Uncategorized
A new film brings to life ‘the largest single work of art created by a Jew during the Holocaust’
(New York Jewish Week) — While hiding from the Nazis, the German Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon began a series of autobiographical paintings and texts with a painfully simple description of her aunt, and namesake’s, suicide: “Scene 1: 1913. One November day, a young girl named Charlotte Knarre leaves her parents’ home and jumps into the water.”
Intense and memorable, that image is the launching point for “Life? or Theatre?”, a series of hundreds of gouaches Salomon made between 1940 and 1942. Best described as an “autobiographical play,” it features personal stories illustrated with vibrant paintings and cues for music. Salomon, in her 20s when she made the body of work, called it a “singspiel,” a play with music.
And now, a new film directed by French sisters Delphine and Muriel Coulin, delivers a cinematic representation of her best-known work. “Charlotte Salomon: Life and the Maiden” will make its world premiere at Lincoln Center on Weds., January 18 as a centerpiece of the New York Jewish Film Festival.
The film lies somewhere between cinema and art installation: Aside from a brief opening and conclusion, Salomon’s expressive paintings take up most of the screen time. Sound design brings the paintings to life, as does the music Salomon indicated in her original script, along with text read by the actress Vicky Krieps (“Phantom Thread,” “Corsage”), who plays protagonist Charlotte.
“We didn’t want to make a pure documentary of her,” co-director Delphine Coulin told the New York Jewish Week. “What had never been done was to make a true film with the painting, the music and the text, and to imagine what Charlotte was visualizing when she was painting… Because the neighbors said they could hear her singing while she was painting.”
French sisters Muriel Coulin, left, and Delphine Coulin are co-directors of “Charlotte Salomon: Life and the Maiden.” (Richard Schroeder)
These days, Salomon — who died at Auschwitz at age 26 in 1943 — is something of a cult favorite among art lovers and Jewish historians. In a 2017 New Yorker article, writer Toni Bentley notes that “Life? or Theatre?” is “the largest single work of art created by a Jew during the Holocaust.” She is also sometimes compared to Anne Frank. Critics have noted this comparison does neither artist justice, distinguishing between the youthful directness of Frank’s writing as an adolescent in hiding with the more mature, sophisticated representations made by Salomon as a young artist.
Born in Berlin in 1917, Salomon grew up in a cultured German Jewish family. Her mother died when she was 8. She studied at the German capital’s prestigious Academy of Arts until the Nazis’ rise to power made it impossible for her to continue. In 1938, her father spent a brief period in an internment camp — after his release, he sent his daughter to stay with her grandparents in the south of France, where he hoped she’d be safe.
After Salomon’s arrival at Villefranche-sur-Mer in 1939, her grandmother attempted suicide and eventually died. Only then did Salomon learn that her mother had died by suicide as well, and that the women in her family had a history of depression (though it isn’t covered in the film, there is some evidence that her grandfather may have been abusive).
In “Life? or Theatre?” Salomon writes: “My life began when my grandmother ended hers, when I learned that my mother too had ended her life, and that deep down I felt the same predisposition to despair and death. I thought to myself: either I kill myself too, or I create something really crazy and extraordinary.”
For the next two years, Salomon did just that, creating some 1,300 paintings about her life in exile. She accompanied these paintings with text and musical cues that included Bach, Schubert, Mahler and the German anthem “Deutschlandlied,” creating an entire multimedia body of work.
As the Nazi grip tightened in France, Salomon, realizing the danger she faced, brought a box containing all her paintings to a friend, the town’s doctor. The film recounts what she tells him: “Take care of it. This is my whole life.” Just weeks later, Salomon, five months pregnant, was sent to Auschwitz, where she died on Oct. 10, 1943.
While Salomon’s work includes depictions of Nazis, antisemitism and persecution, the majority of “Life? or Theater?” — and therefore the film — is dedicated to the explosive inner life and autobiography of its creator. She explores suicide, Freudian lust, psychological distress, music, philosophy and her own artistic impulses.
Yet “Life? or Theatre?” is unmistakably a product of its time, and as such the film includes historical images of Hitler’s rise. Though the French filmmakers don’t identify as Jewish themselves, Delphine said that she and her sister have some Jewish family, and she noted the film’s content is more relevant than ever. “Antisemitism never did end, but now in France and in Europe, it is stronger and stronger than ever, since 1945,” she said. “We really see it and we talk to it nearly each day. We can’t ignore it.”
“With all these strange times we’re living in, Charlotte gives you strength, because she really crossed the times with a strong belief in art and love,” she added.
The film ends with astonishing footage from the early 1960s of Salomon’s father and stepmother, who survived hiding in the Netherlands, looking through their daughter’s paintings as they are interviewed about her. “I was surprised when I discovered her work,” says her father Albert Salomon. He had known nothing of his late daughter’s project until the couple visited Villefranche-sur-Mer after the war, hoping to find some traces of Charlotte’s life.
“The work is very, very vivid — very expressive of life in all its aspects,” said Delphine of Salomon’s art — and the Coulin sisters, in turn, were inspired to bring the work to a broader audience. In 2019, Muriel directed her first theater piece, “Charlotte,” a rendition of Salomon’s work for the stage that played in Paris at the Théâtre du Rond Point. When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the production, the Coulins transposed their medium to film.
Delphine added that they were also drawn to what she called the “poignant story” of Salomon’s brief life, now immortalized by her singular creative impulse in the face of adversity.
“In difficult times — and her times were probably the most difficult times ever — she really believed in art,” she said. “How art makes you survive. How it can give you a piece of eternity. We wouldn’t speak about her this way if she had not been able to make this wonderful work.”
“Charlotte Salomon: Life and the Maiden” will screen on Weds., January 18 at 12:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. at the Walter Reade Theater at 165 West 65th St. For additional information on the New York Jewish Film Festival, which runs through Monday, January 23, click here.
—
The post A new film brings to life ‘the largest single work of art created by a Jew during the Holocaust’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Synagogue in Rome Vandalized, Memorial Plaque Defaced Amid Surge in Antisemitic Attacks Across Italy
Antisemitic slogans deface the walls of the Beth Michael synagogue in Monteverde, Rome, marking the latest attack on the city’s Jewish community. Photo: Screenshot
A synagogue in Rome was defaced on Sunday night when unknown individuals vandalized the building and a memorial plaque honoring a Jewish child killed in a terrorist attack — the latest incident targeting the city’s Jewish community amid a relentless climate of hostility.
On Monday morning, the Beth Michael synagogue in Monteverde, a neighborhood in southwest Rome, was found defaced with antisemitic graffiti reading “Monteverde anti-Zionist and anti-fascist” and “Free Palestine.”
The synagogue’s memorial plaque honoring Stefano Gaj Taché — a two-year-old Jewish child murdered in the 1982 Palestinian terrorist attack on the Great Synagogue of Rome — was also vandalized.
Local police have launched an investigation into the latest incident, pursuing leads on two masked individuals captured on surveillance cameras near the synagogue.
Victor Fadlun, president of the Jewish Community of Rome, condemned the attack, denouncing it as part of a disturbing surge in antisemitic incidents targeting Italy’s Jewish community.
“This was all part of a climate of intimidation … Antisemitism in general has become a tool for political protest,” Fadlun said in a statement. “We have faith in the police and call for strong government intervention to stop this spiral of hatred.”
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani expressed solidarity with the local Jewish community, calling for swift action to hold the perpetrators accountable and reaffirming the country’s commitment to fighting this growing hatred.
“Antisemitism is an evil germ that must be eradicated from Europe and Italy. Antisemitism cannot be confused with criticisms that can be leveled at the Israeli government,” the top Italian diplomat said in a statement.
“We must guarantee the safety of all Jewish citizens, who must not be subjected to threats and violence,” Tajani continued.
The European Jewish Congress also condemned the incident, urging authorities to investigate “this hate crime and ensure that such acts are treated with the seriousness they deserve.”
“Defacing a memorial honoring a murdered child is an act of profound disrespect and a painful reminder of how antisemitism continues to poison our societies,” EJC wrote in a post on X.
“This is not ‘anti-Zionism.’ It is antisemitism: the targeting of Jewish memory, Jewish mourning, and Jewish history,” the statement read. “Stefano’s name is a symbol of one of Italy’s darkest terror attacks. His memory should be protected, not desecrated.”
We condemn the vandalism of the memorial plaque for Stefano Gaj Taché, the two-year-old Jewish child murdered in the 1982 Palestinian terrorist attack on the Great Synagogue of Rome.
Defacing a memorial honouring a murdered child is an act of profound disrespect and a painful… pic.twitter.com/wcG144OWL6
— European Jewish Congress (@eurojewcong) December 1, 2025
This latest incident comes amid a surge in antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment across Europe and around the world since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
In Italy, Jewish individuals have been facing a surge in hostility and targeted attacks, including vandalism of murals and businesses, as well as physical assaults. Community leaders have warned that such incidents are becoming more frequent amid continued tensions related to the war in Gaza.
Last month, a group of Orthodox Jewish American tourists was brutally attacked at Milan’s Central Station by a pro-Palestinian individual.
The victim, who was with a group of 10 Orthodox Jewish tourists visiting Italy, was checking the departure board when an unknown individual began harassing him.
The attacker then allegedly chased the victim while punching and kicking him and striking him in the head with a blunt metal ring.
During the attack, the assailant reportedly shouted antisemitic insults and threats, including “dirty Jews” and “you kill children in Palestine, and I’ll kill you.”
In September, a Jewish couple was walking through Venice in traditional Orthodox clothing when three assailants confronted them, shouted “Free Palestine,” and physically attacked them, slapping both.
This incident followed another attack on a Jewish couple in Venice the month before, when a man and his pregnant wife were harassed near the city center by three unknown individuals.
The attackers approached the couple, shouting antisemitic insults and calling the husband a “dirty Jew,” while physically assaulting them by throwing water and spitting on them.
One of the assailants later set his dog on the couple in an attempt to intimidate them before the group stole their phones.
Uncategorized
Harvard Files Another Motion to Dismiss Antisemitism Lawsuit, Student Hits Back
Students walk on campus at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, Nov. 19, 2025. Photo: Reba Saldanha via Reuters Connect
Harvard University has asked a US federal court to respond to a second and final motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a former graduate student who says the administration unlawfully refused to discipline students and faculty who harassed him for being Jewish.
Harvard submitted its first motion in October, charging that the alleged victim, Yoav Segev, has not backed his claim with evidence and that his grievance derived not from any legally recognizable harm but a disagreement over policy. Segev fired back on Nov. 17, with his attorneys writing in response that Harvard’s litigation strategy is a “morally indefensible” attempt to disappear allegations which they say the school knows are true.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Segev was mobbed in October 2023 by a crush of pro-Hamas activists led by Ibrahim Bharmal and Elom Tettey-Tamaklo, who stalked him across Harvard Yard before encircling him and screaming “Shame! Shame! Shame!” as he struggled to break free from the mass of bodies which surrounded him. Video of the incident, widely viewed online at the time, showed the group shoving keffiyehs — traditional headdresses worn by men in the Middle East that in some circles have come to symbolize Palestinian nationalism — in his face.
“The harassment also came from Harvard faculty, who publicly blamed Mr. Segev because his presence, as a Jew, was somehow ‘frightening’ to other students,” Segev’s attorneys wrote in a memorandum to the court. “This pervasive harassment also includes Harvard mistreating and misleading Mr. Segev to deny him a fair process while protecting and rewarding his attackers. Harvard ignores these allegations.”
They added, “Moreover, while the complaint focuses on Mr. Segev’s assault, ensuring harassment, and Harvard’s unreasonable response, it details the many other ways Harvard neglected the entire Jewish community, of which Mr. Segev is a member.”
Harvard implored the court to respond to its filing, saying Segev “does not attempt to explain how the facts alleged about that single, short-lived event — shouting and some brief instances of non-injurious physical contact — could be vile enough to have a systemic effect on his education experience.”
It continued, “Mr. Segev attempts to sweep in a purported ‘overall environment’ of events that predate his time at Harvard or that he did not experience. To that end, Mr. Segev retreads a litany of allegations copied from other lawsuits arguing that reliance on these allegations is proper because he ‘is a member of Harvard’s Jewish community, and he suffered … just as much as other Jewish students.’”
In the two years since the October 2023 incident, Bharmal and Tettey-Tamaklo not only avoided hate crime charges but even amassed new accolades and distinctions — according to multiple reports.
Bharmal went on to be conferred a law clerkship with the Public Defender for the District of Columbia, a government-funded agency which provides free legal counsel to “individuals … who are charged with committing serious criminal acts.” He also reaped a $65,000 fellowship from Harvard Law School to work at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an Islamic group whose leaders have defended the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s atrocities against Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023.
As for Tettey-Tamaklo, he walked away from Harvard Divinity School with honors, according to The Free Press, as the 2024 Class Committee for Harvard voted him class marshal, a role in which he led the graduation procession through Harvard Yard alongside the institution’s most accomplished scholars and faculty.
He is currently hired as a Harvard teaching fellow, according to a recent report by The Washington Free Beacon.
Harvard’s relationship with the Jewish community became a staple of American news coverage ever since some of its students cheered Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, in which Palestinian terrorists indiscriminately murdered Israelis while sexually assaulting both women and men. Later, students stormed academic buildings chanting “globalize the intifada”; a faculty group posted an antisemitic cartoon on its social media page; and the Harvard Law School student government passed a resolution that falsely accused Israel of genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Since US President Donald Trump’s election in November 2024, Harvard has attempted to turn over a new leaf, settling lawsuits which stipulate its adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) widely used definition of antisemitism and even shuttering far-left initiatives which were adjacent to extreme anti-Zionist viewpoints.
In July, the university announced new partnerships with Israeli academic institutions, saying it will establish a new study abroad program, in partnership with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, for undergraduate students and a postdoctoral fellowship in which Harvard Medical School faculty will mentor and train newly credentialed Israeli scientists in biomedical research as preparation for the next stages of their careers.
Speaking to The Harvard Crimson — which has endorsed boycotting Israel — Harvard vice provost for international affairs Mark Elliot trumpeted the announcement as a positive development and, notably, as a continuation, not a beginning, of Harvard’s “engagement with institutions of higher education across Israel.” Elliot added that Harvard is planning “increased academic collaboration across the region in the coming years.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
Uncategorized
Antisemitism in Healthcare Is a Public Health Crisis — and Must Be Treated as One
Illustrative: Medical staff work at the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) ward at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, in Jerusalem January 31, 2022. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
While healthcare providers pledge to “do no harm,” that oath is being violated as antisemitism seeps into the very spaces meant to embody compassion and healing. This was the warning issued by Dr. Jacqueline Hart, who organized a medical conference on this issue, and emphasized that antisemitism in medicine endangers both patients and practitioners.
At the conference, titled “Addressing Antisemitism in Healthcare,” a Jewish medical student described classmates who erased her from social media groups when they learned she was Jewish, and chalked the names of Hamas “martyrs” (those who brutally murdered Jewish men, women, and children) outside the school on the anniversary of October 7.
Other Jewish medical students were labeled “colonizers,” “oppressors,” and “bloodthirsty Zionists” by their peers. A genetic counselor who petitioned to stop her professional association from platforming a speaker with a history of antisemitic rhetoric received death threats from colleagues, and had to walk into work with a police escort. One Jewish resident recalled a patient who sneered, “I don’t trust the Jew to treat me,” while the supervising physician said nothing.
Jewish patients within the mental health sphere are experiencing what’s known as traumatic invalidation — the denial or dismissal of one’s pain, experience, and humanity. Research shows that when people are silenced, minimized, or erased in this way, the psychological impact can be as damaging as other recognized traumas, leaving deep scars of mistrust, hypervigilance, and isolation.
And when bias permeates hospitals and clinics, everyone is at risk. Patients hesitate to disclose important personal information, practitioners experience significant harm, and the public’s faith in medicine erodes.
For these reasons, antisemitism in healthcare must be treated as a public-health crisis.
A National Call to Action
America’s great medical hubs — Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Seattle, Atlanta, and others — have long set the pace for clinical innovation and high-quality care. Now they must lead again. Public and private leaders within healthcare must mobilize around confronting antisemitism head-on.
For example, longitudinal studies should be funded and conducted on the impact of antisemitism on patient outcomes, workforce retention, and mental health, and to develop antisemitism-reduction interventions — just as we do for smoking cessation or infection control.
Policies and practices that illuminate and address the issue must be implemented, including adding antisemitism metrics to existing patient-safety and employee-climate surveys; requiring academic medical centers and health systems to track and publicly report antisemitic incidents; and posting a Patients’ Bill of Rights that explicitly guarantees a care environment free from discrimination.
Healthcare facilities should review their dress codes and revise policies to prohibit staff from wearing political attire that could intimidate patients or colleagues. This will help to ensure that treatment environments remain safe and welcoming for all.
Mandatory training and education are needed, including integrating antisemitism education into cultural-competence curricula for students, residents, and continuing medical education for practicing clinicians.
Facilities should create anonymous reporting hotlines — either individually or collectively — where patients and workers can report antisemitic or other bias-related incidents without fear of retaliation, and facilities should also ensure there are penalties for retaliation.
Mental health services must be available for patients and health care workers who experience discriminatory treatment. Further, regulations should be reviewed and revised to guarantee that clinical environments remain free from antisemitic bias and other forms of hate.
Finally, medical schools’ LCME accreditation and hospital Joint Commission status should be made dependent on having an antisemitism-prevention program or training requirement.
Medicine’s social contract is built on safety, dignity, and trust. When Jewish clinicians who report antisemitism are told to “keep politics out of the hospital,” or Jewish patients fear revealing their identity, that contract is broken. The cure is neither complicated nor optional: study the problem, implement interventions, train the workforce, and enforce standards — just as we have done with other threats to public health.
What’s at stake is not only the well-being of Jewish patients and professionals, but the integrity of our healthcare system itself.
Sara A. Colb is the Director of Advocacy for ADL’s National Affairs division. Dr. Miri Bar-Halpern is the Director of Trauma Training and Services at Parents for Peace and a Lecturer in Psychology at Harvard Medical School, where she supervises psychology interns and psychiatry residents.