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His bar mitzvah was ‘tragic.’ 18 years later, he turned it into a drag show.
(New York Jewish Week) – When Michael Witkes arrived at his bar mitzvah party, he knew he couldn’t enter to a musical theater song, his preferred genre, because he was already being bullied for being too effeminate and flamboyant. So, he simply told the DJ to just pick any song that matched the vibe of a bar mitzvah entrance.
The DJ picked “I’m Coming Out” by Diana Ross.
“This day that is supposed to be completely celebratory became this kind of tragic, camp event, where I had to wrestle with getting bullied because of this,” Witkes said. “I just trying to become a man, a Jewish adult, and then I was suddenly getting outted at my bar mitzvah.”
Eighteen years later, Witkes, 31, is a professional drag queen in New York City, performing as “Pink Pancake.” This week, he will revisit that troubling coming-of-age moment in his first ever one-woman drag show, “Today You Are a Man” at the Tank NYC.
“I take that moment of tragedy and I flip it on its head and I turn it into this play about self discovery and coming into your authenticity as a queer person and as a Jew,” Witkes told the New York Jewish Week.
Witkes first began developing the show, which runs for 80 minutes, two years ago as a four-minute lip sync for a “Hanukkah in July” drag performance. Since then, he’s partnered with director and queer Jewish art and events curator Stuart Meyers to flesh out a full-length performance.
“The show gives an earnest portrayal of the horror of that experience, how awful it was, and is, to be bullied for being gay and femme, yet also lifts and celebrates the story of who Michael has become through drag,” Meyers told the New York Jewish Week. “So what’s really interesting is that the piece is about his bar mitzvah of the past, but in a big way, it’s also a bar mitzvah in and of itself, because it’s a celebration of his own very Jewish process of coming into this next chapter as Pink Pancake.”
Ahead of the show, the New York Jewish Week caught up with Witkes about what it was like to make the show and revisit his bar mitzvah experience.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
What would you tell your 13-year-old self about how far you’ve come?
It’s funny because I think if I told my 13-year-old self, “Hey, you’re now a drag queen in New York, and you’re making a living pursuing this queer art form,” I think that my 13-year-old self would be horrified. This might be my biggest fear at the time, realized.
Michael Witkes at his bar mitzvah service and party, where the DJ traumatized him by playing “I’m Coming Out” for his entrance song. (Courtesy Michael Witkes)
First, I would give my 13-year-old self a giant hug. I think I would say, “You are wonderful as you are and just let your inner star shine. At the time, I did everything I could to make myself smaller and to try to hide the fact that I was gay, even though I was just naturally more feminine and flamboyant growing up. I did everything I could to hide that, with my clothes, with the way I walked around. Everything was a performance. I would just say, “Hey, baby, breath, let it all out. It’s gonna be okay. Own who you are.”
What does it mean to you to have your first full-length one-woman show center on a Jewish narrative?
I grew up in a pretty Jewish suburb of Philadelphia, on the Main Line. I feel like growing up, I kind of took my Judaism for granted. In seventh grade, there was a bar or bat mitzvah every single weekend. Judaism was so prevalent that it wasn’t a huge part of my identity.
But now we’re in a time where there is this rise in antisemitism and you can feel it. In my other gigs, I have made some self-deprecating jokes in the mic about being Jewish — as Jews do with Jewish humor. Before it was just a part of my act, but now I have this inner voice in the back of my head saying “Is it safe to say this? Is it safe to make these jokes? Is it safe to be openly Jewish?” Since coming out and embracing myself fully, I’ve been really proud to be queer. Now I feel like the show is helping me be more proudly Jewish. It’s been wonderful working with Stuart Meyers, who has done a lot of queer Jewish work and queer Jewish art, because he’s kind of pushed me to embrace my Judaism even more and pull things out in the show in relation to my Jewish identity even more, so it’s been really exciting. We have to continue to be visible and proud and continue to advocate for ourselves and everyone that is marginalized in the global majority.
Do you feel like making this show has helped you process the trauma from your bar mitzvah party and given you a second chance at celebrating?
That is the structure of the show in a way, where I have the chance to do it all over again. It’s a queering of this Jewish rite of passage. The whole show, in a way, is like a redo of my own bar mitzvah, but now I’m in drag as a woman — but I’m not a woman, and I’m also very gender-queer. It’s a beautiful way to explore what it means to be a man and to explore your gender identity and sexuality.
This has definitely helped me process my bar mitzvah and re-own this moment that was kind of tragic. In general, my bar mitzvah was a wonderful event — this moment just clouded it. I think that wounds can continue to heal and come back and they can surprise you like, “Oh, I thought I got over that.” So revisiting this moment has definitely brought some things up to the surface that I’m able to now heal from.
I rewatched the video of my service many, many times while putting the show together. I had a wonderful support system in my parents, but I don’t think I fully realized that at the time because I felt so alone and othered in school. So it’s really healing to be able to look back and listen to the speeches that my parents made at my bar mitzvah. Watching myself in the video, I look awkward and I don’t like that my parents are saying nice things about me and I’m probably not fully paying attention and kind of dissociating because it’s uncomfortable. But to look back now — my parents are so sweet. My dad said that he appreciated how sensitive I was and how gentle I was. These are things that I was bullied for, because they’re not “masculine.” But at my bar mitzvah, he was saying you’re a man because of all of these things. That’s just so beautiful.
I’m excited to bring it to an audience. I’m sure that healing will happen even more when it’s in front of a live audience and I’m hoping that the same thing will happen for them as well. I hope bringing the specificity of this event to my show will allow people to bring the specificity of their own moments growing up Jewish or growing up queer and find healing and celebration.
What else can people expect at the show?
There are going to be too many costumes in a short amount of time. I’m really excited for all of these wacky costumes I’m bringing. It’s going to be heartfelt, it’s going to be drag. It’s a full production and I’m so excited to finally bring this to life after sitting on it for all this time. It combines drag lip sync with multimedia — video projections of my bar mitzvah and lots of other very fun, funny things. Of course, I have two backup dancers — it’s a one-woman show, but it’s a one-woman drag show, so that means that you need to have two backup dancers. It’s a fully realized show with a plot and a beginning, middle and end.
“Today You Are a Man,” is playing at The Tank NYC (312 W. 36th St.) Jan 18-20 at 9:30 p.m. and Jan. 21 at 7 p.m. Tickets start at $15.
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The post His bar mitzvah was ‘tragic.’ 18 years later, he turned it into a drag show. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Maccabi Tel Aviv Plays Soccer Game in Empty Hungarian Stadium Amid Security Concerns After Amsterdam Violence
Soccer Football – Europa League – Besiktas v Maccabi Tel Aviv – Nagyerdei Stadion, Debrecen, Hungary – November 28, 2024 General view before the match as the teams and match officials line up. Photo: Reuters/Bernadett Szabo
The Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv played a UEFA Europa League match on Thursday against their Turkish rivals Besiktas in an empty stadium in Hungary, which was closed to supporters likely due to security concerns following the recent attack on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam.
Maccabi won the match 3-1 in the Nagyerdei Stadium in Debrecen, Hungary, during the fifth week of the UEFA Europa League. Gavriel Kanichowsky secured Israel’s lead in the 23rd minute with a goal, but Besiktas struck back in the 38th minute with a goal by Rafa Silva to tie the score. Maccabi Tel Aviv took the lead again right before halftime by scoring another goal in added time. The Israeli club finished 3-1 with Weslley Patati’s goal in the 81st minute.
Groups of police patrolled outside the venue and the game concluded with no incident, according to the Associated Press.
On Nov. 11, days after the attack against Maccabi Tel Aviv fans in Amsterdam, the European soccer body UEFA announced that this week’s match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Besiktas, which was originally scheduled to take place in Istanbul, would be moved to Hungary “following a decision by the Turkish authorities not to stage it in Turkey.” Hungary, which has hosted several home games for Israel’s national soccer team since the start of the Israel-Hamas war last year, agreed to host the match and UEFA said it “will be played behind closed doors following a decision of the local Hungarian authorities.”
Maccabi Tel Aviv coach Zarko Lazetic said after Thursday’s match that playing in front of an empty stadium was hard for the team. “We play football because of the fans, to give them some pleasure, some excite(ment) and to be together,” he explained, as reported by the AP.
The match on Thursday was Maccabi Tel Aviv’s first game in Europe since its fans were violently attacked in The Netherlands during the late hours of Nov. 7 and into the early hours of the following morning. After the team competed against the Dutch club Ajax in a UEFA Europa League game in Amsterdam, anti-Israel gangs chased Israeli fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv through the streets of Amsterdam, ran them over with cars, physically assaulted them, and taunted Israeli soccer fans with anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian slogans such as “Free Palestine.” Five people were reportedly hospitalized for injuries.
Leaders in Israel and Europe condemned the premeditated and coordinated attack as antisemitic. Amsterdam’s mayor called the attackers “antisemitic hit-and-run squads” and said the assailants were going “Jew hunting.” Police in Amsterdam said they have already identified, investigated, and even arrested 45 suspects in connection to the incident.
The post Maccabi Tel Aviv Plays Soccer Game in Empty Hungarian Stadium Amid Security Concerns After Amsterdam Violence first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Preacher Slammed for ‘Appalling’ Remarks at Irish Memorial, Accusing Israel of Viewing Itself as a ‘Master Race’
A man walks past graffiti reading ‘Victory to Palestine’ after Ireland has announced it will recognize a Palestinian state, in Dublin, Ireland, May 22, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Hannah McKay
An Irish cleric has come under fire for delivering an antisemitic memorial sermon in which he suggested that Israelis and Jews see themselves as a “master race” that justifies “eliminating” other groups “because they don’t count.”
Reverend Canon David Oxley delivered the sermon last week at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin during a Remembrance Sunday service attended by Irish President Michael Higgins and other high-ranking dignitaries.
Ironically, Oxley had previously revealed familial ties to the Nazis in a sermon delivered at the same event five years ago.
In last week’s remarks, Oxley contended that Israel’s war against the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza represented “the horrible blasphemy of the master race in action.”
“This takes different forms in different times and places, but it is the same horrible idea, that one group of people is intrinsically more valuable than any other. Once that is accepted, then the elimination of others follows as a matter of course — because they don’t count,” he said.
Oxley’s comments sparked strong condemnation from both Israeli officials and Jewish leaders in Ireland.
Israel’s embassy in Ireland said Oxley had “hijacked” the memorial service in favor of an “outrageous and dangerous … libel on the State of Israel.”
The statement published on X also said the diatribe was “divorced from reality” and “willfully ignored the complexities of the Middle East.”
Ireland’s Chief Rabbi Yoni Wieder condemned the Anglican establishment for allowing such remarks, saying it was “an abrogation of moral and religious leadership that such a speech could be delivered by a representative of the Church of Ireland.”
“This type of inflammatory, hateful rhetoric has been used by politicians here countless times over the past year, and we’ve seen it constantly across mainstream Irish media. Now it’s gone beyond politics and journalism and is coming from a senior religious figure, a minister in a Christian Church,” Wieder told The Algemeiner.
“The anti-Israel narrative in Ireland now regularly spills over into overt antisemitism,” he added.
In an open letter addressed to Oxley, Wieder condemned the preacher’s “appalling” accusations.
“You fail to grasp the depth of offense invoked by suggesting that Jewish people have adopted the same murderous outlook that was perpetuated against them by the Nazis,” Wieder wrote.
He also slammed the Anglican cleric’s failure to make any mention of the threats posed by the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups, which “are explicitly committed to destroying Israel and murdering Jews.”
“You claim Israel has a policy of targeting schools, hospitals, and mosques, yet you fail to mention that Hamas purposefully positions itself within and beneath such civilian infrastructure — and they do so precisely because they know it will deter attacks against them. Hamas have openly stated that it is their strategy to place civilians in harm’s way,” the chief rabbi continued.
Wieder called the destruction in Gaza as well as the loss of life “an unbearable humanitarian catastrophe.”
“You and I are united by a desire to see an end to this heartbreaking tragedy. But the situation is also fraught with complexities, which cannot be ignored. Would it not be more honest to acknowledge this, rather than to proffer an simplistic and partisan perspective?” he wrote.
During a 2019 address at the same event, Oxley reportedly disclosed his wife’s ties to the Nazis, according to a report published this week by the British Jewish Chronicle, which cited an article published at the time in the Irish Independent.
In that sermon, also delivered in the presence of the Irish president, Oxley shared that his wife, Amalia, was German and that her family included members who fought for the Third Reich.
“It’s not everyone who can boast that their mother-in-law had Adolf Hitler as a godfather. It’s not everyone who would want to,” he quipped, before going on to praise the Irish citizens who opposed Nazism.
Oxley told the Jewish Chronicle that his comments, which did not represent the Church of Ireland, contained “no hatred” and he stood by them.
“In delivering my sermon, I speak only for myself. I do not speak on behalf of the Church of Ireland, or of St Patrick’s Cathedral. As our church does not believe in infallibility, it is quite conceivable that I am mistaken. No one is obliged to agree with me. However, I am prepared to stand over my remarks,” he said.
“There was no hatred in my sermon, except a hatred of all theories that make one group of people more valuable than another, so that some become expendable,” Oxley added.
A 2021 report by antisemitism researcher David Collier found that traditional Christian attitudes play a significant role in shaping antisemitism in Ireland, with Christian NGOs often playing a role in perpetuating and spreading these sentiments.
“[M]uch of the antisemitism in Ireland appears to be driven from the top down. Regrettably, this certainly seems to be the state of affairs at the moment. Words carry weight, and political and religious leaders in particular ought to remember this,” Wieder said.
He also condemned the Church of Ireland for not distancing itself from Oxley’s comments.
A spokesperson from St Patrick’s Cathedral told the Jewish Chronicle: “In St Patrick’s Cathedral we continue to pray daily for peace in all the countries of the Middle East. We pray fervently for an end to all wars and the human suffering that they bring. Everybody, of all faiths, is welcomed in St Patrick’s Cathedral.”
In Europe, Ireland has been among the fiercest critics of Israel since Oct. 7 of last year, when Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists invaded the Jewish state from neighboring Gaza. The terrorists murdered 1,200 people, wounded thousands more, and abducted over 250 hostages in their rampage, the deadliest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign in Hamas-ruled Gaza aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling the terrorist group’s military and governing capabilities.
Earlier this month, the Irish parliament passed a non-binding motion saying that “genocide is being perpetrated before our eyes by Israel in Gaza.” As the measure passed, Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said that the government intended to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) before the end of the year.
Around the same time, Ireland accepted the appointment of a full Palestinian ambassador for the first time, confirming that Jilan Wahba Abdalmajid would step up from her current position as Palestinian head of mission to Ireland.
In May, Ireland officially recognized a Palestinian state, prompting outrage in Israel, which described the move as a “reward for terrorism.” According to The Irish Times, Ireland is due to have its presence in Ramallah in the West Bank upgraded from a representative office to a full embassy.
Israel’s Ambassador in Dublin Dana Erlich said at the time of Ireland’s recognition of “Palestine” that Ireland was “not an honest broker” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
More recently, Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris last month called on the European Union to “review its trade relations” with Israel after the Israeli parliament passed legislation banning the activities in the country of UNRWA, the United Nations agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, because of its ties to Hamas.
Recent anti-Israel actions in Ireland came shortly after the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (Impact-se), an Israeli education watchdog group, released a new report revealing Irish school textbooks have been filled with negative stereotypes and distortions of Israel, Judaism, and Jewish history.
Antisemitism in Ireland has become “blatant and obvious” in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught, according to Alan Shatter, a former member of parliament who served in the Irish cabinet between 2011 and 2014 as Minister for Justice, Equality and Defense.
Shatter told The Algemeiner in an interview earlier this year that Ireland has “evolved into the most hostile state towards Israel in the entire EU.”
Just last month, an Irish official, Dublin City Councilor Punam Rane, claimed during a council meeting that Jews and Israel control the US economy, arguing that is why Washington, DC does not oppose Israel’s war against Hamas.
The post Preacher Slammed for ‘Appalling’ Remarks at Irish Memorial, Accusing Israel of Viewing Itself as a ‘Master Race’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Candace Owens Barred From New Zealand After Facing Similar Ban From Australia for Comments on Jews, Holocaust
Right-wing political commentator Candace Owens speaks during an event held by national conservative political movement ‘Turning Point’, in Detroit, Michigan, US, June, 14, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Rebecca Cook
Right-wing American political commentator and YouTube content creator Candace Owens has been denied a visa to enter New Zealand because she was banned from the nearby country Australia, immigration officials reportedly said on Thursday.
Owens was scheduled to embark on her first speaking tour across Australia and New Zealand in February and March of next year. The tour includes a stop in Auckland, New Zealand, on Feb. 28 and tickets remain on sale online.
Australia rejected her request for a visa last month. Australian Immigration Minister Tony Burke said the decision was made because of Owens’s past remarks, including her apparent denial that Nazis forcibly did medical experiments on Jews in concentration camps during World War II.
“From downplaying the impact of the Holocaust with comments about [Nazi doctor and war criminal Josef] Mengele through to claims that Muslims started slavery, Candace Owens has the capacity to incite discord in almost every direction,” Burke said at the time. “Australia’s national interest is best served when Candace Owens is somewhere else.
Jock Gilray, a spokesperson for New Zealand’s immigration agency, said on Thursday that Owens was refused an entertainer’s work permit for New Zealand because visas legally cannot be granted to someone who have been banned from another country, The Associated Press reported on Thursday. New Zealand officials did not refer to Owens’s past comments when announcing the denial of her visa.
Owens and the Australia-based promoter behind her speaking tour, Rocksman, have yet to comment on news regarding the ban from New Zealand but said in October that they will file a legal appeal to a federal judge in response to the ban from Australia. Owens commented on Burke’s decision to deny her a visa for Australia and blamed it partially on the alleged influence of the global “Zionist media empire.”
Owens, who has over 3 million subscribers on YouTube and hosts the podcast titled “Candace,” has promoted conspiracy theories and made numerous antisemitic comments about Israel, Jews, Zionists, and the Holocaust. She has also made controversial comments against Black Lives Matter, feminism, vaccines, and immigration.
The post Candace Owens Barred From New Zealand After Facing Similar Ban From Australia for Comments on Jews, Holocaust first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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