The Jazz Singer

Il primo film sonoro – prodotto dalla stessa Warner e proiettato per la prima volta il 27 ottobre 1927 – fu Il cantante di jazz (The Jazz Singer) nel quale, oltre a varie canzoni, si udivano una frase rivolta al pubblico dal protagonista e un breve dialogo tra questi e la madre. Il protagonista, interpretato da Al Johnson, è un ragazzo ebreo che non vuole cantare in sinagoga, come hanno fatto tutti i maschi di famiglia prima di lui, perché ama il jazz. Nel film canta però Kol Nidre, in una versione molto commovente. A proposito del Kippur appena trascorso.

Why not a tetanus shot?

Nearly four years after the first COVID-19 shots, large swaths of adults in the U.S. are still awash in misinformation about vaccines, according to surveys by Kaiser Family Foundation. And that’s making it harder to inoculate people against other conditions.

Nationwide, routine vaccination rates have declined since the pandemic, whether due to vaccine hesitancy, disruption in routine healthcare or an increase in the uninsured rate. And it’s taking a toll on public health. Measles outbreaks have been reported in states including Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Oregon. Lynn Arditi, The Public's Radio

7 ottobre, un anno dal pogrom

This is a story of two political cultures. One of them shapes the attitudes that dominate political discussion in American colleges. The other culture persists among a broad and reasonably well-informed public outside colleges and their government and philanthropic tributaries. When, in the academic year 2023-24, the two cultures faced each other with expressions of mutual dismay, the moment had been coming for a long time. On October 7, 2023, scores of Hamas fighters broke through the boundaries of Gaza, killed around 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped more than 200 others: the worst terror attack in Israel’s history. Within hours, 34 student groups at Harvard University had circulated a public letter affirming that “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” (The word “unfolding” covered the violence of the past, the present, and the future.) “Today’s events,” the letter went on to say, “did not occur in a vacuum,” and it added: “The apartheid regime [of Israel] is the only one to blame.” The signers concluded by urging solidarity with the Palestinian suffering which was sure to follow once the Israeli retaliation in Gaza had commenced.

What shocked many people about the student letter was its heartlessness. Even as the bodies were being counted, the signers told us not to blame the killers but to redirect our gaze, and fix all responsibility on Israel. The Chronicle of Higher Education

Rebecca Watson: ‘What are siblings: twisted reflections of ourselves? Allies? Enemies?

The author of I Will Crash, about an estranged brother and sister, looks at other books on difficult sibling relationships, from authors including Sally Rooney and Julia Armfield. Rebecca Watson, The Guardian

I Will Crash by Rebecca Watson is published by Faber.