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“Magical Meet Cute” – new novel imbues age-old “golem” theme with romance…and mystery
Review by BERNIE BELLAN I’d never read what would be considered a romance novel before, so when I received an email from a publicist for Harper Collins inviting me to read what was described as a new “rom-com,” I admit I was somewhat hesitant to accept the offer.
But – the premise of the novel, as described in that email was somewhat enticing. Here’s what it said:
“Ettel Resnick is a proud Jewitch woman. After being dumped by her fiancé of seven years, she recreated herself, selling her successful legal practice in Manhattan to open Magic Mud Pottery in Woodstock, New York. But everything changes on the fateful night Ettel returns from yet another singles event at the synagogue—and finds her town papered with antisemitic flyers.
“Desperate for comfort, she turns to the only thing guaranteed to soothe her Jewitch soul. Pottery. Heading to her studio, she gets super drunk, and crafts a golem. Ettel pours her heart into that little clay creature. She gives it everything she’s ever wanted in a partner, etching words onto his body—some sensible, some esoteric—before getting totally naked and burying that golem doll in her backyard.
“But when her ideal man turns up the very next day—and checks every detail inscribed on her clay man’s belly, including loving to play Scrabble and reading her books—she’s left wondering if she’s falling in love with the real deal, or if she’s truly summoned a golem.
“This laugh out loud romantic comedy explores witchcraft from a Jewish angle, fighting back against the anti-Semitic way Jewish witches have been portrayed throughout history. It also features a woman dealing with anti-semitism in her town and turning to the ancient Jewish protector—the golem.”
There are several things wrong with what that publicist wrote, however: First, the main character’s name was not Ettel Resnick, it’s Faye Kaplan. (That mistake alone made me wonder where the publicist got her information. Obviously, she hadn’t read the book.)
But second – and perhaps this is more important, to describe “Magical Meet Cute” as a rom-com is a disservice to a book that is far more than a rom-com.
Yes, it contains some of the elements of a romance novel and it does have some good laughs, but as the book develops it takes on a far more serious tone – and turns into a rollicking good mystery.
After reading something about the author, Jean Meltzer, I discovered that she had just about completed writing the book, but then October 7 happened and it cast a giant shadow over what she had mostly written. As a result, she now says that there is a much more serious overtone to her book than what she had anticipated in writing it.
A good part of “Magical Meet Cute” has to do with antisemitism and how completely shocked so many Jews are when it comes to having to deal with overt displays of antisemitism. In the book, Faye fights back, but others in the Jewish community are less willing to confront the threat posed by a group known as “the Paperboys.”
As the press release noted, the action in the book takes place in the very real town of Woodstock, New York (although I have no idea whether the Woodstock described here bears much resemblance to the real town.)
As for the reference to “witchcraft,” I admit that threw me off somewhat. I have encountered the notion of Jewish witches previously, especially in Alice Hoffman’s brilliant “The Dovekeepers,” but as I read “Magical Meet Cute,” I became much more aware of the notion of “Jewitches” which, in this book, is treated in a positive manner.
But, add to that the introduction of the theme of the “golem” in this novel, and you get something quite a bit more complex than what many readers might expect to find in a typical “rom-com.”
Yes, Faye Kaplan does drunkenly fashion a golem out of clay early on in the novel – and then the very next day a character appears who certainly does seem to tick off all the right boxes as a real golem. But, that’s where this book takes a very interesting turn, as the author explores the notion of the golem in Jewish history.
The theme of antisemitism and how ordinary Jews – just leading their everyday lives, are taken so completely by surprise when they encounter direct – and often vicious antisemitism, is especially hard hitting in “Magical Meet Cute.” And, because the notion of the golem as a magical defender of Jews has been around for centuries (as the author explains), it serves as a very convenient – and enticing device around which to develop a modern-day novel, especially in a time of rampant antisemitism.
That’s also where the book veers from romance to thriller – and Jean Meltzer does a fabulous job of injecting tremendous suspense – and trepidation, into the latter part of what is actually quite a long novel (over 480 pages).
In fact, I could have done with less of the romance and more of the thriller. When Faye Kaplan does meet – and fall in love with the character, who we come to know as “Greg” – who may or not be a real golem, I suppose it would have ruined the story for the two of them to go to bed right off the hop. But Meltzer describes Faye as quite beautiful, while Greg is what I would think would be almost any woman’s fantasy of a perfect male.
Not only is he gorgeous, he’s absolutely devoted to Faye. I won’t let you know whether they consummate their relationship, but there is an entire subplot revolving around Faye’s abandonment issues which prevents her from trusting Greg that is really quite sad, although totally credible.
As I made my way through “Magical Meet Cute,” I kept asking myself: Would someone who isn’t Jewish enjoy this book quite as much as someone who is? After all, there are so many references that, if you weren’t Jewish, you’d be wondering just what the heck they mean?
One that comes to mind off the top though – and it’s one I’ve never encountered previously, is Faye’s repeated use of the expression “Haman’s hat,” which she says whenever she’s quite surprised by something. I did a bit of reading on the subject but I simply couldn’t find an explanation why someone would say “Haman’s hat” as say, a substitute for something like “holy s_it.” (Maybe someone will enlighten me.)
Something else that intrigued me was Faye’s predilection for “hard kosher salami.” I realized early on it was her go-to comfort food, but aside from how unhealthy it is to eat, I couldn’t help but think of its phallic overtones. (By the way, Meltzer does enjoy using the term “shvantz” as a term of endearment in describing a certain part of Greg’s anatomy. I would have thought she might have resorted to the more commonly used “schmeckle.”)
When Meltzer introduces the group terrifying the Jews of Woodstock as “the Paperboys,” it’s obviously a not-too-thinly veiled reference to one of Donald Trump’s favourite white supremacist groups, “the Proudboys.” (I apologize if I’ve offended any Trump lovers. After all, there were “many good people on both sides,” as Trump suggested, during the white supremacist march through Charlottesville in 2017, weren’t there?)
“Magical Meet Cute” does have so much more to offer than simply a romance, but if I do have one qualm about the book it is that it so very long. It could have been cut down to no more than 300 pages but, having said that, I applaud the author for combining two quite different genres into quite the good read.
By the way, the book is slated for release August 27, but it’s available online right now from Amazon.
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California Judge Blocks Challenge to State K-12 Antisemitism Law
Illustrative: Anti-Israel protesters in Los Angeles, California, US, Oct. 2, 2025. Photo: Daniel Cole via Reuters Connect.
A US federal judge in California has struck down a challenge to the state’s new K-12 antisemitism law, a measure which established a new Office for Civil Rights and other protections for Jewish students.
The law, also known as Assembly Bill 715 (AB 715), is California’s response to an epidemic of antisemitism in K-12 schools, which, as The Algemeiner has previously reported, has produced a slew of complaints alleging civil rights violations. It calls for creating an Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator, setting parameters within which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be equitably discussed, and potentially barring antisemitic materials from reaching the classroom.
Since its signing by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October, the law has been challenged by individuals and groups who argue that it violates the First Amendment. One such party is middle school teacher Andrea Prichett, who sued the state government in November to halt the law’s implementation. She was joined by the “LA Educators for Justice in Palestine” group, which has advocated adding “ethnic studies” programs to K-12 school widely criticized for not only teaching a biased, anti-Israel history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but also allegedly promoting other concepts that foster racial division and grievance.
In the suit, Prichett argued that the K-12 antisemitism law was “hastily written” and “singled out for punishment” anti-Zionist viewpoints. She also criticized the law because it “empowers anyone to file a complaint claiming classroom content and instructional materials criticize Israel and Zionism,” preventing teachers “from freely discussing these critical issues.”
Writing in Wednesday’s decision, Judge Noël Wise, appointed by former US President Joe Biden in 2024, said the plaintiffs’ argument is specious.
“With the enactment of AB 715, this yet to be appointed Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator will eventually be involved in how local schools ‘handle’ antisemitism. While this may include the administration of antisemitic discrimination complaints, it does not follow that the complaints will be judged more harshly than current complaints,” she wrote. “Plaintiffs have not shown that the mere existence of AB 715, even with its forceful precatory language about antisemitism, means public school administrators will be more likely than they are now to find that antisemitism complaints are meritorious.”
Furthermore, Wise noted that even if what Prichett and LA Educators for Justice in Palestine is true, it fails legally for asserting public teachers’ right to unfettered free speech, which does not exist for government employees while they are at work. Teachers may comment on matters of public interest, she explained, citing past jurisprudence by the US Supreme Court, but it cannot interfere with government’s advancing its “legitimate interests.” When they speak in the classroom or on a public school campus, Wise stressed, they do so not as private citizens but as state officials speaking “with the voice of the government” — a fact which allows government to steer or proscribe what is said on its behalf.
She continued, “As public school education belongs to the government, the government may regulate Teacher Plaintiffs [sic] speech to accord with the government’s education goals. It is of no significance that the curricula and the attendant speech required to teach it may advance a single viewpoint to the exclusion of another.”
Jewish civil rights groups on Wednesday commended the decision for drawing on established legal precedent and affirming California’s right to fight discrimination.
“The court correctly acknowledged that public school teachers do not have free speech rights in the classroom, because when they deliver lessons to students they are speaking on behalf of the government,” said Carly Gammill, director of legal policy and litigation at StandWithUs Saidoff Law. “While teachers can speak freely in their private lives, they cannot use K-12 public education as a platform for bigotry against Jews or other groups. School districts and state officials have both a right and a responsibility to protect students from instruction that crosses the line into antisemitism.”
The American Jewish Committee also issued a statement, with its chief executive officer Ted Deutch saying, “Public schools need to be welcoming to all, including Jews, and must not be used as platforms for teachers to express individual political views. Bias and discrimination that can lead to outright antisemitism has no place in California — or any — classrooms.”
Antisemitic incidents in California schools include vandalism and assault. The list of outrages includes a student group chanting “Kill the Jews” during an anti-Israel protest and partisan activists smuggling far-left, anti-Zionist content into classrooms without clearing the content with parents and other stakeholders.
Elsewhere in California, K-12 antisemitism has caused severe psychological trauma to Jewish students as young as eight years old and fostered a hostile learning environment.
In Berkeley United School District (BUSD), teachers have allegedly used their classrooms to promote antisemitic stereotypes about Israel, weaponizing disciplines such as art and history to convince unsuspecting minors that Israel is a “settler-colonial” apartheid state committing a genocide of Palestinians. While this took place, high level BUSD officials were accused of ignoring complaints about discrimination and tacitly approving hateful conduct even as it spread throughout the student body.
At Berkeley High School (BUSD), for example, a history teacher forced students to explain why Israel is an apartheid state and screened an anti-Zionist documentary, according to a lawsuit filed last year by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The teacher allegedly squelched dissent, telling a Jewish student who raised concerns about the content of her lessons that only anti-Zionist narratives matter in her classroom and that any other which argues that Israel isn’t an apartheid state is “laughable.” Elsewhere in the school, an art teacher, whose name is redacted from the complaint for matters of privacy, displayed anti-Israel artworks in his classroom, one of which showed a fist punching through a Star of David.
California is not alone in dealing with the issue. Pennsylvania has a significant K-12 antisemitism problem as well, a fact acknowledged recently by a surrogate of the administration of Gov. Josh Shapiro following the US Congress announcing an investigation into antisemitism in the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) and a disturbing anti-Israel statement at a high school in the Wissahickon School District.
“Governor Shapiro takes a back seat to no one on these issues, and as he has repeatedly spoken out about antisemitism, and this kind of hateful rhetoric is unacceptable and has no place in Pennsylvania — especially not in our classrooms,” Rosie Lapowsky, a spokesperson for Shapiro, said in a statement first shared with Fox News Digital in Dec. “This is a matter the governor has made clear the district needs to take very seriously.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Florida Sees Three Antisemitic Incidents in One Week as State Pushes Back
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis participates in a Fox News Channel’s Democracy 2024: Fox News Town Hall ahead of the caucus vote in Des Moines, Iowa, US, Jan. 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Scott Morgan
Communities in Florida’s Jupiter and West Palm Beach saw three acts of antisemitic intimidation last week, part of a trend of hate targeting local Jews this year as the state government moves to respond forcefully.
At the Jupiter Civic Center Beach, a vandal used bright orange spray-paint to write “Kill Jews” on two beach crossovers, according to a report from WPTV, West Palm Beach’s NBC affiliate, which confirmed two instances of the genocidal slogan vandalized in the town, both on government property. Each case of vandalism has been covered up, though not fully removed, according to video footage.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office also said that its Targeted Violence Unit was investigating a “suspicious call” at a Kosher restaurant in West Palm Beach.
“You don’t know who that individual is who’s going to take it upon themselves to act and move beyond words,” Josephine Gon, executive director of the Palm Beach Center to Combat Antisemitism and Hatred with the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County, warned WPTV in an interview. “That’s what is so serious right now. It’s a very fertile environment for bad actors.”
Florida has seen multiple efforts in recent weeks and months to counter those who target Jewish citizens.
On Dec. 8, Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order designating the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Brotherhood as “foreign terrorist organizations.”
“Florida agencies are hereby directed to undertake all lawful measures to prevent unlawful activities by these organizations, including denying privileges or resources to anyone providing material support,” DeSantis said of the designations on social media.
CAIR-National and CAIR-Florida responded in a joint statement.
“From the moment Ron DeSantis took office as Florida governor, he has prioritized serving the Israeli government over serving the people of Florida,” the statement read. “He hosted his very first official cabinet meeting in Israel. He diverted millions in Florida taxpayer dollars to the Israeli government’s bonds. He threatened to shut down every Florida college’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, only to back off when CAIR sued him in federal court.”
CAIR compared DeSantis to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (whose state also designated the group as a terrorist organization this year), describing him as “an Israel First politician who wants to smear and silence Americans, especially American Muslims, critical of US support for Israel’s war crimes.”
On Dec. 15, CAIR announced the filing of a lawsuit against DeSantis in response to the terrorism designation.
The legal system in Florida has prosecuted several individuals accused of antisemitic acts this year.
In October, Florida state Attorney General James Uthmeier announced the arrest and prosecution of Nicholas Ray of Spring, Texas who allegedly had made death threats under a ”zionistarescum” X account against Jews he believed responsible for the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk the prior month.
In August, John Kevin Lapinski, Jr., 41, received a 25-year federal prison sentence from US District Judge Rodney Smith in Miami due to his terrorist plans to attack Jewish Americans and Black Americans in Florida. US Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones said at the time that “this defendant stockpiled weapons, tactical gear, and detailed attack plans to terrorize Jewish and Black Americans in our communities. His intent was not abstract — it was written on his maps, his targets, and his so-called hit list.”
Also in August, police charged a Florida State University (FSU) graduate student for an alleged assault of a Jewish peer captured on video.
In April, the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism announced it had found that Phoenix Ikner, 21, the alleged attacker behind a shooting at Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee which caused two deaths and six injuries, had expressed an interest in Nazism, using Third Reich terminology to name himself in online games.
“What we’re seeing — if in fact this individual has extremist views, and it seems at the very least he was exposed to extremism — is the continued crossover between extremism and the glorification of violence that eventually leads to violence,” said Carla Hill, a senior director of investigative research at the ADL’s Center on Extremism
A hearing for Ikner occurred on Nov. 13 in Tallahassee. His trial has been pushed back to March 30 due to a change of counsel.
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London Denies Star of David Removed From Israeli Flag During New Year’s Eve Special After Facing Backlash
Flags displayed on the London Eye during the British capital’s New Year’s Eve celebration on Dec. 31, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
A spokesperson for London Mayor Sadiq Khan denied speculation that the British capital deliberately removed the Star of David from the Israeli flag that was displayed during the city’s New Year’s Eve fireworks spectacle on Wednesday night.
Flags from around the world were projected onto the London Eye Ferris wheel to form the European Union flag, in an effort to celebrate the diversity of people in London and “send a message of unity for 2026,” according to the mayor’s office. It was displayed as part of the city’s celebration to welcome the new year, but some viewers noticed that Israel’s flag appeared simply as a white rectangle with two blue stripes. The iconic Star of David that is typically in the center of the flag was not clearly visible, which prompted some social media users to claim the symbol of Jewish identity was “removed” or “erased.”
However, City Hall quickly released a statement insisting that the animated flags were very small and moved too quickly to appear clearly to all viewers. The visibility issues affected other blue and white national flags as well that were included in the sequence, including those of Guatemala, Argentina, and Honduras.
“A range of flags were displayed on the London Eye to represent the wide variety of countries of origin of people who live in and contribute to the success of London,” said a City Hall spokesperson, as cited by The Standard. “These animated flags were small and moving so were not all entirely clear at every point as they gradually formed into the Union Flag.”
The group London Jewish Forum (LJF) shared a video on social media that showed the Star of David very faintly on the Israeli flag in the New Year’s Eve display. In a released statement, LJF agreed with City Hall that the issue with the Star of David was because “elements were not always clearly visible at every moment due to the scale and motion of the animation.”
“There is no evidence that this was antisemitic or that the Israeli flag was singled out,” the group added. “The footage and the organizers’ explanation are consistent on this point. We also understand why people are watching these details closely right now. When antisemitism is rising, symbolism carries weight and scrutiny is natural. In this case, though, what we are seeing does not suggest intent or targeting.”
Other images projected as part of London’s celebration for 2026 on Wednesday night honored England’’ women’s rugby team the Red Roses for winning the Rugby World Cup, the Lionesses soccer team being victorious in the Euros, and Europe’s triumph over the US in the Ryder Cup. It also featured visuals and songs from “Wicked: For Good,” as well as a message from the film’s Grammy, Emmy, and Tony-winning actress, London native Cynthia Erivo.
Roughly 100,000 people lined the banks of the River Thames on Wednesday night to watch what was considered the largest annual firework display in Europe, according to the mayor’s office. The event featured more than 12,000 fireworks and over 400 lights.