Adapting Jewish Literature: Yentl and A Tale of Love and Darkness with Fania Oz-Salzberger, Ruby Namdar and Rokhl Kafrissen
Fania Oz-Salzberger, Ruby Namdar and Rokhl Kafrissen join in conversation about what it means to adapt Jewish literature for the big screen.
While many Jewish filmmakers choose to write their own material and draft their own stories, others turn to interpretation. This program compares two films that share biographical features, Yentl and A Tale of Love and Darkness. Though released decades apart, both were directed by acclaimed actresses making their directorial debuts, Barbara Streisand and Natalie Portman respectively. These women notably adapted literary works written by men and their star power was critical to getting these films made.
Historian Fania Oz-Salzberger shares personal insights about her father, acclaimed Israeli writer Amos Oz, and his autobiographical novel A Tale of Love and Darkness and author and educator Ruby Namdar considers the film and the legacy of the memoir. Critic and playwright Rokhl Kafrissen explores Yentl, based on a play and short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer.
This program is a collaboration between Moment Magazine and REWIND: The Shenson Retrospective Film Series, a project of Stanford’s Taube Center for Jewish Studies. Both movies can be watched on Amazon Prime.
Ask the Rabbis | Post-Pandemic, What Elements of Virtual Judaism Will We Keep?
In 2018, as synagogues pondered livestreaming some services for the convenience of infirm relatives, we asked the rabbis to contemplate what was surely a distant, speculative future: “What role should virtual presence play in Jewish ritual and community?”
Book Review | The Dark Origins of Polish Revisionism
In February, in a case that made international headlines and provoked widespread condemnation, a court in Warsaw ordered two Polish historians of the Shoah to apologize to an elderly woman from the village of Malinowo for having “inexactly portrayed” her uncle Edward Malinowski, the village’s wartime headman.
Book Review | A Family in Pen and Ink
In the rise and fall of Hitler’s Germany, villains, victims and heroes figure profusely and are easily recognized.
From the Editor | The Blessings of Community
My father died peacefully on a wintry morning this February. The day before, there was a snowstorm, and he spent hours watching the flakes fall outside his kitchen window.
Make RBG’s Birthday a National Holiday
This March 15th, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would have been 88. Over the last year of her life, she and I collaborated on...
The Holocaust and Antisemitism in Latin America: A Conversation with Ilan Stavans and Andrés Spokoiny
Much attention is focused on anti-Semitism in Europe and the United States, but many Latin American countries also have a troubled history with their Jewish communities. Learn about the continent’s checkered past when it comes to the Holocaust and Nazis as well as recent manifestations of anti-Semitism with Mexican American writer and scholar Ilan Stavans, author of The Seventh Heaven: Travels Through Jewish Latin America and Andrés Spokoiny, president and CEO of the Jewish Funders Network, who grew up in Argentina.
This program is part of a Moment series on anti-Semitism supported by the Joyce and Irving Goldman Family Foundation.
Doug Emhoff, The First Second Gentleman
Among the feel-good leitmotifs of the Biden administration’s early days has been the love story of Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff.
Opinion | A ‘Confederation’ For Israel?
Hope swelled in many hearts when President Biden indicated he would deep-six the prior administration’s “Deal of the Century,” which would have enshrined Israel’s creeping annexation and ever-expanding settlement project and forced Palestinians to accept a state with as much contiguity as the Caribbean islands.
Moment Debate Round Two | Does Electronic Surveillance Threaten Democracy?
In the previous issue, Moment asked if electronic surveillance threatens democracy. Rachel Levinson-Waldman, deputy director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan...
Opinion | A Daycare Tragedy Opens My Eyes
Sometimes a single truth, belatedly discovered, can change one’s world view with surprising swiftness.
Opinion Interview | How to Get Through to an Extremist
Since the attack on the U.S. Capitol, attention has turned to the multiple strains of violent extremism flourishing at home.