Finally, world governments began to give a damn! Vanishing species had a friend. In the United States, the Fish and Wildlife Service led the way. You could no longer shoot hawks, eagles, and other birds that were not game species. Big fines became the rule of the day.

Devon Leaver, who as a child sang in the aisles of local grocery stores, has both film and voice projects attracting attention and audiences this month in places such as the Sundance Film Festival.

A new film by Yaron Zilberman, an Israeli-American, goes back to a time when peace between Palestinians and Israelis was not only conceivable but even imminent, and illustrates why efforts by both sides to achieve it have ultimately failed.