The United Methodist Church’s top legislative assembly convenes Sunday for a high-stakes, three-day meeting likely to determine whether America’s second-largest Protestant denomination will fracture due to divisions over same-sex marriage and the ordination of gay clergy.

While other mainline Protestant denominations — such as the Episcopal and Presbyterian (U.S.A.) churches — have embraced gay-friendly practices, the Methodist church still bans them, even though acts of defiance by pro-LGBT clergy have multiplied and talk of a possible breakup of the church has intensified.

At the church’s upcoming General Conference in St. Louis, 864 invited delegates — split evenly between lay people and clergy — are expected to consider several plans for the church’s future. Several Methodist leaders said they expect a wave of departures from the church regardless of the decision.

“I don’t think there’s any plan where there won’t be some division, and some people will leave,” said David Watson, a dean and professor at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, who will be attending the conference.

Formed in a merger in 1968, the United Methodist Church claims about 12.6 million members worldwide, including nearly 7 million in the United States. In size, it trails only the Southern Baptist Convention among U.S. Protestant denominations.

The church technically forbids same-sex marriage and gays serving in the ministry, but enforcement has been inconsistent. Clergy who support LGBT rights have been increasingly defiant, conducting same-sex marriages or coming out as gay or lesbian from the pulpit. In some cases, the church has filed charges against clergy who violated the bans, yet the UMC’s Judicial Council has ruled against the imposition of mandatory penalties.  

At the heart of the ideological conflict is an official UMC policy, dating from 1972, asserting that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.”

One of the proposed plans, endorsed by the UMC’s Council of Bishops, would remove that language from the church’s law book and leave decisions about same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBT clergy up to regional bodies. This proposal, called the One Church Plan, would open up many options for those who support the LGBT-inclusive practices, but it would not compel individual churches or clergy to engage in those practices.

In contrast, the proposed Traditional Plan would affirm the bans on same-sex marriage and the ordination of “self-avowed practicing homosexuals.” The plan would strengthen enforcement of those bans, and set up procedures for churches and regional bodies to leave the UMC if they could not abide by those rules.

A third option would create three branches of the church reflecting the different approaches to LGBT issues. One branch would maintain the current bans, another would expect all its clergy and regional groups to support full LGBT inclusion, and the third would neither forbid nor require the inclusive practices. This plan would take several years longer to implement than the others.

Those three plans were developed over 17 months of deliberations by a Methodist committee that was formed after conflict over LGBT policies boiled over at a General Conference in 2016. In accordance with Methodists’ long tradition of democratic policy-making, delegates in St. Louis will be free to revise any of those plans, or consider some alternative. The UMC’s Queer Clergy Caucus will be presenting what it calls “the Simple Plan” — which is even more LGBT-affirming than the One Church Plan.

Kenneth Carter, the Florida-based president of the Council of Bishops, is among a majority of the bishops supporting the One Church Plan, hoping it would limit any exodus by creating space for differing views on the LGBT issues.

“We’re better together than we are separated and fragmented, but I do understand that the forces that would separate us are very powerful,” Carter said.

“We’ve tried to remain together as a global body,” he added. “The challenge is simply that there are some nations where homosexuality is taboo.”

Among the supporters of the Traditional Plan is Mark Tooley, who heads a conservative Christian think tank, and has long engaged in the debate over Methodist policy.

He believes a traditionalist alliance of U.S.-based and overseas delegates will be large enough to outvote centrist and liberal delegates. 

Unlike other mainline Protestant churches, the UMC is a global denomination; its greatest growth recently has been overseas. About 30 percent of the delegates in St. Louis will be from Africa — a bloc with relatively conservative views on sexuality that in the past has supported the LGBT bans.

If the Traditional Plan does prevail, Tooley says some liberal segments of the church — perhaps its Western U.S. district — might withdraw to form a new denomination.

“It would be very significant,” Tooley said. 

UMC leaders are acutely aware of how searing the lengthy ideological conflict has been. In December, the Council of Bishops issued a pastoral letter expressing remorse that the buildup to the St. Louis meeting has been hurtful to many LGBT people. 

“Demeaning and dehumanizing comments and attacks on LGBTQ persons in conversations related to the upcoming February Conference are a great tragedy and do violence to hearts, minds, and spirits,” the letter said. “We commit ourselves to helping people who disagree with each other to have conversations that include, honor, and respect people with different convictions.”  

A localized example of the church’s internal divisions has surfaced in San Francisco, home to the liberal Glide Memorial United Methodist Church, which has 12,000 members.

The UMC’s California-Nevada conference removed two of Glide’s pastors last summer, then filed a lawsuit in December seeking to assert control over the local church property. A Glide spokesman, Sam Singer, said the regional authorities were displeased with Glide’s “open door policy” — which includes a variety of social-service programs for the needy and extensive outreach to the local LGBT community.

One of Glide’s former senior pastors is Karen Oliveto, who — after eight years at Glide — was elected by the Rocky Mountain regional body in 2016 as the UMC’s first openly lesbian bishop and is now based in Colorado. The UMC’s judicial council upheld the election result, while ruling that Oliveto’s 2014 marriage to a woman violated UMC policies for its clergy.

Oliveto hopes the delegates in St. Louis vote to end the LGBT bans; she’s unsure what would ensue if the Traditional Plan prevails.

“What that means for us, I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll be praying very deeply.” 
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Meghan Markle has been spotted at several swanky venues in New York City, cradling her baby bump as she visited friends for what is rumored to be a baby shower. .

Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, was seen Tuesday entering The Mark hotel on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, at a restaurant on the ground floor of The Met Breuer and at The Surrey Hotel.

The Duchess, who’s 37, wore sunglasses, a dark gray coat and neutral high heels with a matching bag.

As photographers waited outside the Mark, a high-end boxed crib and pink flowers were delivered.

Abigail Spencer, a co-star on Markle’s former TV show “Suits,” was spotted at one of the Markle gatherings.

Markle and her husband Prince Harry announced the pregnancy in October.
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Meghan Markle has been spotted at several swanky venues in New York City, cradling her baby bump as she visited friends for what is rumored to be a baby shower. .

Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, was seen Tuesday entering The Mark hotel on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, at a restaurant on the ground floor of The Met Breuer and at The Surrey Hotel.

The Duchess, who’s 37, wore sunglasses, a dark gray coat and neutral high heels with a matching bag.

As photographers waited outside the Mark, a high-end boxed crib and pink flowers were delivered.

Abigail Spencer, a co-star on Markle’s former TV show “Suits,” was spotted at one of the Markle gatherings.

Markle and her husband Prince Harry announced the pregnancy in October.
…

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Former President Barack Obama and Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry told a roomful of minority boys on Tuesday that they matter and urged them to make the world a better place.

Obama was in Oakland, California, to mark the fifth anniversary of My Brother’s Keeper, an initiative he launched after the 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. The death of the African-American teen sparked protests over racial profiling.

The initiative was a call to communities to close opportunity gaps for minority boys, especially African-American, Latino and Native American boys, Obama said to roughly 100 boys attending the alliance’s first national gathering. The My Brother’s Keeper Alliance is part of the Obama Foundation.

“We had to be able to say to them, ‘You matter, we care about you, we believe in you and we are going to make sure that you have the opportunities and chances to move forward just like everybody else,”‘ Obama said.

Obama, who left office in 2017, was joined by basketball star Curry. The men spoke for about an hour, answering questions from the audience and joking around. They talked about lacking confidence or being aimless as teens.

Obama praised single mothers, including his own. He advised the boys to look for a mentor, and to find opportunities to guide others.

Curry joined the former president in praising the value of teamwork.

“What we do on the court and the joy that comes out of that is second to none,” he said, “because nothing great is done by yourself.”

The former president cracked up the audience, and Curry, when asked a question about being a man. He said that being a man is about being a good person, someone who is responsible, reliable, hard-working and compassionate. Being a man, he said, is not about life as portrayed in some rap or hip-hop music.

“If you are very confident about your sexuality, you don’t have to have eight women around you twerking,” he said to applause. “‘Cause I’ve got one woman who I’m very happy with. And she’s a strong woman.”
…

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Former President Barack Obama and Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry told a roomful of minority boys on Tuesday that they matter and urged them to make the world a better place.

Obama was in Oakland, California, to mark the fifth anniversary of My Brother’s Keeper, an initiative he launched after the 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. The death of the African-American teen sparked protests over racial profiling.

The initiative was a call to communities to close opportunity gaps for minority boys, especially African-American, Latino and Native American boys, Obama said to roughly 100 boys attending the alliance’s first national gathering. The My Brother’s Keeper Alliance is part of the Obama Foundation.

“We had to be able to say to them, ‘You matter, we care about you, we believe in you and we are going to make sure that you have the opportunities and chances to move forward just like everybody else,”‘ Obama said.

Obama, who left office in 2017, was joined by basketball star Curry. The men spoke for about an hour, answering questions from the audience and joking around. They talked about lacking confidence or being aimless as teens.

Obama praised single mothers, including his own. He advised the boys to look for a mentor, and to find opportunities to guide others.

Curry joined the former president in praising the value of teamwork.

“What we do on the court and the joy that comes out of that is second to none,” he said, “because nothing great is done by yourself.”

The former president cracked up the audience, and Curry, when asked a question about being a man. He said that being a man is about being a good person, someone who is responsible, reliable, hard-working and compassionate. Being a man, he said, is not about life as portrayed in some rap or hip-hop music.

“If you are very confident about your sexuality, you don’t have to have eight women around you twerking,” he said to applause. “‘Cause I’ve got one woman who I’m very happy with. And she’s a strong woman.”
…

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winning actress Julianne Moore has helped New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration unveil the governor’s series of initiatives aimed at improving the lives of women in New York.

Moore joined Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul (HOH’-kuhl) on Tuesday at Lincoln Center in Manhattan for an event launching Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Women’s Justice Agenda. The Democrat was in Albany and didn’t attend.

Cuomo’s list of proposals for 2019 includes eliminating the statute of limitations for rape claims and increasing protections against sexual harassment in the workplace. Some related initiatives have been passed by the Democratic-controlled Legislature and signed into law by the governor.

Moore is a leader of the Time’s Up movement fighting sexual harassment and promoting equality in the work place. She won the 2015 Oscar for best actress for her performance in “Still Alice.”
…

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winning actress Julianne Moore has helped New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration unveil the governor’s series of initiatives aimed at improving the lives of women in New York.

Moore joined Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul (HOH’-kuhl) on Tuesday at Lincoln Center in Manhattan for an event launching Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Women’s Justice Agenda. The Democrat was in Albany and didn’t attend.

Cuomo’s list of proposals for 2019 includes eliminating the statute of limitations for rape claims and increasing protections against sexual harassment in the workplace. Some related initiatives have been passed by the Democratic-controlled Legislature and signed into law by the governor.

Moore is a leader of the Time’s Up movement fighting sexual harassment and promoting equality in the work place. She won the 2015 Oscar for best actress for her performance in “Still Alice.”
…

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When Gankhuyag Natsag makes one of his famous masks, he spends a lot of time thinking.

“During that time I am thinking that it’s all based on Buddhist philosophy. It allows for meditation, inspiration and a peaceful life,” he says.

The renowned Mongolian mask maker, known as Ganna, makes the elaborate representations of characters that appear in traditional Buddhist temple dances.

It did not get to Mongolia until 1811 and there it flourished until the Soviets cracked down on religion in Mongolia in the 1930’s.

“They destroyed more than 800 temples, including many Buddhist objects. A lot of masks were destroyed during that time,” Ganna says.

Aterwards, only about 30 masks survived. Knowing that has contributed to Ganna’s devotion to the masks. Many of the ones he makes go directly to museums around the world. 

Over a ten-year period ending in 2007, Ganna lovingly made all 108 Khuree Tsam as the masks are called. 

“The last mask I made was the Red Makhagala, also named Jamsran. He is the protector,” Ganna displays his work with reverence. “The other mask was the blue, bull mask. We call him Damdinchoijoo, the god of death.” 

His favorite is still the first one he made, the Old White Man, Chaganb Ebugan. The Old White Man has a lot of wisdom to offer people. 

Ganna has performed the Old White Man in traditional dances with the music and dance ensemble he started called Khan Bogd. The group has performed in more than 50 countries at festivals, theaters and museums.

​“When I wear that mask, I become completely taken over by the role. I feel as if I am bringing people education and giving long life. In Mongolia, we respect the oldest. The oldest has to educate the younger generation.”

Inner peace, outer peace

Gankhuyag Natsag was born in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia and immigrated to the U.S in 2002.He now lives in Arlington, Virginia where there is a big Mongolian community.

He has been making Buddhist ritual dance masks for more than two decades. 

While Ganna recreated the masks, his family and friends helped him by reproducing the mask’s costumes and elaborate ornaments.

 “My mother was a famous seamstress and my father was also a very artistic person. I learned a lot from them. I also studied art in school,” he says.

It takes a month for him to actually create a mask using clay and layers of papier-mache.

As much as Ganna loves the process, he also has a greater goal in mind.

“I would like to introduce Mongolian culture all over the world, through my art and through my masks. That’s one of my biggest goals. We need to preserve our culture. That is very important.” 

Ganna has a dream project called the World Peace Pagoda. He hopes to build large scale peace education centers, one in Mongolia and another outside Washington.

“If people are peaceful and enjoyable on the inside, our outer world will directly be the same. Our world will be peaceful. That is based on the Buddhist philosophy,” Ganna maintains. “Our world is unique, it is our only home.”
…

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When Gankhuyag Natsag makes one of his famous masks, he spends a lot of time thinking.

“During that time I am thinking that it’s all based on Buddhist philosophy. It allows for meditation, inspiration and a peaceful life,” he says.

The renowned Mongolian mask maker, known as Ganna, makes the elaborate representations of characters that appear in traditional Buddhist temple dances.

It did not get to Mongolia until 1811 and there it flourished until the Soviets cracked down on religion in Mongolia in the 1930’s.

“They destroyed more than 800 temples, including many Buddhist objects. A lot of masks were destroyed during that time,” Ganna says.

Aterwards, only about 30 masks survived. Knowing that has contributed to Ganna’s devotion to the masks. Many of the ones he makes go directly to museums around the world. 

Over a ten-year period ending in 2007, Ganna lovingly made all 108 Khuree Tsam as the masks are called. 

“The last mask I made was the Red Makhagala, also named Jamsran. He is the protector,” Ganna displays his work with reverence. “The other mask was the blue, bull mask. We call him Damdinchoijoo, the god of death.” 

His favorite is still the first one he made, the Old White Man, Chaganb Ebugan. The Old White Man has a lot of wisdom to offer people. 

Ganna has performed the Old White Man in traditional dances with the music and dance ensemble he started called Khan Bogd. The group has performed in more than 50 countries at festivals, theaters and museums.

​“When I wear that mask, I become completely taken over by the role. I feel as if I am bringing people education and giving long life. In Mongolia, we respect the oldest. The oldest has to educate the younger generation.”

Inner peace, outer peace

Gankhuyag Natsag was born in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia and immigrated to the U.S in 2002.He now lives in Arlington, Virginia where there is a big Mongolian community.

He has been making Buddhist ritual dance masks for more than two decades. 

While Ganna recreated the masks, his family and friends helped him by reproducing the mask’s costumes and elaborate ornaments.

 “My mother was a famous seamstress and my father was also a very artistic person. I learned a lot from them. I also studied art in school,” he says.

It takes a month for him to actually create a mask using clay and layers of papier-mache.

As much as Ganna loves the process, he also has a greater goal in mind.

“I would like to introduce Mongolian culture all over the world, through my art and through my masks. That’s one of my biggest goals. We need to preserve our culture. That is very important.” 

Ganna has a dream project called the World Peace Pagoda. He hopes to build large scale peace education centers, one in Mongolia and another outside Washington.

“If people are peaceful and enjoyable on the inside, our outer world will directly be the same. Our world will be peaceful. That is based on the Buddhist philosophy,” Ganna maintains. “Our world is unique, it is our only home.”
…

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Gankhuyag Natsag, also known as Ganna, has dedicated his life to spreading Mongolian culture abroad. The Buddhist ritual dance masks he makes are displayed in museums outside his homeland and he tours with them around the world. VOA’s June Soh caught up with the artist, who is dubbed the Mongolian cultural ambassador, at his home studio outside Washington. Carol Pearson narrates her report.
…

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Gankhuyag Natsag, also known as Ganna, has dedicated his life to spreading Mongolian culture abroad. The Buddhist ritual dance masks he makes are displayed in museums outside his homeland and he tours with them around the world. VOA’s June Soh caught up with the artist, who is dubbed the Mongolian cultural ambassador, at his home studio outside Washington. Carol Pearson narrates her report.
…

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Keira Knightley said her new film The Aftermath, set in the bombed-out ruins of Hamburg just after the end of World War II, had important lessons on building bridges that were very relevant for today’s divided societies.

The romantic drama sees Knightley play Rachael Morgan, who moves to Germany to be with her husband, a British colonel who has a leading role in the reconstruction effort in Hamburg. They move in with a German widower and his troubled daughter.

Her co-stars — Australian Jason Clarke who plays her husband Lewis, and Swedish Alexander Skarsgard who plays a German architect — also attended the world premiere Monday at London’s Picturehouse Central.

“It’s very relevant for now. It’s about building bridges, it’s about how we see each other as human beings and we don’t demonize each other and that’s obviously something that we need to do right now,” Knightley said.

The port city of Hamburg suffered a devastating bombing raid by the Allied forces in July 1943, known as “Operation Gomorrah,” that killed some 40,000 people and caused the destruction of swathes of the city.

“I knew nothing about the rebuilding of Germany … I haven’t thought about how unbelievably difficult it must have been to not only physically rebuild these places but also mentally for English and German people … who had been enemies, who had literally killed each other for six years, to suddenly forgive and move forward,” Knightley said.

Clarke said: “We’ve benefited so much from the Lewis Morgans who put Europe together … guys like him built it up and made Germany and Europe what it is today, we all stand on the threshold of wanting to tear it down.”

The Aftermath opens in cinemas in Britain on March 1, and in the United States on March 15.
…

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Keira Knightley said her new film The Aftermath, set in the bombed-out ruins of Hamburg just after the end of World War II, had important lessons on building bridges that were very relevant for today’s divided societies.

The romantic drama sees Knightley play Rachael Morgan, who moves to Germany to be with her husband, a British colonel who has a leading role in the reconstruction effort in Hamburg. They move in with a German widower and his troubled daughter.

Her co-stars — Australian Jason Clarke who plays her husband Lewis, and Swedish Alexander Skarsgard who plays a German architect — also attended the world premiere Monday at London’s Picturehouse Central.

“It’s very relevant for now. It’s about building bridges, it’s about how we see each other as human beings and we don’t demonize each other and that’s obviously something that we need to do right now,” Knightley said.

The port city of Hamburg suffered a devastating bombing raid by the Allied forces in July 1943, known as “Operation Gomorrah,” that killed some 40,000 people and caused the destruction of swathes of the city.

“I knew nothing about the rebuilding of Germany … I haven’t thought about how unbelievably difficult it must have been to not only physically rebuild these places but also mentally for English and German people … who had been enemies, who had literally killed each other for six years, to suddenly forgive and move forward,” Knightley said.

Clarke said: “We’ve benefited so much from the Lewis Morgans who put Europe together … guys like him built it up and made Germany and Europe what it is today, we all stand on the threshold of wanting to tear it down.”

The Aftermath opens in cinemas in Britain on March 1, and in the United States on March 15.
…

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The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday for a second time declined to take up a case related to sexual misconduct allegations against Bill Cosby, refusing to consider reviving a defamation lawsuit against the comedian filed by a woman who said he falsely called her a liar after she accused him of raping her in 1974.

The justices turned away an appeal by Kathrine McKee, an actress and former Las Vegas showgirl, of a lower court ruling in Massachusetts that threw out her lawsuit. Separately, Cosby was sentenced last September to three to 10 years in prison in Pennsylvania for sexually assaulting another woman in 2004.

The Supreme Court last October snubbed an appeal by Cosby in another defamation case, allowing a lawsuit brought by former model Janice Dickinson to go forward against the entertainer best known for his starring role in the 1980s hit television series “The Cosby Show.”

McKee went public with her rape accusation against Cosby in a 2014 interview with the New York Daily News. She is one of more than 50 women who in recent years have accused Cosby of sexual assault dating back to the 1960s by using drugs to incapacitate them.

An attorney for Cosby then sent a letter to the newspaper, suggesting McKee was a liar and calling her an unreliable source. In the letter, Cosby’s lawyer said McKee had admitted lying to get hired as a showgirl.

McKee sued Cosby for defamation in 2015 in federal court in Boston, saying the letter made false statements and harmed her reputation.

A trial judge in Springfield, Massachusetts in 2017 dismissed her claims, saying the lawsuit was barred by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of free speech. The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling.

The appeals court said that by deliberately wading into the controversy, McKee had become a public figure, requiring her to prove Cosby acted with malice — meaning he knew his statements were false — to win a defamation claim.

McKee told the justices that she “should not be victimized twice over” by making it harder for her to prove defamation merely because she went public as an alleged victim.

Cosby, 81, was found guilty in April 2018 of three counts of aggravated indecent assault for the drugging and sexual assault of Andrea Constand, a former Temple University administrator, at his Philadelphia home in 2004. He was sentenced in that case on Sept. 25.
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday for a second time declined to take up a case related to sexual misconduct allegations against Bill Cosby, refusing to consider reviving a defamation lawsuit against the comedian filed by a woman who said he falsely called her a liar after she accused him of raping her in 1974.

The justices turned away an appeal by Kathrine McKee, an actress and former Las Vegas showgirl, of a lower court ruling in Massachusetts that threw out her lawsuit. Separately, Cosby was sentenced last September to three to 10 years in prison in Pennsylvania for sexually assaulting another woman in 2004.

The Supreme Court last October snubbed an appeal by Cosby in another defamation case, allowing a lawsuit brought by former model Janice Dickinson to go forward against the entertainer best known for his starring role in the 1980s hit television series “The Cosby Show.”

McKee went public with her rape accusation against Cosby in a 2014 interview with the New York Daily News. She is one of more than 50 women who in recent years have accused Cosby of sexual assault dating back to the 1960s by using drugs to incapacitate them.

An attorney for Cosby then sent a letter to the newspaper, suggesting McKee was a liar and calling her an unreliable source. In the letter, Cosby’s lawyer said McKee had admitted lying to get hired as a showgirl.

McKee sued Cosby for defamation in 2015 in federal court in Boston, saying the letter made false statements and harmed her reputation.

A trial judge in Springfield, Massachusetts in 2017 dismissed her claims, saying the lawsuit was barred by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of free speech. The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling.

The appeals court said that by deliberately wading into the controversy, McKee had become a public figure, requiring her to prove Cosby acted with malice — meaning he knew his statements were false — to win a defamation claim.

McKee told the justices that she “should not be victimized twice over” by making it harder for her to prove defamation merely because she went public as an alleged victim.

Cosby, 81, was found guilty in April 2018 of three counts of aggravated indecent assault for the drugging and sexual assault of Andrea Constand, a former Temple University administrator, at his Philadelphia home in 2004. He was sentenced in that case on Sept. 25.
…

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Young American rabbinical students are doing more than visiting holy sites, learning Hebrew and poring over religious texts during their year abroad in Israel.

In a stark departure from past programs focused on strengthening ties with Israel and Judaism, the new crop of rabbinical students is reaching out to the Palestinians. The change reflects a divide between Israeli and American Jews that appears to be widening.

On a recent winter morning, Tyler Dratch, a 26-year-old rabbinical student at Hebrew College in Boston, was among some two dozen Jewish students planting olive trees in the Palestinian village of At-Tuwani in the southern West Bank. The only Jews that locals typically see are either Israeli soldiers or ultranationalist settlers.

“Before coming here and doing this, I couldn’t speak intelligently about Israel,” Dratch said. “We’re saying that we can take the same religion settlers use to commit violence in order to commit justice, to make peace.”

Dratch, not wanting to be mistaken for a settler, covered his Jewish skullcap with a baseball cap. He followed the group down a rocky slope to see marks that villagers say settlers left last month: “Death to Arabs” and “Revenge” spray-painted in Hebrew on boulders and several uprooted olive trees, their stems severed from clumps of dirt.

This year’s student program also includes a tour of the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron, a visit to an Israeli military court that prosecutes Palestinians and a meeting with an activist from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, which is blockaded by Israel.

The program is run by “T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights,” a U.S.-based network of rabbis and cantors.

Most of T’ruah’s membership, and all students in the Israel program, are affiliated with the Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative movements — liberal streams of Judaism that represent the majority of American Jews. These movements are marginalized in Israel, where rabbis from the stricter Orthodox stream dominate religious life.

The T’ruah program, now in its seventh year, is meant to supplement students’ standard curricular fare: Hebrew courses, religious text study, field trips and introductions to Jewish Israeli society. Though the program is optional, T’ruah says some 70 percent of the visiting American rabbinical students from the liberal branches of Judaism choose to participate.

The year-long program is split into one semester, focused on Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, and another, on alleged human rights abuses inside Israel.

T’ruah claims its West Bank encounters aren’t one-off acts of community service, but experiences meant to be carried home and disseminated to future congregations.

“We want to propel them to action, so they invite their future rabbinates to work toward ending the occupation,” said Rabbi Ian Chesir-Teran, T’ruah’s rabbinic educator in Israel.

The group began its trip in the most Jewish of ways, a discussion about the weekly Torah portion that turned into a spirited debate about the Ten Commandments.

“The Torah says don’t covet your neighbor’s fields, and we’re going to a Palestinian village whose private land has been confiscated for the sake of covetous Jews building settlements,” Chesir-Teran said.

As their bus trundled through the terraced hills south of Hebron, students listened to a local activist’s condensed history of the combustible West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

As part of interim peace deals in the 1990s, the West Bank was carved up into autonomous and semi-autonomous Palestinian areas, along with a section called Area C that remains under exclusive Israeli control.

The destinations of the day — the Palestinian villages of At-Tuwani and Ar-Rakkes — sit in Area C, also home to around 450,000 Israeli settlers. Palestinians seek all of the West Bank as the heartland of a hoped-for independent state.

The group was guided by villagers to their olive trees — an age-old Palestinian symbol and a more recent casualty of the struggle for land with Israeli settlers.

Israeli security officials reported a dramatic spike last year in settler violence against Palestinians.

Yishai Fleisher, a settler spokesman, blamed the attacks on the “atmosphere of tension” in the West Bank. “We’re against vigilantism, unequivocally,” he said.

As Israeli soldiers watched from the hilltop, Palestinians and Jews dug their fingers into the crumbling soil, setting down roots where holes torn out of the field hinted at recent vandalism.

Dratch said he came of age in Pennsylvania during the violent years of the second Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s. “My religious education was steeped in fear of Palestinians,” he said.

But in college, Dratch’s ideas about Israel changed. Dratch says he still supports Israel, while opposing its policies in the West Bank. “I realized I could be Zionist without turning my back on my neighbor, on Palestinians,” he said.

With hundreds of young American rabbis sharing such sentiments, some in Israel find the trend alarming.

“I worry about a passion for social justice becoming co-opted by far-left politics among future American Jewish leaders,” said Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, a Jewish research center in Jerusalem.

“Future rabbis are marginalizing themselves from the overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews,” he added.

As Israel heads toward elections in April, opinion polls point to another victory for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his religious, nationalist allies.

In the U.S., meanwhile, surveys show American Jews, particularly the younger generation, holding far more dovish views toward Palestinians and religious pluralism. Netanyahu’s close friendship with President Donald Trump has further alienated many American Jews, who tend to vote overwhelmingly Democratic.

Two weeks after visiting At-Tuwani, the group received disheartening news: half of the 50 trees they’d planted had been uprooted, apparently by settlers. The students scrambled to make plans to replant.

Dratch said that while his time in Israel has provided him with plenty of reasons to despair, he still harbors hope for change.

“We’ll be sharing these stories to give people a full picture of what it means to care about this place,” he said.
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Young American rabbinical students are doing more than visiting holy sites, learning Hebrew and poring over religious texts during their year abroad in Israel.

In a stark departure from past programs focused on strengthening ties with Israel and Judaism, the new crop of rabbinical students is reaching out to the Palestinians. The change reflects a divide between Israeli and American Jews that appears to be widening.

On a recent winter morning, Tyler Dratch, a 26-year-old rabbinical student at Hebrew College in Boston, was among some two dozen Jewish students planting olive trees in the Palestinian village of At-Tuwani in the southern West Bank. The only Jews that locals typically see are either Israeli soldiers or ultranationalist settlers.

“Before coming here and doing this, I couldn’t speak intelligently about Israel,” Dratch said. “We’re saying that we can take the same religion settlers use to commit violence in order to commit justice, to make peace.”

Dratch, not wanting to be mistaken for a settler, covered his Jewish skullcap with a baseball cap. He followed the group down a rocky slope to see marks that villagers say settlers left last month: “Death to Arabs” and “Revenge” spray-painted in Hebrew on boulders and several uprooted olive trees, their stems severed from clumps of dirt.

This year’s student program also includes a tour of the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron, a visit to an Israeli military court that prosecutes Palestinians and a meeting with an activist from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, which is blockaded by Israel.

The program is run by “T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights,” a U.S.-based network of rabbis and cantors.

Most of T’ruah’s membership, and all students in the Israel program, are affiliated with the Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative movements — liberal streams of Judaism that represent the majority of American Jews. These movements are marginalized in Israel, where rabbis from the stricter Orthodox stream dominate religious life.

The T’ruah program, now in its seventh year, is meant to supplement students’ standard curricular fare: Hebrew courses, religious text study, field trips and introductions to Jewish Israeli society. Though the program is optional, T’ruah says some 70 percent of the visiting American rabbinical students from the liberal branches of Judaism choose to participate.

The year-long program is split into one semester, focused on Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, and another, on alleged human rights abuses inside Israel.

T’ruah claims its West Bank encounters aren’t one-off acts of community service, but experiences meant to be carried home and disseminated to future congregations.

“We want to propel them to action, so they invite their future rabbinates to work toward ending the occupation,” said Rabbi Ian Chesir-Teran, T’ruah’s rabbinic educator in Israel.

The group began its trip in the most Jewish of ways, a discussion about the weekly Torah portion that turned into a spirited debate about the Ten Commandments.

“The Torah says don’t covet your neighbor’s fields, and we’re going to a Palestinian village whose private land has been confiscated for the sake of covetous Jews building settlements,” Chesir-Teran said.

As their bus trundled through the terraced hills south of Hebron, students listened to a local activist’s condensed history of the combustible West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

As part of interim peace deals in the 1990s, the West Bank was carved up into autonomous and semi-autonomous Palestinian areas, along with a section called Area C that remains under exclusive Israeli control.

The destinations of the day — the Palestinian villages of At-Tuwani and Ar-Rakkes — sit in Area C, also home to around 450,000 Israeli settlers. Palestinians seek all of the West Bank as the heartland of a hoped-for independent state.

The group was guided by villagers to their olive trees — an age-old Palestinian symbol and a more recent casualty of the struggle for land with Israeli settlers.

Israeli security officials reported a dramatic spike last year in settler violence against Palestinians.

Yishai Fleisher, a settler spokesman, blamed the attacks on the “atmosphere of tension” in the West Bank. “We’re against vigilantism, unequivocally,” he said.

As Israeli soldiers watched from the hilltop, Palestinians and Jews dug their fingers into the crumbling soil, setting down roots where holes torn out of the field hinted at recent vandalism.

Dratch said he came of age in Pennsylvania during the violent years of the second Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s. “My religious education was steeped in fear of Palestinians,” he said.

But in college, Dratch’s ideas about Israel changed. Dratch says he still supports Israel, while opposing its policies in the West Bank. “I realized I could be Zionist without turning my back on my neighbor, on Palestinians,” he said.

With hundreds of young American rabbis sharing such sentiments, some in Israel find the trend alarming.

“I worry about a passion for social justice becoming co-opted by far-left politics among future American Jewish leaders,” said Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, a Jewish research center in Jerusalem.

“Future rabbis are marginalizing themselves from the overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews,” he added.

As Israel heads toward elections in April, opinion polls point to another victory for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his religious, nationalist allies.

In the U.S., meanwhile, surveys show American Jews, particularly the younger generation, holding far more dovish views toward Palestinians and religious pluralism. Netanyahu’s close friendship with President Donald Trump has further alienated many American Jews, who tend to vote overwhelmingly Democratic.

Two weeks after visiting At-Tuwani, the group received disheartening news: half of the 50 trees they’d planted had been uprooted, apparently by settlers. The students scrambled to make plans to replant.

Dratch said that while his time in Israel has provided him with plenty of reasons to despair, he still harbors hope for change.

“We’ll be sharing these stories to give people a full picture of what it means to care about this place,” he said.
…

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Karl Lagerfeld, the iconic couturier whose designs at Chanel and Fendi had an unprecedented impact on the entire fashion industry, died Tuesday in Paris, prompting an outpouring of love and admiration for the man whose career spanned six decades.

Although he spent virtually his entire career at luxury labels catering to the very wealthy — including 20 years at Chloe — Lagerfeld’s designs quickly trickled down to low-end retailers, giving him global influence.

Former supermodel Claudia Schiffer, who credits Lagerfeld as her mentor, called him her “magic dust.”

“What [Andy] Warhol was to art, he was to fashion; he is irreplaceable,” she said.

The German-born designer may have spent much of his life in the public eye — his trademark white ponytail, high starched collar and dark glasses are instantly recognizable — but he remained a largely elusive figure.

Such was the enigma surrounding the octogenarian Lagerfeld that even his age was a point of mystery for decades, with reports he had two birth certificates, one dated 1933 and the other 1938.

In 2013, Lagerfeld told the French magazine “Paris Match” he was born in September of 1935 — which would make him 83 today — but in 2019 his assistant still didn’t know the truth — telling The Associated Press he liked “to scramble the tracks on his year of birth — that’s part of the character.”

Chanel confirmed that Lagerfeld, who had looked increasingly frail in recent seasons, died early Tuesday in Paris. Last month, he did not come out to take a bow at the house’s couture show in Paris — a rare absence that the company attributed to him being “tired.”

“An extraordinary creative individual, Lagerfeld reinvented the brand’s codes created by Gabrielle Chanel: the Chanel jacket and suit, the little black dress, the precious tweeds, the two-tone shoes, the quilted handbags, the pearls and costume jewelry,” Chanel said.

The brand’s CEO Alain Wertheimer praised Lagerfeld for an “exceptional intuition” that was ahead of his time and contributed to Chanel’s global success.

“Today, not only have I lost a friend, but we have all lost an extraordinary creative mind to whom I gave carte blanche in the early 1980s to reinvent the brand,” he said.

Chanel said Virginie Viard, his longtime head of studio, will create the house’s upcoming collections, but did not say whether her appointment was permanent.

Tributes from fellow designers, Hollywood celebrities, models and politicians quickly poured in. Donatella Versace thanked Lagerfeld for the way he inspired her and her late brother Gianni Versace.

Lagerfeld was one of the most hardworking figures in the fashion world, joining luxury Italian fashion house Fendi in 1965 and later becoming its longtime womenswear design chief in 1977, as well as leading designs at Paris’ family-owned power-house Chanel since 1983.

While at Fendi, Lagerfeld helped create the notion of fun fur, lending an ease to a formal wardrobe topper by adding stylized touches.

At Chanel, he served up youthful designs that were always of the moment and sent out almost infinite variations on the house’s classic skirt suit, ratcheting up the hemlines or smothering it in golden chains, stings of pearls or pricey accessories.

Wit was never far behind any collection.

“Each season, they tell me [the Chanel designs] look younger. One day we’ll all turn up like babies,” he once told The Associated Press.

His outspoken and often stinging remarks on topics as diverse as French politics and celebrity waistlines won him the nickname “Kaiser Karl” in the fashion media. Among the most acid comments included calling former French President Francois Hollande an “imbecile” who would be “disastrous” for France in Marie-Claire, and telling The Sun British tabloid that he didn’t like the face of Pippa Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge’s sister.

“She should only show her back,” he advised.

Lagerfeld was also heavily criticized for sending out a negative message to women when he told France’s Metro newspaper that British singer Adele was “a little too fat.”

Despite this, he was very kind to his staff at Chanel, generous with his time with journalists and shared his Parisian mansion with a Siamese cat called Choupette.

“She is spoilt, much more than a child could be,” he told the AP in 2013.

Lagerfeld had little use for nostalgia and kept his gaze firmly on the future. Well into his 70s, he was quick to embrace new technology: He famously had a collection of hundreds of iPods. A photographer who shot ad campaigns for Chanel and his own eponymous label, Lagerfeld also collected art books and had a massive library and a bookstore as well as his own publishing house.

He was also an impressive linguist, switching between perfect French, English, Italian and his native German during interviews at fashion shows.

Even as he courted the spotlight, he made a deliberate effort to hide what was going on behind his trademark dark shades.

“I am like a caricature of myself, and I like that,” British Vogue quoted Lagerfeld as saying. “It is like a mask. And for me the Carnival of Venice lasts all year long.”

After cutting his teeth at Paris-based label Chloe, Lagerfeld helped revive the flagging fortunes of the storied Paris haute couture label Chanel in the `80s. There, he helped launch the careers of supermodels including Schiffer, Ines de la Fressange and Stella Tennant.

In a move that helped make him a household name, Lagerfeld designed a capsule collection for Swedish fast-fashion company H&M in 2004 and released a CD of his favorite music shortly after.

A weight-loss book he published in 2005 — “The Karl Lagerfeld Diet” — consolidated his status as a pop culture icon. In the book, Lagerfeld said it was his desire to fit into slim-cut Dior suits that had motivated his dramatic transformation.

The son of an industrialist who made a fortune in condensed milk and his violinist wife, Lagerfeld was born into an affluent family in Hamburg, Germany. He had artistic ambitions early on. In interviews, he variously said he wanted to become a cartoonist, a portraitist, an illustrator or a musician.

“My mother tried to instruct me on the piano. One day, she slammed the piano cover closed on my fingers and said, `draw, it makes less noise,” he was quoted as saying in the book “The World According to Karl.”

At 14, Lagerfeld came to Paris with his parents and went to school in the City of Light. His fashion career got off to a precocious start when, in 1954, a coat he designed won a contest by the International Wool Secretariat. His rival, Yves Saint Laurent, won that year’s contest in the dress category.

Lagerfeld apprenticed at Balmain and in 1959 was hired at another Paris-based house, Patou, where he spent four years as artistic director. After a series of jobs with labels including Rome-based Fendi, Lagerfeld took over the reins at Chloe, known for its romantic Parisian style.

Lagerfeld also started his own label, Karl Lagerfeld, which though less commercially successful than his other ventures, was widely seen as a sketchpad where the designer worked through his ideas.

In 1983, he took over at Chanel, which had been dormant since the death of its founder, Coco Chanel, more than a decade earlier.

“When I took on Chanel, it was a sleeping beauty — not even a beautiful one,” he said in the 2007 documentary “Lagerfeld Confidential.” “She snored.”

For his debut collection for the house, Lagerfeld injected a dose of raciness, sending out a translucent navy chiffon number that prompted scandalized headlines.

He never ceased to shake up the storied house, sending out a logo-emblazoned bikini so small the top looked like pasties on a string and another collection that dispensed entirely with bottoms, with the models wearing little jackets over opaque tights instead.

Lagerfeld was open about his homosexuality — he once said he announced it to his parents at 13 — but kept his private life under wraps. Following his relationship with a French aristocrat who died of AIDS in 1989, Lagerfeld insisted he prized his solitude above all.

“I hate when people say I’m `solitaire’ [or solitary.] Yes, I’m solitaire in the sense of a stone from Cartier, a big solitaire,” Lagerfeld told The New York Times. “I have to be alone to do what I do. I like to be alone. I’m happy to be with people, but I’m sorry to say I like to be alone, because there’s so much to do, to read, to think.”

As much as he loved the spotlight, Lagerfeld was careful to obscure his real self.

“It’s not that I lie, it’s that I don’t owe the truth to anyone,” he told French Vogue.
…

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Karl Lagerfeld, the iconic couturier whose designs at Chanel and Fendi had an unprecedented impact on the entire fashion industry, died Tuesday in Paris, prompting an outpouring of love and admiration for the man whose career spanned six decades.

Although he spent virtually his entire career at luxury labels catering to the very wealthy — including 20 years at Chloe — Lagerfeld’s designs quickly trickled down to low-end retailers, giving him global influence.

Former supermodel Claudia Schiffer, who credits Lagerfeld as her mentor, called him her “magic dust.”

“What [Andy] Warhol was to art, he was to fashion; he is irreplaceable,” she said.

The German-born designer may have spent much of his life in the public eye — his trademark white ponytail, high starched collar and dark glasses are instantly recognizable — but he remained a largely elusive figure.

Such was the enigma surrounding the octogenarian Lagerfeld that even his age was a point of mystery for decades, with reports he had two birth certificates, one dated 1933 and the other 1938.

In 2013, Lagerfeld told the French magazine “Paris Match” he was born in September of 1935 — which would make him 83 today — but in 2019 his assistant still didn’t know the truth — telling The Associated Press he liked “to scramble the tracks on his year of birth — that’s part of the character.”

Chanel confirmed that Lagerfeld, who had looked increasingly frail in recent seasons, died early Tuesday in Paris. Last month, he did not come out to take a bow at the house’s couture show in Paris — a rare absence that the company attributed to him being “tired.”

“An extraordinary creative individual, Lagerfeld reinvented the brand’s codes created by Gabrielle Chanel: the Chanel jacket and suit, the little black dress, the precious tweeds, the two-tone shoes, the quilted handbags, the pearls and costume jewelry,” Chanel said.

The brand’s CEO Alain Wertheimer praised Lagerfeld for an “exceptional intuition” that was ahead of his time and contributed to Chanel’s global success.

“Today, not only have I lost a friend, but we have all lost an extraordinary creative mind to whom I gave carte blanche in the early 1980s to reinvent the brand,” he said.

Chanel said Virginie Viard, his longtime head of studio, will create the house’s upcoming collections, but did not say whether her appointment was permanent.

Tributes from fellow designers, Hollywood celebrities, models and politicians quickly poured in. Donatella Versace thanked Lagerfeld for the way he inspired her and her late brother Gianni Versace.

Lagerfeld was one of the most hardworking figures in the fashion world, joining luxury Italian fashion house Fendi in 1965 and later becoming its longtime womenswear design chief in 1977, as well as leading designs at Paris’ family-owned power-house Chanel since 1983.

While at Fendi, Lagerfeld helped create the notion of fun fur, lending an ease to a formal wardrobe topper by adding stylized touches.

At Chanel, he served up youthful designs that were always of the moment and sent out almost infinite variations on the house’s classic skirt suit, ratcheting up the hemlines or smothering it in golden chains, stings of pearls or pricey accessories.

Wit was never far behind any collection.

“Each season, they tell me [the Chanel designs] look younger. One day we’ll all turn up like babies,” he once told The Associated Press.

His outspoken and often stinging remarks on topics as diverse as French politics and celebrity waistlines won him the nickname “Kaiser Karl” in the fashion media. Among the most acid comments included calling former French President Francois Hollande an “imbecile” who would be “disastrous” for France in Marie-Claire, and telling The Sun British tabloid that he didn’t like the face of Pippa Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge’s sister.

“She should only show her back,” he advised.

Lagerfeld was also heavily criticized for sending out a negative message to women when he told France’s Metro newspaper that British singer Adele was “a little too fat.”

Despite this, he was very kind to his staff at Chanel, generous with his time with journalists and shared his Parisian mansion with a Siamese cat called Choupette.

“She is spoilt, much more than a child could be,” he told the AP in 2013.

Lagerfeld had little use for nostalgia and kept his gaze firmly on the future. Well into his 70s, he was quick to embrace new technology: He famously had a collection of hundreds of iPods. A photographer who shot ad campaigns for Chanel and his own eponymous label, Lagerfeld also collected art books and had a massive library and a bookstore as well as his own publishing house.

He was also an impressive linguist, switching between perfect French, English, Italian and his native German during interviews at fashion shows.

Even as he courted the spotlight, he made a deliberate effort to hide what was going on behind his trademark dark shades.

“I am like a caricature of myself, and I like that,” British Vogue quoted Lagerfeld as saying. “It is like a mask. And for me the Carnival of Venice lasts all year long.”

After cutting his teeth at Paris-based label Chloe, Lagerfeld helped revive the flagging fortunes of the storied Paris haute couture label Chanel in the `80s. There, he helped launch the careers of supermodels including Schiffer, Ines de la Fressange and Stella Tennant.

In a move that helped make him a household name, Lagerfeld designed a capsule collection for Swedish fast-fashion company H&M in 2004 and released a CD of his favorite music shortly after.

A weight-loss book he published in 2005 — “The Karl Lagerfeld Diet” — consolidated his status as a pop culture icon. In the book, Lagerfeld said it was his desire to fit into slim-cut Dior suits that had motivated his dramatic transformation.

The son of an industrialist who made a fortune in condensed milk and his violinist wife, Lagerfeld was born into an affluent family in Hamburg, Germany. He had artistic ambitions early on. In interviews, he variously said he wanted to become a cartoonist, a portraitist, an illustrator or a musician.

“My mother tried to instruct me on the piano. One day, she slammed the piano cover closed on my fingers and said, `draw, it makes less noise,” he was quoted as saying in the book “The World According to Karl.”

At 14, Lagerfeld came to Paris with his parents and went to school in the City of Light. His fashion career got off to a precocious start when, in 1954, a coat he designed won a contest by the International Wool Secretariat. His rival, Yves Saint Laurent, won that year’s contest in the dress category.

Lagerfeld apprenticed at Balmain and in 1959 was hired at another Paris-based house, Patou, where he spent four years as artistic director. After a series of jobs with labels including Rome-based Fendi, Lagerfeld took over the reins at Chloe, known for its romantic Parisian style.

Lagerfeld also started his own label, Karl Lagerfeld, which though less commercially successful than his other ventures, was widely seen as a sketchpad where the designer worked through his ideas.

In 1983, he took over at Chanel, which had been dormant since the death of its founder, Coco Chanel, more than a decade earlier.

“When I took on Chanel, it was a sleeping beauty — not even a beautiful one,” he said in the 2007 documentary “Lagerfeld Confidential.” “She snored.”

For his debut collection for the house, Lagerfeld injected a dose of raciness, sending out a translucent navy chiffon number that prompted scandalized headlines.

He never ceased to shake up the storied house, sending out a logo-emblazoned bikini so small the top looked like pasties on a string and another collection that dispensed entirely with bottoms, with the models wearing little jackets over opaque tights instead.

Lagerfeld was open about his homosexuality — he once said he announced it to his parents at 13 — but kept his private life under wraps. Following his relationship with a French aristocrat who died of AIDS in 1989, Lagerfeld insisted he prized his solitude above all.

“I hate when people say I’m `solitaire’ [or solitary.] Yes, I’m solitaire in the sense of a stone from Cartier, a big solitaire,” Lagerfeld told The New York Times. “I have to be alone to do what I do. I like to be alone. I’m happy to be with people, but I’m sorry to say I like to be alone, because there’s so much to do, to read, to think.”

As much as he loved the spotlight, Lagerfeld was careful to obscure his real self.

“It’s not that I lie, it’s that I don’t owe the truth to anyone,” he told French Vogue.
…

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A year after best actress winner Frances McDormand used the Oscars stage to advocate for more women in front of and behind the camera, Hollywood is celebrating some progress – but remains far from reaching parity with men.

McDormand urged powerful celebrities to insist on inclusion riders: contractual provisions that require producers to interview female candidates for jobs ranging from gaffer to director.

In the aftermath of McDormand’s speech, one major Hollywood studio, Warner Bros., adopted policies based on the idea, and A-list stars such as Matt Damon and Michael B. Jordan, who also work as producers, committed to pushing for inclusion riders.

“It’s been remarkable,” said Kalpana Kotagal, a civil rights attorney who co-developed the inclusion rider concept, which also is being used to encourage hiring of people of color, as well as gay, disabled and older people. “We are actually seeing it being implemented.”

Kotagal pointed to coming-of-age movie “Hala,” which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and will be distributed by Apple Inc. Producers adopted inclusion riders and filled many off-screen jobs, including the majority of department head positions, with women.

The publicity around the riders kick-started a nascent effort to pressure filmmakers into boosting female representation.

A study released this month showed some gains. Forty of the top 100 films in 2018 featured a female as a lead character, the highest number since tracking began 12 years earlier, according to University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. Those movies included best picture nominees “A Star is Born,” “The Favourite” and “Roma.”

​And 28 percent of this year’s Oscar nominees are women, the highest percentage in history.

The industry is taking other steps to promote gender diversity.

The 4 Percent Challenge asks for a commitment to announcing at least one feature film with a female director in the next 18 months. Four percent refers to the pool of women-directed films among the top 1,200 movies of the past 10 years.

“For decades, directors have been viewed as a male job,” said Oscar-nominated “Vice” director Adam McKay.

But he said that attitude is changing, and his production company has made five feature films with female directors.

“I think you are seeing the whole town rally around the idea that there are voices that need to heard,” he said.

More than 120 actors, producers and writers, and seven studios, have signed on to the 4 Percent Challenge. Many studios also have established mentoring programs for women.

Still, “the work is far from done,” Kotagal said.

The industry remains far below the 50/50 parity that advocates are pushing for among on-screen talent, behind-the-scenes workers and studio executives. The number of female cinematographers is particularly low, comprising just 3 percent of last year’s 100 top-grossing films, according to data from San Diego State University.

And none of the major studios aside from AT&T-owned Warner Bros. has committed to using inclusion riders across the board on productions.

Actress Natalie Portman said she had encountered resistance to the idea. “I think a lot of people are making the argument that you’re hiring people for their talent, not their gender,” she told Hollywood website Deadline in December.

A common refrain across the movie business is that decades of inequality make it hard to find qualified women to fill positions.

Betsy West, co-director of Oscar-nominated documentary “RBG” about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, rejected that argument. Key jobs on “RBG,” including editor, producer and cinematographer, were performed by women.

“People say ‘How did you find the people?'” West said. “It wasn’t that hard. They are out there, and you just have to look.”
…

your ads here!

A year after best actress winner Frances McDormand used the Oscars stage to advocate for more women in front of and behind the camera, Hollywood is celebrating some progress – but remains far from reaching parity with men.

McDormand urged powerful celebrities to insist on inclusion riders: contractual provisions that require producers to interview female candidates for jobs ranging from gaffer to director.

In the aftermath of McDormand’s speech, one major Hollywood studio, Warner Bros., adopted policies based on the idea, and A-list stars such as Matt Damon and Michael B. Jordan, who also work as producers, committed to pushing for inclusion riders.

“It’s been remarkable,” said Kalpana Kotagal, a civil rights attorney who co-developed the inclusion rider concept, which also is being used to encourage hiring of people of color, as well as gay, disabled and older people. “We are actually seeing it being implemented.”

Kotagal pointed to coming-of-age movie “Hala,” which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and will be distributed by Apple Inc. Producers adopted inclusion riders and filled many off-screen jobs, including the majority of department head positions, with women.

The publicity around the riders kick-started a nascent effort to pressure filmmakers into boosting female representation.

A study released this month showed some gains. Forty of the top 100 films in 2018 featured a female as a lead character, the highest number since tracking began 12 years earlier, according to University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. Those movies included best picture nominees “A Star is Born,” “The Favourite” and “Roma.”

​And 28 percent of this year’s Oscar nominees are women, the highest percentage in history.

The industry is taking other steps to promote gender diversity.

The 4 Percent Challenge asks for a commitment to announcing at least one feature film with a female director in the next 18 months. Four percent refers to the pool of women-directed films among the top 1,200 movies of the past 10 years.

“For decades, directors have been viewed as a male job,” said Oscar-nominated “Vice” director Adam McKay.

But he said that attitude is changing, and his production company has made five feature films with female directors.

“I think you are seeing the whole town rally around the idea that there are voices that need to heard,” he said.

More than 120 actors, producers and writers, and seven studios, have signed on to the 4 Percent Challenge. Many studios also have established mentoring programs for women.

Still, “the work is far from done,” Kotagal said.

The industry remains far below the 50/50 parity that advocates are pushing for among on-screen talent, behind-the-scenes workers and studio executives. The number of female cinematographers is particularly low, comprising just 3 percent of last year’s 100 top-grossing films, according to data from San Diego State University.

And none of the major studios aside from AT&T-owned Warner Bros. has committed to using inclusion riders across the board on productions.

Actress Natalie Portman said she had encountered resistance to the idea. “I think a lot of people are making the argument that you’re hiring people for their talent, not their gender,” she told Hollywood website Deadline in December.

A common refrain across the movie business is that decades of inequality make it hard to find qualified women to fill positions.

Betsy West, co-director of Oscar-nominated documentary “RBG” about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, rejected that argument. Key jobs on “RBG,” including editor, producer and cinematographer, were performed by women.

“People say ‘How did you find the people?'” West said. “It wasn’t that hard. They are out there, and you just have to look.”
…

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Master Yoda, dust off his French, he must.

It’s now easier than ever in France to act out “Star Wars” fantasies, because its fencing federation has borrowed from a galaxy far, far away and officially recognized lightsaber dueling as a competitive sport, granting the iconic weapon from George Lucas’ saga the same status as the foil, epee and sabre, the traditional blades used at the Olympics. 

Of course, the LED-lit, rigid polycarbonate lightsaber replicas can’t slice a Sith lord in half. But they look and, with the more expensive sabers equipped with a chip in their hilt that emits a throaty electric rumble, even sound remarkably like the silver screen blades that Yoda and other characters wield in the blockbuster movies.

Plenty realistic, at least, for duelists to work up an impressive sweat slashing, feinting and stabbing in organized, 3-minute bouts. The physicality of lightsaber combat is part of why the French Fencing Federation threw its support behind the sport and is now equipping fencing clubs with lightsabers and training would-be lightsaber instructors. Like virtuous Jedi knights, the French federation sees itself as combatting a Dark Side: The sedentary habits of 21st-century life that are sickening ever-growing numbers of adults and kids .

“With young people today, it’s a real public health issue. They don’t do any sport and only exercise with their thumbs,” says Serge Aubailly, the federation secretary general. “It’s becoming difficult to (persuade them to) do a sport that has no connection with getting out of the sofa and playing with one’s thumbs. That is why we are trying to create a bond between our discipline and modern technologies, so participating in a sport feels natural.”

In the past, the likes of Zorro, Robin Hood and The Three Musketeers helped lure new practitioners to fencing. Now, joining and even supplanting them are Luke Skywalker , Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader.

“Cape and sword movies have always had a big impact on our federation and its growth,” Aubailly says. “Lightsaber films have the same impact . Young people want to give it a try.”

And the young at heart.

Police officer Philippe Bondi, 49, practiced fencing for 20 years before switching to lightsaber. When a club started offering classes in Metz, the town in eastern France where he is stationed for the gendarmerie, Bondi says he was immediately drawn by the prospect of living out the love he’s had for the “Star Wars” universe since he saw the first film at age 7, on its release in 1977 .

He fights in the same wire-mesh face mask he used for fencing. He spent about 350 euros ($400) on his protective body armor (sturdy gloves, chest, shoulder and shin pads) and on his federation-approved lightsaber, opting for luminous green “because it’s the Jedi colors, and Yoda is my master.”

“I had to be on the good side, given that my job is upholding the law,” he said.

Bondi awoke well before dawn to make the four-hour drive from Metz to a national lightsaber tournament outside Paris this month that drew 34 competitors. It showcased how far the sport has come in a couple of years but also that it’s still light years from becoming mainstream. 

The crowd was small and a technical glitch prevented the duelers’ photos, combat names and scores from being displayed on a big screen, making bouts tough to follow. But the illuminated swooshes of colored blades looked spectacular in the darkened hall. Fan cosplay as “Star Wars” characters added levity, authenticity and a tickle of bizarre to the proceedings, especially the incongruous sight of Darth Vader buying a ham sandwich and a bag of potato chips at the cafeteria during a break.

In building their sport from the ground up, French organizers produced competition rules intended to make lightsaber dueling both competitive and easy on the eyes. 

“We wanted it to be safe, we wanted it to be umpired and, most of all, we wanted it to produce something visual that looks like the movies, because that is what people expect,” said Michel Ortiz, the tournament organizer. 

Combatants fight inside a circle marked in tape on the floor. Strikes to the head or body are worth 5 points; to the arms or legs, 3 points; on hands, 1 point. The first to 15 points wins or, if they don’t get there quickly, the high scorer after 3 minutes. If both fighters reach 10 points, the bout enters “sudden death,” where the first to land a head- or body-blow wins, a rule to encourage enterprising fighters.

Blows only count if the fighters first point the tip of their saber behind them. That rule prevents the viper-like, tip-first quick forward strikes seen in fencing. Instead, the rule encourages swishier blows that are easier for audiences to see and enjoy, and which are more evocative of the duels in “Star Wars.” Of those, the battle between Obi-Wan and Darth Maul in “The Phantom Menace” that ends badly for the Sith despite his double-bladed lightsaber is particularly appreciated by aficionados for its swordplay. 

Still nascent, counting its paid-up practitioners in France in the hundreds, not thousands, lightsaber dueling has no hope of a place in the Paris Olympics in 2024.

But to hear the thwack of blades and see them cut shapes through the air is to want to give the sport a try.

Or, as Yoda would say: “Try not. Do! Or do not. There is no try.”

 

 

 
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