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A Jewish producer of ‘All Quiet On The Western Front’ sees his family history in the Oscar-nominated Netflix film
(JTA) — The film producer Daniel Dreifuss has only one surviving photo of a distant relative: his grandfather’s cousin, who fought for Germany in World War I and died in combat two days before the war’s end.
He has a few more photos of his grandfather, who also wore the German uniform in WWI — only to be rounded up by the Nazis two decades later during Kristallnacht and thrown into a concentration camp, as even the Jews who had fought for their country were not safe from its campaign of race extermination.
Dreifuss, who was raised in Brazil after his surviving ancestors fled the war to Uruguay, held up these weathered black-and-white photos to his Zoom camera as he spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency from his home in Los Angeles. One shows his grandfather’s cousin in his military uniform, the other shows his grandparents posing together, between the wars.
“Twenty years later, your country, that you just gave your health for and your cousin for and your family for, sends you to a camp,” he said. “It’s a lot of trauma to have to go through in one lifetime.”
These family stories echoed through Dreifuss’ mind when he first read the script for a proposed modern take on “All Quiet on the Western Front,” the classic 1928 novel about the German army’s hellish experiences during World War I. Nearly a century later, author Erich Maria Remarque’s descriptions of trench warfare and of the utter lack of heroism, valor or patriotism felt by its soldier protagonists resonated with Dreifuss.
“I said, ‘I know these people,’” he recalled. “Not because they are some distant relatives that I’ve heard of, but because I am the grandson of one of those kids who were in the film.”
Dreifuss’ parents met at a Jewish youth group in Rio de Janeiro in the 1960s. “My father was my mother’s madrich,” he recalled, using the Hebrew word for a youth group counselor. After they were later married, they moved to Israel partially to avoid Brazil’s military dictatorship and became left-wing political activists. They left Israel just before the Yom Kippur War and relocated to Scotland, where Dreifuss was born, before returning to Brazil to raise him.
Dreifuss had his bar mitzvah in the city of Belo Horizonte before later moving to Rio, which has a much larger Jewish community. “My family was never at all religious, but culturally Jewish,” he said, recalling Passover celebrations and gefilte fish recipes. He did not have many Jewish friends growing up, but his Brazilian friends were interested in Judaism and would attend his family’s Jewish events.
Daniel Dreifuss, a producer of Netflix’s “All Quiet on the Western Front,” holds up a photo of his grandfather Max Dreifuss from 1919, recovering from his German military service in WWI. Max was sent to a concentration camp once the Nazis took power. (Courtesy of Daniel Dreifuss)
This global upbringing is reflected in Dreifuss’ interest in international film. It took a decade for him to mount his remake of “All Quiet,” which was eventually set up with a German production company and released by Netflix this past fall amid another endless military conflict in Europe. No one, he said, wanted to fund a resolutely anti-war film that refused to glorify its combatants, a film that was “never a hero’s journey, not the story of someone who came, you know, beat 1,000 people with their bare hands, triumphs and looks down on top of a hill at the end with some sweeping score.”
But that journey has been validated by the film’s impressive Oscar total, which surprised industry observers. At the nomination ceremony last month, “All Quiet” received nine total nods, the second most of any film this year, including for best picture — which the novel’s original 1930 Hollywood adaptation, directed by Jewish filmmaker Lewis Milestone, won. (This year’s Academy Awards will be held March 12.)
Considering the Nazis had once led a campaign of book burning against the source material and terrorized German movie theaters that showed the original movie adaptation, accusing it of being a “Judenfilm,” Dreifuss sees the new film’s success as a historical victory, too. “I love that my name will be associated with a story that was deemed degenerate by that regime,” he said.
When he was first presented with an early draft of the new “All Quiet” script, in 2013, Dreifuss was coming off of the success of another international historical film he had produced. “No,” a 1980s-set Chilean political drama, starred Gael Garcia Bernal as an ad executive tasked with convincing his country to vote the dictator Augusto Pinochet out of office. The film netted Chile’s first-ever Oscar nomination for international feature film, although Dreifuss himself is not Chilean.
In researching “No,” Dreifuss said, the film’s team had trouble finding Chileans who would admit to having cast their real-life vote in Pinochet’s favor — even though 40% of the population did so. “We couldn’t find one single person who supported him,” he recalled. “At some point, years later, no one wanted to say, ‘I supported it, I voted, I was on that side.’” He saw a parallel to the history of geopolitics in the run-up to WWII, when many Western countries — including his family’s adopted homeland of Brazil — were initially sympathetic to the Nazis.
When Hollywood studios turned down the proposed remake of “All Quiet,” forcing Dreifuss to turn to European financing, he saw an opportunity to mount the first-ever German adaptation of the property, which would allow the film to open up a “historical perspective” on how the aftermath of WWI led to the rise of the Nazis and the Holocaust.
German filmmaker Edward Berger, who also helmed several episodes of the espionage miniseries “Deutschland 83,” stepped into the director’s chair, and he also has a co-writing credit. German star Daniel Brühl, who has played many historical villains to the Jewish people in films ranging from “7 Days in Entebbe” to “The Zookeeper’s Wife,” took a key supporting role as the lead negotiator for the armistice agreements — the sole figure in the movie trying to find a peaceful resolution for his country. (The historical figure Brühl portrays, Matthias Erzberger, was vilified as a traitor by the German right and assassinated in 1921 by antisemitic nationalist radicals who were precursors to the Nazis.)
Though there are no explicitly Jewish characters in the film, Dreifuss believes it still speaks to the fate that would soon await Europe’s Jews.
“We know what followed in the decade in Germany,” he said. “So we could bring that to the film in subtle ways.”
He pointed to the armistice plotline that foreshadows how the Treaty of Versailles left Germany in a deeply disadvantaged position, creating an opportunity for Hitler’s brand of national populism. There are also scenes in which thoughtless German generals, driven by nationalistic fervor and wounded pride, send entire squadrons to their deaths mere minutes before the armistice is set to take effect. In one sequence, the film’s lead, the soldier Paul (Felix Kammerer), steals a goose from a French farming family of non-combatants and says: “It’s a hatred of the other, of not understanding, of being raised to have an enemy.”
Dreifuss is dipping into a different chapter of world Jewish history with his next project: a Showtime miniseries produced with the co-creators of the Israeli Netflix series “Fauda” that explores CIA operations in the Middle East and is partially set during the Lebanon War in which Israel had a heavy, and oft-criticized, military presence. The series will air this summer.
He has also been pitched a host of WWI and WWII-related projects in the wake of the success of “All Quiet.” But, he joked, “I would love for people to not only think of me as the war guy, or as the dictator guy.”
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Trump just used journalists as human shields — Jewish ethics has thoughts about that
Everyone has been talking about The Odyssey this summer. So much so that, apparently, the president of the United States felt the need to act out a famous piece of Greek mythology, namely the story of the Trojan horse. When an Iranian assassination threat in July seemed credible enough, the Secret Service spirited Trump off of Air Force One in a catering truck after a NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey.
The plane then took off as usual, loaded with top government officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, as well as the usual cast of aides and journalists who often accompany the president. Most believed they were on the plane with Trump, and weren’t aware of any threat. And had Iran actually attacked, and Air Force One been shot out of the sky, they would have gone down in the president’s place.
It is not unheard of for presidents to change plans suddenly for safety reasons, or otherwise use some amount of subterfuge to obscure their location; when Bill Clinton flew to Pakistan, for example, there were several decoy planes. But it is highly unusual for the plan to involve risking numerous other people, including civilians. Several journalists have accused Trump, who has long picked fights with the press, of using the media as an expendable human shield.
Much has been made, particularly in the Jewish world, of the idea of human shields, particularly because Hamas is often accused of the practice. Human shields can refer to putting civilians in harm’s way as part of a military strategy, or using them as decoys or to protect soldiers. (Hamas purportedly has used civilian sites such as hospitals or schools to protect their weapons stores and headquarters.)
There are numerous stories in Jewish texts in which innocent lives are sacrificed for ulterior motives, and the perpetrators are roundly condemned. King David sends his general Uriah to the frontlines so he will die and never realize that David had slept with his wife; God sends the prophet Nathan to rebuke David for his selfishness and Batsheva loses the pregnancy as punishment. When Simon and Levi destroy Shechem in retribution for the rape of their sister Dina, the patriarch Jacob censures their actions.
Though there is plenty of warfare in the Bible, and God at times orders the destruction of entire cities or groups, most Jewish sages interpret this to only apply to combatants because other commandments, such as to leave the gates of a besieged city open to allow people to flee, instruct that innocent civilians must be protected.
Beyond general ethics, the laws of war laid out in the Geneva Convention protect civilians and forbid the destruction of pivotal resources such as hospitals. But the strategy is, in many ways, a successful one precisely because it is so contemptible; everyone agrees that killing civilians not involved in war is morally wrong, which means that there is an international uproar if combatants do kill civilians to get to an enemy stronghold.
The U.S. and Israel both hold themselves apart operating uniquely moral armies — ones that follow the laws of war and protect civilians. Both nations publicly boast of fighting only necessary, noble wars. Reality, however, often differs. During the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, tens of thousands of American soldiers were discharged for misconduct. And after Oct. 7, Israel also began using human shields, forcing Palestinian civilians to go ahead of Israeli soldiers to check for traps or mines.
When Trump landed, the White House press pool asked him, on the tarmac, what the threat was, and whether the journalists and aides on board the original plane were in danger. Trump responded that he simply did what the Secret Service told him to; “I get a lot of threats,” he said, and said he believed that the plane he actually flew on — a plane no one knew he was on — was in more danger than Air Force One.
But it’s clear to everyone else — including many members of the media who were on the plane — that the civilians left on the plane targeted by the Iranian threat were human shields. Trump may have long defamed the media, but putting them knowingly in harm’s way is still a bad look. Such a bad look that, after The New York Times reported on Trump’s planes, FBI agents went to the journalists’ homes to subpoena them for their reporting.
Thankfully, neither plane was shot down. But that doesn’t make Trump’s decision to protect himself any more moral.
The post Trump just used journalists as human shields — Jewish ethics has thoughts about that appeared first on The Forward.
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Apple pays $150k to settle federal antisemitism lawsuit
(JTA) — Apple has agreed to pay $150,000 to settle a federal lawsuit alleging that the company failed to accommodate a Jewish employee’s observance of Shabbat, and later fired him after he complained of religious discrimination.
The lawsuit, which was filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in September 2025, accused Apple of discriminating against Tyler Steele, a longtime employee of one of its stores in Reston, Virginia.
Steele converted to Judaism in the spring of 2023, and while his manager initially approved his request not to be scheduled on Fridays and Saturdays due to his observance of Shabbat, another manager that replaced the previous one later rescinded the accommodation.
According to the complaint, Steele’s new manager, Anthony Dosch, denied his requests to have the days off in September 2023, allegedly telling him that month that he “could become a rules Nazi with regards to our policies.”
Days after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, Dosch also warned Steele not to get into politics or debates about the conflict at work, and a month later issued him a misconduct warning claiming that Steele had body odor that violated the store’s policies.
The EEOC alleged that Steele later complained to Apple officials in November 2023 about antisemitic behavior and the denial of his religious accommodation. Steele was fired from the store in January 2024, after reminding Dosch that he could not work on a Friday the following month for religious reasons.
“Employees should not have to violate their religious beliefs to keep their jobs or live in fear of retribution because they requested an accommodation,” EEOC Philadelphia Regional Attorney Debra Lawrence said in a statement at the time the lawsuit was filed.
In its lawsuit, the EEOC accused Apple of religious discrimination and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Apple and the EEOC unveiled the settlement in an Aug. 7 filing in federal court in Virginia, nearly a year after the initial complaint.
Apple denied the allegations and did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement, which required the company to award Steele $80,000 in back pay and $70,000 in compensatory damages and interest.
Under the settlement, the company will also be required to update its religious accommodation policies and conduct trainings with some employees in its Virginia operations within 90 days.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Apple pays $150k to settle federal antisemitism lawsuit appeared first on The Forward.
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Judge throws out Trump’s Harvard antisemitism lawsuit, citing lack of evidence
(JTA) — A federal judge threw out the Trump administration’s lawsuit that had accused Harvard University of having “turned a blind eye” to Jewish and Israeli students, ending for now the most high-profile campus antisemitism case in the legal arena.
The judge, Richard Stearns, ruled Thursday that the government’s evidence for Harvard having committed Title VI civil rights violations were “too isolated and episodic to support a plausible inference that any institutionalized noncompliance with Title VI persists at Harvard to this day.”
In a statement, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the government disagrees with the ruling and is “assessing next steps.”
Trump’s suit against the Ivy League school, first filed in March, was a cornerstone of his administration’s aggressive and contentious fight against campus antisemitism. Harvard was among the most prominent schools to have experienced severe tensions, including incidents directly targeting Jewish students and “Zionists,” in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel. The school settled cases with some Jewish students and put forward its own plans to fight antisemitism.
Yet unlike some other schools, Harvard resisted the government’s efforts to make concessions and pay a fine in order to resolve Title VI cases. The school also fought the Trump administration’s 2025 freezing of more than $2 billion in federal funds to Harvard, which the government argued was punishment for failing to address campus antisemitism.
Sterns wrote that the government’s case in the Title VI suit was flawed because it relied on incidents almost entirely from the 2023-24 school year and couldn’t be considered “ongoing.”
He also criticized the Trump administration’s practice of withholding funds from schools accused of Title VI violations, writing, “Congress’s intent was not to penalize a wayward funding recipient but instead to incentivize it to bring itself into compliance with TItle VI.” Title VI is the section of the Civil Rights Act requiring institutions that receive federal funds not to discriminate on the basis of race, color or national origin.
A spokesperson for Harvard did not immediately return a request for comment.
Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Harvard alum who has become a prominent conservative campus activist on antisemitism issues since Oct. 7, criticized the ruling to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“Harvard insists on violating the civil rights of American Jewish students while holding the American people hostage in paying for it,” he wrote in a message. Kestenbaum encouraged the government not to issue any further grants to the university.
The case has been seen as a barometer of academia’s ability to fight the Trump administration in court over federal incursion efforts, many of which the administration cited campus antisemitism to justify. The day before the suit’s dismissal, three dozen universities — including fellow Ivy League schools Brown, Columbia and Cornell, all of whom had signed agreements with the Trump administration in exchange for dropping antisemitism charges — filed an amicus brief supporting Harvard in a separate case that had restored the school’s federal funding by court order.
The legal brouhaha had divided Jewish groups. Weeks before the judge’s ruling, Hillel International filed, then immediately withdrew, its own amicus brief supporting Harvard in the separate case. Hillel’s brief had argued the school was already adequately addressing antisemitism and that the government’s actions “do not help Jewish students.” Hillel withdrew the brief hours later, after activists including Kestenbaum criticized the organization on social media and urged donors to withhold funding.
Hillel International declined to comment on the latest development to JTA. A request for comment to Harvard Hillel, which operates independently of the parent organization, was not immediately returned. A request for comment to Harvard Chabad, whose director has also been outspoken about fighting campus antisemitism, was also not immediately returned.
Harvard’s Jewish community has also split over the school’s handling of antisemitism and the merits of the lawsuit. A March open letter signed by 120 Jewish Harvard faculty and staff after the lawsuit’s initial filing said the government “cynically exploits concerns about antisemitism to justify what can only be described as an authoritarian assault on institutions of higher education.”
In contrast, a July open letter signed by 170 Jewish and non-Jewish Harvard faculty and staff said that “challenges remain” on campus, while acknowledging “the situation has improved to some extent recently.”
“We understand why colleagues question the merits and motives of the Title VI lawsuit,” the second letter states. “But one should not turn a blind eye to the fact that many Jewish and Israeli students have suffered harassment and discrimination over the last few years, degrading their Harvard experience.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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