Community of Porto in northern Portugal quashed a bill designed to reinstate an army captain who had been fired and libeled because of his outreach to descendants of Jews. The lawmakers who submitted the bill to rehabilitate Arthur Carlos Barros Basto withdrew it earlier this month ahead of a vote at the National…
Revising Dreyfus Edited by Maya Balakirsky Katz Brill, 438 pages, $209 The public trial for treason of French Jewish captain Alfred Dreyfus has proven fodder for everything from anti-Semitic walking cane handles to a riot-inducing 1931 play and another play in 1974, which the New York Times panned as a flop. Roman Polanski is reportedly…
A French mayor from the far-right National Front party evicted from city-owned offices an anti-racism group inspired by the Dreyfus trial. Steeve Briois, who was elected last month to run the town of Henin-Beaumont, ordered the Human Rights League, or LDH, to clear out of its workspace last week, LDH President Pierre Tartakowsky told JTA….
