Long before the advent of DNA evidence, it was the trail of ink, not blood, which often provided detectives with a direct, chemical connection between criminals and their crimes. A century ago, David Nunes Carvalho, a renowned expert on ink, handwriting and print, became a central figure in some of the world’s most sensational investigations,…
France’s Defense Ministry has posted online hundreds of documents from the trial of Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish soldier whose wrongful espionage conviction was a determinant in the genesis of political Zionism. The historical department of the French Ministry of Defense, SHD, placed online this week the entire military file that was used to convict Dreyfus…
In the 140th anniversary year of his birth on April 9, 1872, the French Jewish statesman Léon Blum is more timely than ever. In April, during France’s latest presidential election, Les éditions Albin Michel reprinted a short exhortatory text, “In Order to be a Socialist,” which Blum wrote in 1919 when he was 42. It…
Once again, France is having an affair with the affair — the Dreyfus Affair. On November 4, Le Monde published a controversial essay by Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz, titled “Israel: Justice or Tribalism,” in which she views contemporary Israel through the prism of this 19th-century event. Israel, she concludes, lacks the political and legal ingredients…
It’s déjà vu all over again at the Academy Awards: The nation that gave us motion pictures stands to sweep the Oscars, which will be broadcast February 26. Leading the new wave of French-made or French-inspired movies this year is, of course, Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo,” with 11 nominations. Through the use of new technologies like…
Earlier this week, Austin Ratner wrote about Hillel sandwiches and patricide, photography, and Audrey Hepburn. His first book, “The Jump Artist,” is the winner of the 2011 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. His blog posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s…
NON FICTION In “Ugly Beauty: Helena Rubinstein, L’Oréal, and the Blemished History of Looking Good,” Ruth Brandon tells the story of Rubinstein, a self-made cosmetics tycoon who came from a poor Polish-Jewish background, and her battle with L’Oreal founder and Nazi collaborator Eugène Schueller, who acquired her company. The book delves into their lives, and…
Some heroes of Jewish history are better known for their deeds than for their personalities, like Sylvain Lévi, president of the Alliance israélite universelle until his death in 1935. A great expert on Eastern religion, literature and history, who co-authored a dictionary of Buddhism and taught Sanskrit at the Sorbonne, Lévi has been little remembered…
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