“I’d always wanted to work abroad and have always been fascinated by violence and political unrest, but for a long time, I was ashamed to say this out loud. As a woman, I was afraid people would think I was silly to presume I could go into places where there was that kind of turmoil. “

Despite critics’ emphasis on the sex scenes, perhaps what the film really spotlights is friendship. We see how the easy, angelic intimacy of our younger lives gets shattered, not just by communal and religious  repression, but also by that beast, desire, which brings with it exclusion, taboo, unspoken needs, anger and loss. The scenes that offer us access to the trio’s friendship–or perhaps, even, into their thwarted queer family–are the ones that showcase the rawest emotions, the best exchanges.

The question is less about why the children are being separated from their adults and more about when this madness it stop and how soon will the children already wrenched from their parents be re-united with them

The salient point here is that the Trump/Sessions “zero tolerance” policy offends us to the very core of our humanity––as Jews, as women, as parents, but most importantly as people. It offers zero tolerance to the very nucleus of what makes us human.

But it is who we are: what the United States is doing to families and children, specifically families and children of color, by ripping them apart at the U.S. border is part and parcel of an ongoing history. It is horrific and unbearable and inhumane. But it is exactly what America is and continues to be.