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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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Trump Administration Says George Washington University Ignored Campus Antisemitism
US President Donald Trump holds a press briefing on Aug. 11, 2025. Photo: Andrew Thomas via Reuters Connect
The Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said on Tuesday that it has amassed sufficient evidence to prove that George Washington University violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, alleging that the institution responded to campus antisemitism “by acting deliberately indifferent” to the harm it posed to Jewish students and faculty.
“The division finds that GWU took no meaningful action and was instead deliberately indifferent to the complaints it received, the misconduct that occurred, and the harms that were suffered by its Jewish and Israeli students and faculty,” the agency said while sharing a document containing its findings. “The Justice Department will seek immediate remediation with GWU for its civil rights violations.”
George Washington University, speaking through spokesperson Shannon McClendon, responded to the Justice Department in a statement which summarized the institution’s actions and policies while stopping short of offering a contentious refutation of the government’s case.
“We have taken appropriate action under university policy and the law to hold individuals or organizations accountable, including during the encampment, and we do not tolerate behavior that threatens our community or undermines meaningful dialogue,” McClendon said. “We have worked diligently with members of GW’s Jewish community, as well as Jewish community organizations, city, and federal authorities to protect the GW community from antisemitism and we remain committed to working with them to ensure every student has the right to equal educational opportunities without fear of harassment and abuse.”
As previously reported, George Washington University in Washington, DC has been a hub of extreme anti-Zionist activity that school officials have struggled to quell. A major source of such conduct has been the campus group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which, among other things, has threatened a Jewish professor and intimidated Jews on campus.
Recently, a student used her commencement speech to lodge accusations of apartheid and genocide against Israel, a notion trafficked by neo-Nazi groups and jihadist terror organizations.
The student, Cecilia Culver, accused Israel of targeting Palestinians “simply for [their] remaining in the country of their ancestors” and said that GW students are passive contributors to the “imperialist system.” An economics and statistics major, Culver deceived administrators who selected her to address the Columbian College of the Arts and Sciences ceremony, the university said in a statement, claiming she strayed from her prepared remarks.
GW faculty have also allegedly contributed to the promotion of antisemitism on campus. In 2023, former psychology professor Lara Sheehi was accused of verbally abusing and discriminating against her Jewish graduate students.
As recounted in a 2023 civil rights complaint filed by StandWithUs, Sheehi was accused of expressing contempt for Jews when, on the first day of term in August 2022, she asked every student to share information about their backgrounds and cultures. Replying to a student who revealed that she was Israeli, Sheehi allegedly said, “It’s not your fault you were born in Israel.” Jewish students said they made several attempts to persuade the university to correct Sheehi’s behavior or arrange an alternative option for fulfilling the requirements of her course. Each time, StandWithUs alleged, administrators said nothing could be done.
Later, the complaint added, Sheehi spread rumors that her Jewish students were “combative” racists and filed misconduct charges against them. One student told The Algemeiner at the time that she never learned what university policies Sheehi accused her and her classmates of violating.
In May, a civil lawsuit recounted dozens of antisemitic incidents which occurred at the university following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. It alleged that school officials failed to respond to adequately to them because of anti-Jewish, as well as anti-Zionist, bias. Among the incidents detailed, the campus Hillel Center was vandalized; someone threw a rock through the window of a truck owned by a Jewish advocacy group; and a Jewish student was told to “kill yourself” and “watch your back” in a hate message which also called her a “filthy k—ke.”
That and more transpired, court documents charge.
“Protesters at GWU raised repulsive, antisemitic signs and shouted slogans like ‘final solution,’ ‘the irony of being what you once hatred,’ a message that equated the swastika to the Star of David; and ‘Globalize the Intifada,’ an express call for violence against Jews,” the complaint adds. “Protesters vandalized university property in what amounted to rioting and blocked Jewish students from traversing campus freely, attending class, and otherwise engaging in educational opportunities.”
The plaintiffs, Sabrina Soffer and Ari Shapiro, said in court documents that the university’s anemic response to campus antisemitism constituted a violation of Title VI. They are seeking damages and injunctive relief.
On Tuesday, assistant attorney general Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s civil rights division said the Trump administration will continue identifying universities which allegedly miscarried justice, saying, “Every student has the right to educational opportunities without fear of harassment or abuse. No one is above the law, and universities that promulgate antisemitic discrimination will face legal consequences.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Iran, South Africa Deepen Military, Strategic Partnership to Counter ‘Global Arrogance’
Iranian Maj. Gen. Amir Hatami and South African Gen. Rudzani Maphwanya meet in Tehran on Aug. 12, 2025, to discuss strengthening military cooperation and strategic ties. Photo: Screenshot
Iran and South Africa held high-level military talks this week as both nations seek to deepen cooperation and strengthen their partnership against what they called “global arrogance and aggressive colonial approaches.”
On Tuesday, Iranian Maj. Gen. Amir Hatami, chief of staff of Iran’s army, met with Gen. Rudzani Maphwanya, the visiting chief of the South African National Defense Force, in Tehran.
During a joint press conference, Hatami said that both countries share a strong commitment to opposing “colonialism and global arrogance,” with South Africa playing a significant role in Iran’s foreign policy priorities.
“The Islamic Republic and South Africa have always supported each other and oppressed nations,” the Iranian commander said, according to Iran’s state-run media, emphasizing that their shared mission must continue “until restoration of an international order based on justice and human dignity.”
Hatami also emphasized the strong political alignment between Tehran and Pretoria, saying it has granted South Africa “a special position” in Iran’s broader strategy toward Africa.
He expressed hope that this partnership, particularly their shared military capabilities, would soon lead to tangible joint projects.
For his part, Maphwanya called for deeper ties between the two nations, especially in defense cooperation, affirming that “the Republic of South Africa and the Islamic Republic of Iran have common goals.”
“We always stand alongside the oppressed and defenseless people of the world,” the South African general said.
The meeting came after the Middle East Africa Research Institute (MEARI) released a recent report detailing how South Africa’s deepening ties with Tehran have led the country to compromise its democratic foundations and constitutional principles by aligning itself with a regime internationally condemned for terrorism, repression, and human rights abuses.
For example, the report noted that while Iran supports South Africa’s coalition government partly because of their shared revolutionary and liberation ideologies, Pretoria has often defended Tehran at the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by voting against sanctions or abstaining.
In doing so, the study claimed that the South African government has both undermined its democratic values and bolstered Iran’s regional ambitions by defending its nuclear program and downplaying its human rights abuses.
During the press conference in Tehran, Hatami praised South Africa’s “firm stance” in condemning what he called “the joint atrocities committed by the Israeli regime and the United States against Palestinians,” describing it as both “courageous and commendable.”
He also commended Pretoria’s decision to “challenge the Zionist regime at the International Court of Justice [ICJ] over its ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip,” calling the move one that “would go down in history.”
Since December 2023, South Africa has been pursuing its case at the ICJ, the UN’s top court, accusing Israel of committing “state-led genocide” in its defensive war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
Israeli leaders have lambasted the case as an “obscene exploitation” of the Genocide Convention, noting that the Jewish state is targeting terrorists who use civilians as human shields in its military campaign.
MEARI’s report questioned whether South Africa’s case against Israel was genuinely rooted in constitutional principles — or driven by outside political pressure.
According to the study, South Africa’s open hostility toward Israel and its biased approach in filing the case — failing to acknowledge Hamas’s role in launching the war with its Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel — undermines the government’s credibility.
The study also explained that, shortly after filing the ICJ case, South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC), struggling with financial difficulties, unexpectedly paid off a multi-million-rand debt, fueling speculation about possible covert support from Iran.
During Tuesday’s press conference, Hatami also emphasized that Gaza’s population requires immediate and concrete support from governments and international organizations, rather than mere symbolic gestures.
“Unfortunately, due to the influence of the United States and some Western powers, such support is more verbal than practical. As a result, the crimes of this regime continue with intensity,” he said.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, the South African government has been one of the fiercest critics of Israel’s military campaign, which seeks to free the hostages kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and dismantle the terrorist group’s military and administrative control in the enclave.
Beyond its open hostility toward Israel, South Africa has actively supported Iran’s terrorist proxy by hosting two Hamas officials at a state-backed conference expressing solidarity with the Palestinians in December 2023.
Iranian leaders routinely declare their intention to destroy the state of Israel.
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Zohran Mamdani Overwhelmingly Unpopular With New York City Jews, New Poll Finds
Zohran Mamdani. Photo: Ron Adar / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
A new Siena College poll shows Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani facing an overwhelming backlash from Jewish voters in New York City, with a staggering 75 percent holding an unfavorable opinion of the Queens Democrat and just 15 percent viewing him favorably.
The numbers mark Mamdani as one of the least popular figures among Jewish New Yorkers, undermining narratives that the progressive lawmaker enjoys substantial support from the Jewish community. His unfavorable rating among Jewish voters is more than 38 points higher than his standing with the general electorate, where 37 percent view him negatively compared to 28 percent favorably. (The remainder responded they either don’t know or have no opinion.)
The steep disapproval comes as Mamdani continues to face criticism for adopting explicitly anti-Israel rhetoric during his campaign. He has repeatedly accused Israel of “apartheid,” called for a US arms embargo on the country, and championed pro-Palestinian causes. He has also accused Israel of committing a so-called “genocide” in Gaza and refused to affirm its right to exist as a Jewish state.
Many local Jewish leaders have condemned these positions as dangerously one-sided amid rising global antisemitism. Critics within the Jewish community have said Mamdani’s rhetoric ignores Israel’s right to defend itself and alienates Jewish New Yorkers who see anti-Israel animus leading to increased antisemitism in the US.
Only 20 percent of Jews stated in the new poll that they plan on voting for Mamdani, undercutting previous polling which indicated the firebrand progressive winning a plurality of New York City Jewish support. According to the poll, 44 percent and 23 percent of Jews in the city plan on voting for former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and conservative activist Curtis Sliwa, respectively. Only 4 percent plan on voting for incumbent Mayor Eric Adams.
Mamdani, the 33‑year‑old state assemblymember and self-proclaimed democratic socialist, defeated Cuomo and other candidates in a lopsided first‑round win in the city’s Democratic primary for mayor, notching approximately 43.5 percent of first‑choice votes compared to Cuomo’s 36.4 percent.
A little-known politician before this year’s primary campaign, Mamdani is an outspoken supporter of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination. Mamdani also defended the phrase “globalize the intifada”— which references previous periods of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Jews and Israels and has been widely interpreted as a call to expand political violence — by invoking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during World War II. In response, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum repudiated the mayoral candidate, calling his comments “outrageous and especially offensive to [Holocaust] survivors.”