Uncategorized
Florida high school pulls graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary, saying it is ‘not age appropriate’
(JTA) – A public high school in Florida has removed an illustrated adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary from its library. It is the second known instance of this particular edition of the famous Holocaust book being swept up by conservatives seeking to purge schools of literature they deem inappropriate.
The principal’s office of Vero Beach High School, which is located in a community on Florida’s east coast, recently decided to remove “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation” from its school library, according to Cristen Maddux, a spokesperson for the Indian River County school district. Maddux told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency the book was determined to be “not age appropriate.”
Last year, a school district in Texas ordered its librarians to remove the same book before reversing course a week later following public outcry. Other books about the Holocaust recently removed by public schools include Art Spiegelman’s “Maus,” which a Tennessee district pulled from its middle school curriculum last year, and Jodi Picoult’s “The Storyteller,” which was removed from another Florida district last month following a parental challenge.
The removal at Vero Beach High School was spurred by at least one challenge from a parent in the district affiliated with the conservative activist group Moms For Liberty, according to the Treasure Coast News, a local publication. In the challenge, the parent had reportedly written that the book was “not a true adaptation of the Holocaust.”
The district backed up that sentiment, Maddux told JTA. “That’s not the actual diary of Anne Frank,” she said. “It’s a fictional novel that has some inappropriate content in it.” Maddux added that the book “was removed due to minimization of the Holocaust,” and said, “Library spaces in the district currently have factual accounts of The Diary of Anne Frank.”
Maddux said that she herself had not read the book and did not immediately know what the “inappropriate content” in question was.
In a statement to JTA about various challenges to the graphic adaptation, the Anne Frank Fonds, the Switzerland-based foundation that controls the copyright to her diary, said it was “generally concerned that ignorance about the Shoah, relativization or denial of history are on the rise, especially in the United States.”
The foundation also defended the inclusion of Frank’s original writing by saying, “We consider the book of a 12-year-old girl to be appropriate reading for her peers.”
The graphic novel adaptation of the diary was released in 2018 with the full authorization of the Anne Frank Fonds. Adapted by Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman and illustrator David Polonsky and intended for young readers, the book compresses Frank’s actual diary entries into a condensed version of her true story. While it does contain some invented dialogue and surrealist scenes, reproductions of Frank’s actual diary in the book hew to her exact words.
The graphic novel has attracted some scrutiny for reproducing passages of Frank’s diary that had been edited out of its original publication in 1947. (The diary was first published in English in 1952.)
First restored to editions of the diary in the 1980s, and published in English in 1995, those passages relate Frank’s latent feelings of attractiveness toward another girl and her description of her own genitalia. Another Florida parent in a different school district has told JTA they filed a request to remove the graphic adaptation because of objections to these passages.
Florida in particular has seen a number of book removals as Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed legislation giving parents power to challenge classroom materials, and holding educators liable for making inappropriate content accessible to students.
DeSantis has also signed legislation mandating teaching about the Holocaust and antisemitism in the state.
—
The post Florida high school pulls graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary, saying it is ‘not age appropriate’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
4 arrested after protesters set off smoke bombs at Paris performance of Israel Philharmonic
(JTA) — Four people were arrested by French police late Thursday after protesters set off smoke bombs during a concert by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Paris.
Spectators who bought tickets attempted three disruptions during the concert on Thursday night, twice with smoke bombs, according to the Philharmonie de Paris. The protesters also clashed with other people in the audience and musicians briefly left the stage. Once the protesters were evacuated, the concert resumed.
Video from the auditorium showed a chaotic scene, with smoke and flames causing some in the audience to scatter and attendees throwing punches at each other without any obvious immediate intervention.
Criticism had mounted ahead of the performance, with pro-Palestinian activists calling for its cancellation. CGT-Spectacle Union, which represents workers in the performing arts, said in October that the Philharmonie de Paris should not hold the concert without “reminding the public of the extremely serious accusations weighing on the leaders of that country [Israel] or the nature of the crime committed in Gaza.”
The Philharmonie de Paris said it “strongly condemns and deplores” the disruptions. “Nothing can justify such actions,” the group said in a statement on Friday. “Whatever one’s opinions may be, it is completely unacceptable to threaten the safety of the public, staff and artists.”
It added that security around the concert had already been “considerably reinforced” in conjunction with French police.
The concert was conducted by Lahav Shani with Hungarian-born pianist Sir András Schiff. Shani was scheduled to lead a program in Belgium with the Munich Philharmonic that was canceled by the Flanders Festival Ghent in September. The festival cited a lack of “sufficient clarity about his attitude to the genocidal regime in Tel Aviv.”
Schiff, an outspoken critic of Hungary’s leader Viktor Orban and other far-right movements in Europe, announced earlier this year that he would boycott performing in the United States because of President Donald Trump’s “unbelievable bullying” of other nations. He is an artist-in-residence at the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
French ministers quickly rebuked Thursday’s events. “I strongly condemn the disruptions that occurred at the philharmonie during the concert of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra,” tweeted Culture Minister Rachida Dati, who had earlier welcomed the touring group to France in an indirect rebuttal of the employees union. “Violence has no place in a concert hall. The freedom of programming and creation is a fundamental right of our Republic!”
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñeza also said on X that “nothing can justify” the actions of the protesters.
But Manon Aubry, a member of the far-left party France Unbowed, refused to condemn the disruptions in a TV interview.
“The general secretary of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra himself acknowledges that he is ‘Israel’s cultural ambassador to the world,’” Aubry said in a post sharing the clip. “Culture must not serve to promote a genocidal state, and that is the same reason why Russia had been excluded from Eurovision.”
The Israel Philharmonic recently held multiple concerts in New York City, where protests outside did not interfere with the performances. Earlier this year, protesters shouted pro-Palestinian slogans multiple times during a performance in San Francisco, but the performance continued and there was no violence.
The post 4 arrested after protesters set off smoke bombs at Paris performance of Israel Philharmonic appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
4 arrested after protesters set off smoke bombs at Paris performance of Israel Philharmonic
Four people were arrested by French police late Thursday after protesters set off smoke bombs during a concert by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Paris.
Spectators who bought tickets attempted three disruptions during the concert on Thursday night, twice with smoke bombs, according to the Philharmonie de Paris. The protesters also clashed with other people in the audience and musicians briefly left the stage. Once the protesters were evacuated, the concert resumed.
Video from the auditorium showed a chaotic scene, with smoke and flames causing some in the audience to scatter and attendees throwing punches at each other without any obvious immediate intervention.
Criticism had mounted ahead of the performance, with pro-Palestinian activists calling for its cancellation. CGT-Spectacle Union, which represents workers in the performing arts, said in October that the Philharmonie de Paris should not hold the concert without “reminding the public of the extremely serious accusations weighing on the leaders of that country [Israel] or the nature of the crime committed in Gaza.”
The Philharmonie de Paris said it “strongly condemns and deplores” the disruptions. “Nothing can justify such actions,” the group said in a statement on Friday. “Whatever one’s opinions may be, it is completely unacceptable to threaten the safety of the public, staff and artists.”
It added that security around the concert had already been “considerably reinforced” in conjunction with French police.
The concert was conducted by Lahav Shani with Hungarian-born pianist Sir András Schiff. Shani was scheduled to lead a program in Belgium with the Munich Philharmonic that was canceled by the Flanders Festival Ghent in September. The festival cited a lack of “sufficient clarity about his attitude to the genocidal regime in Tel Aviv.”
Schiff, an outspoken critic of Hungary’s leader Viktor Orban and other far-right movements in Europe, announced earlier this year that he would boycott performing in the United States because of President Donald Trump’s “unbelievable bullying” of other nations. He is an artist-in-residence at the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
French ministers quickly rebuked Thursday’s events. “I strongly condemn the disruptions that occurred at the philharmonie during the concert of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra,” tweeted Culture Minister Rachida Dati, who had earlier welcomed the touring group to France in an indirect rebuttal of the employees union. “Violence has no place in a concert hall. The freedom of programming and creation is a fundamental right of our Republic!”
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñeza also said on X that “nothing can justify” the actions of the protesters.
But Manon Aubry, a member of the far-left party France Unbowed, refused to condemn the disruptions in a TV interview.
“The general secretary of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra himself acknowledges that he is ‘Israel’s cultural ambassador to the world,’” Aubry said in a post sharing the clip. “Culture must not serve to promote a genocidal state, and that is the same reason why Russia had been excluded from Eurovision.”
The Israel Philharmonic recently held multiple concerts in New York City, where protests outside did not interfere with the performances. Earlier this year, protesters shouted pro-Palestinian slogans multiple times during a performance in San Francisco, but the performance continued and there was no violence.
—
The post 4 arrested after protesters set off smoke bombs at Paris performance of Israel Philharmonic appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Kanye says he wants to ‘make amends’ with Jews, meets with Orthodox celebrity rabbi
(JTA) — After years of virulent antisemitic comments, the American rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, told an Orthodox rabbi on Tuesday in New York that he was ready to “make amends” for his actions.
“I feel really blessed to be able to sit here with you today and just take accountability,” Ye told Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto in a video posted on social media.
Pinto is an Israeli rabbi who serves as the chief rabbi of Morocco. He has previously counseled celebrities including Lebron James and was jailed in Israel in 2016 for bribery.
Ye first appeared to distance himself from his antisemitic record, which included a song praising Hitler and several tirades on X that included a 2022 vow to “go death con 3 ON JEWISH PEOPLE,” in May when he declared on social media that he was “done with antisemitism.”
Since then, the incendiary rapper has been relatively quiet on social media. During his meeting with Pinto, he appeared to cast blame for his actions on his struggle with bipolar disorder.
“I was dealing with some various issues, dealing with bipolar also, so it would take the ideas I had and taking them to an extreme where I would forget about the protection of the people around me or and myself,” Ye said as the two men held hands.
Explaining his experience with bipolar disorder to the rabbi, Ye said it was like someone “left your kid at the house and your kid went and messed up the kitchen,” adding that it was his responsibility to “go clean up the kitchen.”
“It’s a big deal for me as a man to come and take accountability for all the things that I’ve said, and I really just appreciate you embracing me with open arms and allowing me to make amends,” Ye said. “And this is the beginning and the first steps, and the first brick by brick to build back the strong walls.”
Following Ye’s appeal, Pinto responded through a translator, who told Ye, “The Jews live on this way of if someone did something wrong, you can regret and fix it,” adding, “From now on, strong things and good things, you are a very good man.”
The two men then stood from their chairs and hugged.
“A person is not defined by his mistakes, but by the way he chooses to correct them. This is the true strength of man: The ability to return, to learn, and to build bridges of love and peace,” wrote Pinto in a post on Instagram of the interaction.
Two hours before Ye reposted the meeting with Pinto on his X account, he posted an advertisement for a planned concert this January in Mexico City. The post was his first since making an identical announcement in September.
The post Kanye says he wants to ‘make amends’ with Jews, meets with Orthodox celebrity rabbi appeared first on The Forward.