Guest post: Film “Petra Kelly – Act Now!” about Green icon
Petra Kelly, born in Germany, grew up in the USA in the 1960s. As a student, she worked in Robert F. Kennedy’s election campaign team. Her role model was Martin Luther King Jr. with his philosophy of civil disobedience. In the early 1980s, she mobilized hundreds of thousands of people in Germany against the deployment of US nuclear missiles. More here.
July 27: 30th anniversary of Kevin Carter’s death
His photo from Sudan went around the world in March 1993: a child, emaciated to the skeleton, crouches in the sand while a vulture lurks behind him. Kevin Carter received the Pulitzer Prize for this work. Two months later, the South African committed suicide in Johannesburg. More here.
Otto Duve: witness of the Second World War and local politician
Otto Duve, born near Hamburg, was 10 when World War II began. Due to his experiences, one thing is important to the now 95 year old: peace. He criticizes politicians who want to make Germany “fit for war”. More here.
27 years ago: death of singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley
On June 4, 1997, the body of Jeff Buckley was found on the banks of the Mississippi. Accident or suicide? He was 30 years old. Unforgotten: his version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”.
Berlin filmmaker Renate Sami has died.
Renate Sami
May 1935 – December 24, 2023
Renate Sami lived through ’68 as well as the leaden Germany of the 1970s. And not only witnessed it: she was involved in left-wing political circles. She was not only a filmmaker, but also an actress and screenwriter and knew her way around a camera. More here.
How a banker turned filmmaker and peace ambassador.
For forty years, Klaus Beer worked at a savings bank in a small German town, but his passion is traveling. He made travel films and wrote travel guides. From Canada, he brought back the idea of creating an amusement park with place name signs from all over the world. His “Wanderlust Park” has stood for international understanding and a peaceful world for almost 25 years.
How Rabbi Mike Moskowitz helps – and ignores the dark sides.
He prays only in synagogues that have separate areas for women and men. Yet Rabbi Mike Moskowitz of New Jersey advocates for the rights of transgender people. He doesn’t see any contradiction to his faith nor to the Hebrew Bible. The rabbi has little sympathy for criticisms of biological males in women’s spaces, hormone blockers and gender-reassignment surgery.
A portrait of Rabbi Anemone Nitzan Stein-Kokin
The security situation for Jewish communities has also deteriorated significantly in the United States. Anemone Nitzan Stein Kokin feels this clearly. Born in the German town of Karlsruhe, she heads the conservative-liberal Masorti Congregation Beth El in Phoenix, Arizona.
The amazing live story of Renate Ellmenreich
Although never a member of any youth organisation of the GDR, Renate Ellmenreich was allowed to graduate from high school as a so-called “worker’s and farmer’s child”. She studied theology and became a pastor but soon got into troubles with State Security. Then went to West Germany and as a development aid worker to Nigeria, where she founded a “widow’s village”. She supports a housing project for widows and their children in North Nigeria.
On the 10th anniversary of Aaron Swartz’s death
As a teenager, he helped develop the codes for the web standard RSS and the Creative Commons licenses, and later Aaron Swartz helped build the net culture forum Reddit. On January 11, 2013, the hacker and activist took his own life in New York.