In 1906, the great Yiddish writer Sholem Asch wrote a play called God of Vengeance about the owner of a brothel and his attempt to preserve his family’s respectability despite his profession—an attempt that ultimately fails when his daughter falls in love with one of his employees. When the play was eventually performed in New York in English, it was banned and some of the cast members briefly jailed. The play Indecent, which recently had its Broadway debut, purports to tell the story of this play and the scandal around it. While praising Indecent’s artistic merits, Edward Rothstein finds it ultimately both unconvincing and unfaithful to the dramatic work it sets out to celebrate:

Last week, Russia negotiated a ceasefire between the Syrian government and rebel forces in the city of Daraa, where the initial protests that sparked the uprising against Bashar al-Assad began. The agreement ended a 75-day assault on the city, located near the country’s southwestern border, by Russian, Iranian, and Syrian forces. Jonathan Spyer explains the significance of these events: