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In Amazon’s new Bollywood movie, a couple visits Auschwitz to heal their marriage
(JTA) – At first glance, the new movie “Bawaal” has all the hallmarks of a typical Bollywood romantic melodrama: A self-centered protagonist learns how to be an adult and respect his partner, with the help of corny jokes and some song-and-dance numbers.
But the movie, which Amazon Prime released on Friday through a distribution deal with its Indian production company, takes an unusual route to get there: having its married couple imagine themselves in the Auschwitz death camps.
Visiting the memorial site, they also meet a Holocaust survivor — played by an actor named Richard Tate — who tells them, with a British accent and no elaboration, “Every relationship has its own Auschwitz.” Jews, as a class of people, are barely mentioned throughout the movie.
It’s a plotline that has some critics declaring the movie to be in bad taste, and at least one Jewish group calling on Amazon to remove the film from its platform. But the director and actors have defended the film, saying that they believe the Auschwitz segments were handled appropriately.
“I’m a bit disappointed with the way some people have comprehended it,” director Nitesh Tiwari, who also co-wrote the script with four other credited writers, told an audience in India last week.
“Bawaal” centers on a narcissistic history teacher named Ajay, played by Hindi-language megastar Varun Dhawan, who has been feigning knowledge about World War II to his students — and whose marriage to his wife Nisha (Janhvi Kapoor) is on the rocks. To save his job and his marriage, Ajay and Nisha embark on a trip to visit war landmarks throughout Europe. Along the way, Ajay records on-the-ground video lessons for his students back home in Lucknow. (Most of the film’s dialogue, with the exception of the survivor’s lines, was not originally spoken in English.)
Ajay learns about the horrors of the Holocaust, and the couple use the atrocity as a metaphor for their marriage. “The world war is over, but no one knows when the war we fight within will end,” Nisha says. Another part of the story has the couple drawing parallels between a bag mix-up at the airport and the Nazis forcing Jews to pack their bags quickly when they were being shipped off to the camps.
The couple’s tour of World War II sites takes them to Paris, the beaches of Normandy, Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam and Hitler’s bunker in Berlin. Ajay’s lesson to his students about Anne Frank is that she was their age when she had her life cut short; his lesson from Berlin, after wandering through its Holocaust memorial, is that “an image created with the help of lies and propaganda doesn’t last for long.” (“We’re all a little like Hitler,” Nisha muses; “we are not satisfied with what we have.”)
The trip ends at Auschwitz, with Ajay and Nisha touring the death camp and imagining themselves as its Jewish prisoners clad in striped uniforms. During a climactic scene in the gas chambers, Nisha, who has epilepsy, collapses on the ground from shock.
This is the principal scene that has provoked criticism. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights group, called on Amazon to remove the film “due to its outlandish abuse of the Nazi Holocaust as a plot device.” A reviewer for The Guardian said the Auschwitz sequence was “so mind-bogglingly vapid it’s hard to watch,” while adding, “Western films have pulled this sort of stunt before, of course, with other countries’ histories, so it’s an education of sorts to see it done in reverse.” The Hindustan Times called it “the most insensitive movie of the year,” adding that the gas chamber scene “is an excruciatingly horrible and shameful depiction, in which [the] Holocaust is but a narrative scapegoat for the characters to face their fears and save their toxic marriage.”
“Bawaal” is far from the first piece of pop-culture to offer a Holocaust narrative decried as insensitive. The bestselling book and movie “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” depicted a friendship between a Jewish concentration camp prisoner and the son of a Nazi guard — an implausibility not based in the historical record of how the camps functioned. Teen romance “The Fault In Our Stars” included a visit to the Anne Frank house — which, as in “Bawaal,” functioned as an aphrodisiac.
But the “Bawaal” filmmakers say they had good intentions and that they paid proper deference to the historical sites, which they chose because they said Indian audiences would be less familiar with them as cultural touchstones.
“Don’t we see Ajay and Nisha getting completely troubled and moved by what they see in Auschwitz?” Tiwari said. “They see the prisoners. They see the people, how they were stacked. They see the people, how they were exterminated and stuff like that. And every physical torture people went through. And are they being insensitive about it? No. They are moved to tears.”
Kapoor, who plays Nisha, further added that the characters reacted to Auschwitz much as any modern-day visitor would.
“I know when I went to these places, my first organic thought was, ‘If this was me, what would I do? If this was me and my family?’” she recalled. “It realigned something within me.”
Kapoor added that an unnamed Israeli “professor at an Ivy League university” who “had ancestors who unfortunately did not survive the Holocaust” told her that he had been “very moved” by the film, “and never once in the conversation did he even allude to being offended by anything.”
Dhawan dismissed people who he said were “triggered” by the film, adding, “I don’t understand where that sensitivity and that trigger goes when they watch, suppose, an English film.” He referenced an unnamed “recently released” film that he said is “important to our culture and our country”; some Indian media outlets speculated that he was discussing “Oppenheimer,” the biopic about the Jewish designer of the atomic bomb, which includes a reference to the physicist’s quotation of the Bhagavad Gita.
Even as the couple in “Bawaal” are comparing themselves to Holocaust victims, they also emphasize that they have things a lot better. “The sorrows we face,” Nisha says at one point, “are nothing in comparison to the pain they suffered every day.”
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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
The post US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.
Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”
The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.
President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.
In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.
The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”
“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks
IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.
Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.
A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery.
“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner.
“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”
According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.”
Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.
“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks.
Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.
The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations.
“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.
The post IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.