Uncategorized
As landmark Saul Bellow documentary premieres, a look back at his life through the JTA archive
(JTA) — Given his place in the international literary canon, it’s hard to believe that there has never been a widely-released documentary made about the Jewish Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow.
That’s about to change, as PBS debuts “American Masters: The Adventures of Saul Bellow” on Monday night.
The documentary, which was filmed by Israeli director Asaf Galay between 2016 and 2019 and features what is being touted as the last interview Philip Roth gave before his death in 2018, digs deep into Bellow’s personal life and inspirations. Many know about his successful novels and memorable (usually Jewish) characters, but as the film shows, Bellow had a turbulent personal life that involved five marriages. Several of his closest friends and family members felt betrayed or offended by how Bellow wrote unflattering characters closely based on them. His moderate conservative political leanings put him at odds with the ethos of the 1960s, and some saw his framing of occasional Black characters as racist.
But the film also devotes time to explaining — through interviews with scholars, other novelists and members of the Bellow clan — how Bellow’s deep-rooted sense of “otherness” as the son of Jewish immigrants influenced his work, and how he, in turn, influenced many Jewish American writers who followed him. Roth, for instance, says on camera that Bellow inspired him to create fuller Jewish characters in his own work.
To mark the milestone film, we looked back through all of the Saul Bellow content in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s archive. What emerged was a portrait of a leading Jewish intellectual of his time who was deeply invested in the Soviet Jewry movement and Israel, and who was beloved by the American Jewish community — despite his complicated relationship to his Jewishness and his bristling at being called a “Jewish writer.”
The Soviet Jewry movement
Bellow was born in 1915 in Canada to parents with Lithuanian ancestry who first immigrated from St. Petersburg, Russia. In the 1920s, when Bellow was 9, the family moved to Chicago. By the 1950s, the plight of Jews in the Soviet Union — who were forbidden from openly practicing their religion and from emigrating — had become a rallying cry for American Jews. As a 1958 JTA report shows, Bellow was passionate about the issue; in January of that year, he signed a letter to The New York Times about “the purge of Yiddish writers, the refusal of the current Soviet regime to permit a renaissance of Jewish culture and the existence of a quota system on Jews in education, professional and civil service fields.” Other signatories included fellow Jewish writers Irving Howe, Alfred Kazin and Lionel Trilling.
Saul Bellow, Anita Goshkin (his first wife) and their son Gregory Bellow, circa 1940. Bellow’s turbulent personal life involved five marriages. (Courtesy of the Bellow family)
He signed another letter to the Times on the topic in 1965, and in 1969 he circulated an appeal for cultural freedom for Jews to the Soviet Writers Union, getting other prominent writers such as Noam Chomsky and Nat Hentoff to sign. By 1970, the issue had become widely publicized, and Bellow stayed involved, signing onto a petition with several other thought leaders that asked: “Has the government of the Soviet Union no concern for human rights or for the decent opinion of mankind?”
Israel
Like many American Jews, Bellow had complicated feelings on Israel. “If you want everyone to love you, don’t discuss Israeli politics,” he once wrote.
In the 1970s, JTA reports show that he followed Israeli diplomacy closely and was a strong supporter of the Jewish state in the face of international criticism. In 1974, at a PEN press conference, he called for a boycott of UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural heritage arm that has historically been very critical of Israeli policy.
In 1984, Bellow met with then-Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who was in the United States on an official state visit.
But Bellow wasn’t a blanket supporter of Israel — in 1979, he signed a letter protesting West Bank settlement expansion that was read at a rally of 30,000 people in Tel Aviv. In 1987, while in Haifa for a conference on his work, Bellow criticized the Israeli government for the way it handled the Jonathan Pollard spy case, bringing up an issue that still reverberates in Israel-Diaspora conversation — and in U.S. politics.
“I think the American Jews are very sensitive to the question of dual allegiance, and it is probably wrong of Israel to press this question because it is one which is very often used by antisemites,” Bellow said.
Nobel Prize
After garnering multiple National Book Awards and a Pulitzer Prize, Bellow won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976. JTA’s report on the award noted that Bellow’s most recent book at the time, published right around the time of the Nobel announcements, was a memoir about his 1975 stay in Jerusalem, titled “To Jerusalem and Back.” The report added: “Two of his books, ‘Herzog,’ published in 1964 and ‘Mr. Sammler’s Planet,’ which won him the National Book Award in 1971, have been translated into Hebrew and were enthusiastically received by Israeli critics and public.”
(Bellow wasn’t the only Jew to win a Nobel that year: Milton Friedman won the economics prize, Baruch Blumberg shared the medicine prize and Burton Richter shared the physics prize.)
Bellow, center, with his fifth wife Janis Freedman-Bellow and longtime friend Allan Bloom, who is the subject of Bellow’s last novel, “Ravelstein.” (Courtesy of the Bellow family)
A “Jewish writer”?
The Anti-Defamation League also gave Bellow an award in 1976. According to a JTA report, Seymour Graubard, honorary national chairman of the ADL at the time, said that Bellow “has correctly rejected all efforts to pigeonhole him as a ‘Jewish writer.’ Rather, he has simply found in the Jewish experience those common strains of humanity that are part of all of us — and therein lies his greatness as an American writer.”
Debate over whether or not Bellow should be labeled a “Jewish writer,” and what that meant, dogged him for much of his career. After his death in 2005, at 89, a New York Jewish Week obituary focused on Bellow as “a literary giant who did not want to be bound by the tag of Jewish writer.”
“Mr. Bellow bridled at being considered a Jewish writer, though his early novels, most notably 1944’s ‘The Victim,’ dealt with anti-Semitism and featured characters who spoke Yiddish and Russian,” Steve Lipman wrote.
Bellow’s biographer James Atlas added in the obituary: “He always said he was a writer first, an American second and Jewish third. But all three were elements of his genius. His greatest contribution was that he was able to write fiction that had tremendous philosophical depth.”
In a JTA essay at the time of Bellow’s death, academic and fiction writer John J. Clayton argued: “No good writer wants to be pigeonholed or limited in scope. But he is deeply a Jewish writer — not just a Jew by birth.
“Jewish culture, Jewish sensibility, a Jewish sense of holiness in the everyday, permeate his work.”
—
The post As landmark Saul Bellow documentary premieres, a look back at his life through the JTA archive appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Condemnation and Applause in Latin America after US Seizes Venezuela’s Maduro
Venezuelans gather to celebrate, after US President Donald Trump said that the US attacked Venezuela and deposed its President Nicolas Maduro, in Santiago, Chile January 3, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Pablo Sanhueza
Latin American leaders were divided between condemnation and jubilation in the wake of a surprise attack on Venezuela early on Saturday that US President Donald Trump said resulted in the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
While much of the region has long been wary of a return to US interventions throughout the 20th century that helped install authoritarian governments from Chile to Honduras, Maduro – who presided over his country’s social and economic collapse – was an increasingly unpopular and isolated leader.
Many Latin American countries have also experienced a shift in recent elections to more right-leaning governments, many of whose leaders view the US-backed military regimes of the last century as necessary bulwarks against socialism.
In a sign of the economic pain faced under Maduro, nearly 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country since 2018, with 85 percent of them migrating to neighbors in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
Many countries in the region have experienced surges in organized crime in recent years and the specter of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang has loomed large over voters’ minds, leading to a rise in politicians vowing to crack down on crime and immigration.
While few leaders will shed serious tears about Maduro’s ousting, governments in the region will react along political lines, said Steven Levitsky, a professor and director of Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.
“I think you’ll see right-wing governments applaud because that’s what they do. You’ll see left-wing governments criticize because how could they not?” Levitsky said.
REACTIONS SPLIT ALONG IDEOLOGY
The strongest condemnation of the attack came in a string of posts on X from neighboring Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro, a leftist who has frequently clashed with Trump and has also been threatened by the US president.
“The Colombian government rejects the aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and Latin America,” Petro said in one message, while calling for an immediate meeting of the United Nations Security Council, of which Colombia is a member.
His Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, echoed Petro’s comments.
“The bombings on Venezuela’s territory and the capture of its president cross an unacceptable line,” Lula said in a statement.
Chile’s outgoing President Gabriel Boric condemned the attack but President-elect Jose Antonio Kast, who rose to power by promising to crack down on migration and crime, said in a post on X that Maduro’s arrest was great news for the region.
“Now begins a greater task. The governments of Latin America must ensure that the entire apparatus of the regime abandons power and is held accountable,” said Kast, who will be sworn in on March 11.
In Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum also condemned the US intervention in Venezuela. Asked about comments Trump made on Saturday to Fox News, when he said the US has offered to “take out the cartels” in Mexico and that “we have to do something,” Sheinbaum replied that Mexico has a very good relationship with the US on security matters.
ARGENTINA, ECUADOR BACK ACTION
Argentina’s President Javier Milei, Trump’s closest ally in the region, has long criticized Maduro and posted videos and statements on X in favor of the attack.
In Ecuador, right-wing President Daniel Noboa said Venezuelans opposed to Maduro and his political godfather Hugo Chavez have an ally in Ecuador.
“All the criminal narco-Chavistas will have their moment,” Noboa said on X. “Their structure will finally collapse across the continent.”
Protests both in favor and against the strikes in Venezuela have been scheduled in Buenos Aires and other cities across the region.
The capture of Maduro by US forces “is one of the most momentous decisions in the history of US-Latin America relations,” said Brian Winter, editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly and vice president of policy at Americas Society/Council of the Americas.
“The operation confirms return of Washington as policeman in its ‘sphere of influence,’ an idea that defined much of 19th and 20th centuries but had faded since (the) end of the Cold War,” Winter said in a post on LinkedIn.
Uncategorized
Democratic US Lawmakers Say They Were Misled on Venezuela, Demand a Plan
US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) holds a press conference in the US Capitol in Washington, DC, April 23, 2024. Photo: Annabelle Gordon / CNP/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Democratic members of the US Congress said on Saturday that senior officials of President Donald Trump‘s administration had misled them during recent briefings about plans for Venezuela by insisting they were not planning regime change in Caracas.
The US attacked Venezuela and deposed its long-serving President Nicolas Maduro in an overnight operation, in Washington’s most direct intervention in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama.
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democrats’ leader in the Senate, said he had been told in three classified briefings that the administration was not pursuing regime change or planning to take military action in Venezuela.
“They assured me that they were not pursuing those things,” Schumer said on a call with reporters. “Clearly they’re not being straight with the American people.”
Schumer said he had not been briefed by Saturday afternoon and called for the administration to fill in not just congressional and intelligence committee leaders, but also all lawmakers by early next week.
“They’ve kept everyone in the total dark,” he said.
Lawmakers said they wanted more guidance on Trump‘s plans for Venezuela, after he told reporters he would put the country under US control, for now.
“No serious plan has been presented for how such an extraordinary undertaking would work or what it will cost the American people. History offers no shortage of warnings about the costs – human, strategic, and moral – of assuming we can govern another nation by force,” said Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The Senate is due to vote next week on whether to block further military action against Venezuela without congressional approval.
In briefings in November and December by officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, lawmakers said they were told repeatedly that there were no plans for a land invasion inside Venezuela and that the administration was not focused on regime change.
“Instead, the Administration consistently misled the American people and their elected representatives,” Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement.
The Pentagon, State Department and White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
SOME LAWMAKERS SAY ADMINISTRATION LIED
Several lawmakers said they felt they had been lied to.
“The Administration lied to Congress and launched an illegal war for regime change and oil,” Democratic Representative Don Beyer of Virginia said on X. Beyer’s district includes the Pentagon, just across the river from Washington.
At a news conference on Saturday, Trump said Congress had not been kept fully informed because of concerns that word about his plans would get out. “Congress does have a tendency to leak,” Trump told reporters.
Members of Congress, including some of Trump‘s fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, had been clamoring for more information about his strategy toward the oil-rich South American nation since September, when he began a military build-up in the Caribbean and ordered strikes on boats he said were carrying drugs.
“When we had briefings on Venezuela, we asked, ‘Are you going to invade the country?’ We were told no. ‘Do you plan to put troops on the ground?’ We were told no. ‘Do you intend regime change in Venezuela?’ We were told no,” Democratic Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts said on CNN. “So in a sense, we have been briefed, we’ve just been completely lied to.”
Lawmakers said they were not briefed before the operation, although Rubio called some members of Congress after it took place. There were no briefings for lawmakers scheduled by Saturday afternoon. Republican congressional leaders said they hoped to arrange some after lawmakers return to Washington on January 5 following their year-end recess.
Most Republicans praised Trump‘s action and have declined to discuss what has been said in classified briefings.
“President Trump‘s decisive action to disrupt the unacceptable status quo and apprehend Maduro, through the execution of a valid Department of Justice warrant, is an important first step to bring him to justice for the drug crimes for which he has been indicted in the United States,” said Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota.
Members of Congress have long accused presidents from both parties of seeking to sidestep the Constitution’s requirement that Congress, not the president, approve anything other than brief and limited military action needed to defend the United States.
Uncategorized
Israeli Leadership Hails Trump for ‘Brave, Brilliant’ Venezuela Operation
Photo of Maduro in U.S. custody shared by Trump. Photo: i24 illustration.
i24 News – Israel’s prime minister and foreign minister issued high praise to US President Donald Trump following the successful operation on Saturday to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.
“Israel commends the United States’ operation, led by President Trump, which acted as the leader of the free world,” Gideon Sa’ar, the Jewish state’s top diplomat, wrote on social media. “At this historic moment, Israel stands alongside the freedom-loving Venezuelan people, who have suffered under Maduro’s illegal tyranny.”
“Israel welcomes the removal of the dictator who led a network of drugs and terror and hopes for the return of democracy to the country and for friendly relations between the states,” he further added.
The statement came hours after Maduro and his wife were seized in an overnight operation.
“This was one of the most stunning, effective and powerful displays of American military might and competence in American history,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, hailed Trump’s “bold and historic leadership on behalf of freedom and justice.”
“I salute your decisive resolve and the brilliant action of your brave soldiers,” the premier added.