Uncategorized
For theatergoers at Broadway’s recent spate of Jewish shows, attendance is a form of witness
(JTA) — Jewish stories have had top billing on Broadway this season — and Jewish audiences have been flocking to the theater.
Audiences have lined up to see Tom Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt,” the multigenerational saga of a Jewish family in Vienna, and the devastating consequences of the Holocaust upon its ranks. They have packed the house for “Parade,” a musical retelling of the infamous antisemitic show trial and subsequent lynching of Leo Frank in Marietta, Georgia, in 1915. And just off Broadway, “The Wanderers” (which closed April 2) invited us into the slowly disintegrating marriage of two secular Jews born to mothers who dramatically left the Satmar sect of ultra-Orthodox Judaism, a show replete with intergenerational trauma and a pervasive sense of ennui.
None of these shows offers a particularly lighthearted evening at the theater. So why have they proven so popular? Critics have penned countless reviews of the three plays, analyzing the quality of the productions, the scripts, scores, performances of principal actors, set and design. But for our new book exploring what audiences learn about Judaism from Jewish cultural arts, my colleague Sharon Avni and I have been interviewing audience members after seeing “Leopoldstadt,” “Parade” and “The Wanderers.” We are interested in turning the spotlight away from the stage and onto the seats: What do audiences make of all this? What do they learn?
Take “Leopoldstadt,” for example, a drama so full of characters that when it left London for its Broadway run the production team added a family tree to the Playbill so that theatergoers could follow along. “Leopoldstadt” offers its audience a whistle-stop introduction to modern European Jewish history. In somewhat pedantic fashion, the family debates issues of the day that include Zionism, art, philosophy, intermarriage and, in a searing final scene, the memory of the Holocaust.
For some of the theatergoers that we interviewed, “Leopoldstadt” was powerful precisely because it packed so much Jewish history into its two-hour run time. It offered a basic literacy course in European Judaism, one they thought everyone needed to learn. Others, however, thought that this primer of Jewish history was really written for novice audiences — perhaps non-Jews, or assimilated Jews with half-remembered Jewish heritage, like Stoppard himself. “I don’t know who this play is for,” one interviewee told us. “But it’s not me. I know all this already.”
Brandon Uranowitz, left, who plays a Holocaust survivor, confronts Arty Froushan as a young writer discovering his Jewish roots, in the Broadway production of Tom Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt.” (Joan Marcus)
Other interviewees thought the power of “Leopoldstadt” lay not in its history lessons, but in its ability to use the past to illuminate contemporary realities. I spoke at length with a woman who had been struggling with antisemitism at work. Some of her colleagues had been sharing social media posts filled with lazy caricatures of Jews as avaricious capitalists. Upon seeing “Leopoldstadt,” she realized that these vile messages mirrored Nazi rhetoric in the 1930s, convincing her that antisemitism in contemporary America had reached just as dangerous a threshold as beheld European Jews on the eve of the Shoah.
We heard similar sentiments about the prescience of history to alert us to the specter of antisemitism today from audiences who saw “Parade.” Recalling a scene where the cast members wave Confederate flags during the titular parade celebrating Confederate Memorial Day, Jewish audiences recalled feeling especially attuned to Jewish precarity when the theater burst into applause at the end of the musical number. “Why were we clapping Confederate flags?” one of our interviewees said. “I’ve lived in the South, and as a Jew I know that when you see Confederate flags it is not a safe space for us.”
“Parade” dramatizes the popular frenzy that surrounded the trial of Leo Frank, a Yankee as well as a Jew, who was scapegoated for the murder of a young Southern girl. Jewish audience members that we interviewed told us that the play powerfully illustrated how crowds could be manipulated into demonizing minorities, comparing the situation in early 20th century Marietta to the alt-right of today, and the rise of antisemitism in contemporary America.
What we ultimately discovered, however, was that audience perceptions of the Jewish themes and characters in these productions were as varied as audiences themselves. Inevitably, they tell us more about the individual than the performance. Yet the fact that American Jews have flocked to these three shows — a secular pilgrimage of sorts — also illustrates the power and the peril of public Jewish storytelling. For audience members at “Leopoldstadt” and “Parade,” especially, attending these performances was not merely an entertaining evening at the theater. It was a form of witnessing. There was very little to be surprised by in these plays, after all. The inevitable happens: The Holocaust destroys Jewish life in Europe, Leo Frank is convicted and lynched. Jewish audiences know to expect this. They know there will be no happy ending. In the secular cultural equivalent to saying Kaddish for the dead, Jewish audiences perform their respect to Jewish memory by showing up, and by paying hundreds of dollars for the good seats.
The peril of these performances, however, is that audiences learn little about antisemitism in reality. The victims of the Nazis and the Southern Jews of Marietta would tell us that they could never have predicted what was to happen. Yet in “Parade” and “Leopoldstadt” audiences are asked to grapple with the naivete of characters who believe that everything will be all right, even as audiences themselves know that it will not. By learning Jewish history on Broadway, audiences are paradoxically able to distance themselves from it, simply by knowing too much.
In the final scene of “Leopoldstadt,” Leo, the character loosely based on Stoppard himself, is berated by a long-lost relative for his ignorance of his family’s story. “You live as if without history,” the relative tells Leo. “As if you throw no shadow behind you.” Audiences, at that moment, are invited to pat themselves on the back for coming to see the show, and for choosing to acknowledge the shadows of their own Jewish histories. The cold hard reality, however, is that a shadow can only ever be a fuzzy outline of the truth.
—
The post For theatergoers at Broadway’s recent spate of Jewish shows, attendance is a form of witness appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
NYPD Details Increased Security Measures for Passover Amid ‘Heightened State of Alert’ Against Terrorism Threats
New York City Police Department (NYPD) vehicles are seen in Brooklyn, New York, United States, on Oct. 13, 2024. Photo: Kyle Mazza via Reuters Connect
The New York Police Department (NYPD) will increase its presence around the city as New Yorkers celebrate the Jewish holiday of Passover next week amid what Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch described on Thursday as the most threatening terrorist landscape of her career.
“In my 18 years in government, which started in counterterrorism, I have not seen a threat environment quite like this one,” Tisch told leaders of the Jewish community who gathered at 1 Police Plaza for the NYPD’s annual pre-Passover security briefing. “It is clear that we will be in a heightened state of alert for the foreseeable future.”
“You will see increased patrols in the vicinity of synagogues and other houses of worship,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism Rebecca Weiner said at the security briefing. She added that the NYPD will deploy members of its counterterrorism divisions, critical response command, heavy weapons teams, and K-9 units to “high threat” locations around the city.
The department is also relying on its system of cameras and sensors, monitored by members of the NYPD’s intelligence division, as well as as its international partners in the Middle East to help them with early-warning detection of threats against New Yorkers.
“These teams provide necessary deterrence and target guarding, and they should also provide reassurance that we are everywhere, that we can be omnipresent,” Weiner said. “There will be security measures that you see, and many others that you won’t. As this onslaught of misplaced retaliation, retribution, and hate continues, we will continue to do all in our power to interrupt it.”
In her remarks, Tisch mentioned four terrorist attacks that took place on US soil since the joint US-Israeli military strikes against Iran on Feb. 28. The attacks include a deadly mass shooting at a bar in Austin, Texas, on March 1, in which the gunman wore a shirt featuring the image of the Iranian flag; an ISIS-inspired attempted bombing at an “American’s Against Islamification” protest in Manhattan’s Upper East Side on March 7; a car ramming at a synagogue in Detroit, Michigan, on March 12 by a man whose family has ties to the Hezbollah terrorist organization; and the shooting of a ROTC instructor in Norfolk, Virginia, that same day by a gunman and known terrorist who screamed “Allahu Akbar.”
Tisch also noted attacks in Europe, including the arson attack targeting four Hatzalah vehicles parked outside a synagogue in north London early this week.
“These are perilous times to be sure. I know you feel the stress and anxiety in your synagogues, in your schools or community centers, and even in your own homes. I feel it too,” Tisch said. “But I also know the NYPD is laser-focused on keeping this city safe with one of the most impressive and sophisticated intelligence and counterterrorism operations in the world.”
She said the NYPD is preparing for a “safe and joyful Passover celebration” and talked about uniformed patrols officers being stationed over Passover around synagogues, Jewish schools, and other Jewish sites. “This work we do together is vital because on top of raising our terrorism level, escalating conflict in the Middle East is also fueling antisemitism around the globe and certainly here at home,” she noted.
In the immediate aftermath of the deadly Hamas-led terrorist attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, antisemitic hate crimes in New York City surged 80 percent from Oct. 7 until the end of 2023, according to the police commissioner. By the end of last year, that number began to decline and overall hate crimes decreased by nearly 16 percent. However, since the start of 2026 – following the appointment of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani — antisemitic crimes, as well as hate crimes overall, are again on the rise, she concluded by saying.
Uncategorized
Rubio, Pro-Israel Lawmakers Voice Alarm Over West Bank Settler Violence as IDF Warns of ‘Unacceptable’ Situation
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a US-Paraguay Status of Forces agreement signing ceremony at the State Department in Washington, DC, US, Dec. 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that Washington is “concerned” by settler violence in the West Bank and expects Israel to act, as a growing number of pro-Israel lawmakers in the US and senior Israeli military officials warn that the unchecked attacks are harming Israel’s security and international standing.
Rubio, one of Israel’s staunchest supporters within the Trump Administration, said from France that President Donald Trump has opposed “any sort of change in the status quo in the West Bank” and indicated that Israeli authorities recognize the seriousness of the problem.
Rubio’s remarks came amid months of attacks across the West Bank that have continued during the war with Iran.
The Times of Israel reported this week that the first 25 days of the war with Iran saw 257 incidents of extremist settler violence and land seizures, with at least seven Palestinians killed by Israeli civilians.
Many of the attacks have involved West Bank settlers physically assaulting residents — including elderly Palestinian women and children — torching Palestinian homes and vehicles, and hurling stones at cars on West Bank roads.
Israelis who have tried to document or stop the violence have also been severely injured by settlers. In February, two Israeli activists were hospitalized with serious head wounds after being beaten by settlers near Qusra.
Israeli soldiers have also been repeatedly attacked and wounded by settlers while responding to incidents.
“The Israelis themselves have expressed [concern],” Rubio added. “You’ve seen that some of these groups and individuals — maybe they’re settlers, maybe they’re just street thugs — have attacked Israeli security forces as well, so I think you’ll see the government there do something about it.”
The violence has drawn unusually sharp criticism from US lawmakers generally seen as strong supporters of Israel.
Among them are Reps. Ritchie Torres and Daniel Goldman of New York. Torres, widely regarded as one of Israel’s strongest advocates in Congress, said this week that “the crisis of extremist settler violence in the West Bank must be confronted, and the perpetrators must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” calling for “zero tolerance for violent extremism, no matter what form it takes.” Goldman similarly described the violence as an “outrage” and said, “the Israeli government must hold those responsible accountable, as the rule of law requires.”
One of the strongest warnings, however, has come from within the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) itself.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said this month that attacks by extremist settlers on Palestinians and Israeli troops are “morally and ethically unacceptable” and cause “extraordinary strategic damage” to the military’s efforts during a multi-front war. Zamir stressed that the perpetrators “do not represent the settlements” and warned that such violence endangers “security, stability, and our values as a people and as a state.”
That warning took on added urgency when the IDF announced this week that it had diverted an infantry battalion that had been intended for fighting against Hezbollah in Lebanon to the West Bank amid the latest wave of settler attacks, according to a report from The Jerusalem Post.
In a separate report, Zamir was also said to have warned ministers that the IDF risks “collapsing in on itself” under mounting operational demands and manpower shortages.
Uncategorized
Berlin Police Report Over 12,000 Offenses Connected to Anti-Israel Demonstrations Since Oct. 7 Attack
Supporters of Hamas gather in Berlin. Photo: Reuters/M. Golejewski
Berlin police have recorded more than 12,000 criminal offenses tied to pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the German capital since the start of the war in Gaza, according to newly released figures — laying bare the sheer extent of unrest that has accompanied months of anti-Israel protests in the city.
Officials had documented 12,493 offenses connected to demonstrations and related activity as of March, according to data compiled by a Berlin police task force established after the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
German media, which first reported the data, noted the special investigative unit has been probing individuals involved in illegal activity or with criminal records who drew attention at anti-Israel demonstrations in Berlin, tracking their activities and connections across the city.
Among the most frequent charges were 2,277 violent crimes, including 1,189 cases involving resistance to law enforcement officers. Police also recorded 3,453 cases of property damage, 2,205 propaganda-related offenses, and 1,046 incidents classified as incitement to hatred.
Authorities further reported that their records include 3,327 investigations involving at least one suspect with foreign nationality or multiple nationalities — roughly a quarter of all cases.
In total, suspects from 189 different national backgrounds or combinations of nationalities were identified.
Among non-German suspects, Syrian nationals accounted for the largest number of cases, followed by Turkish and Italian nationals.
This newly released report comes amid ongoing debate in Germany over the involvement of foreign actors in organizing or taking part in anti-Israel demonstrations.
Ahmad Mansour, an expert on Islamism, recently warned in a post on X that security officials have begun referring to so-called “travelers” — individuals who allegedly come to Germany specifically to participate in or organize pro-Hamas protests.
However, a Berlin police spokesperson told German newspaper Bild that authorities currently have no reliable evidence indicating the existence of organized waves of individuals traveling from abroad to attend the demonstrations.
Police spokesman Florian Nath also pointed to the role of online networks in mobilizing protesters, describing the pro-Palestinian activist scene in Berlin as highly active across social media platforms.
“No significant foreign influence can be detected in the publicly accessible online sources examined here,” Nath said in a statement.
Like most countries across Europe and the broader Western world, Germany has seen a shocking rise in antisemitic incidents over the last two years, in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
According to recently released figures, the number of antisemitic offenses in the country reached a record high in 2025, totaling 2,267 incidents, including violence, incitement, property damage, and propaganda offenses.
By comparison, officially recorded antisemitic crimes were significantly lower at 1,825 in 2024, 900 in 2023, and fewer than 500 in 2022, prior to the Oct. 7 atrocities.
Berlin specifically has seen a record surge in antisemitism following the outbreak of war in Gaza.