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Jonathan Safran Foer’s online flirtation with Natalie Portman inspires a new play
(New York Jewish Week) — When Jewish literary power couple Jonathan Safran Foer and Nicole Krauss divorced in 2014 — amid rumors that he was in love with his longtime friend Natalie Portman — it captivated the nation.
Well, maybe not the nation, but certainly the literary and media worlds, as well as the hipster set in brownstone Brooklyn. Safran Foer and Krauss were rare literary megastars, whose “extremely loud and incredibly expensive” Park Slope brownstone was the subject of numerous articles (and a hefty dose of envy) when it hit the market for $14.5 million in 2013.
Portman, of course, was an actual megastar, and when the confessional correspondence between the celebrated actress and the “Everything Is Illuminated” writer was later published in 2016 in the New York Times, it elicited a fresh round of jealousy, speculation and eye-rolls from the masses, as well as numerous journalistic “takes” on the topic.
I was a teenager at the time, and had only a vague idea of why any of this mattered. But apparently it stayed with me for nearly a decade, because when I saw “The Wanderers,” a new Off-Broadway play running at the Roundabout Theatre Company, it didn’t take long for me to make the connection between this fictional production and the very real but mysterious drama that occurred between these famous Jewish writers.
“The Wanderers,” directed by Barry Edelstein, follows two couples in two different timelines. In the present day are Abe and Sophie, secular Jews and writers who live in Brooklyn and have been together since they were teenagers. The other storyline, set in the 1970s, centers around Esther and Schmuli, a Hasidic couple living in Satmar Williamsburg. The latter are introduced to the audience on the eve of their wedding, one of the first times they’ve ever been alone together.
Throughout the play, the couples, seemingly from different worlds, try to balance their careers, personal lives, internal desires and family obligations.
Abe (Eddie Kaye Thomas) is a writer who boasts a Pulitzer Prize and several other literary awards. But he struggles with certain aspects of his life — his frayed relationships, mostly — and is hamstrung by an immense ego that is tempered only by a hefty dose of insecurity. As I watched the play, I began to feel like I knew the man, but I couldn’t quite place him. Was he just a stand-in for every genuinely talented, semi-pretentious, self-important male writer living in Brooklyn?
Abe eventually finds an outlet for his woes by striking up an email correspondence with fictional Hollywood actress Julia Cheever (Katie Holmes, the real Hollywood actress), whom he met when she came to a reading of one of his novels. Eventually, he declares his love for her — a pronouncement that essentially goes ignored by the actress. (In the play, Holmes sports a chic brunette bob not unlike a Jewish actress near and dear to our hearts.)
It became pretty clear who served as the inspiration for this play — and when I asked playwright Anna Ziegler about it, she said I was one of the few she had spoken with who had made the connection.
“In the summer of 2016, when I was writing, Natalie Portman and Jonathan Safran Foer were writing to each other in a correspondence they published in the New York Times,” she said. “She was promoting a new movie of hers, and I guess they had a previous relationship — that sparked the idea for one of the storylines in the play.”
What’s funny, Ziegler said, was that most audience members haven’t made the connection. “We haven’t really been talking about [Safran Foer and Portman] as one of the inspirations, and not many people have raised it,” she said. “I assumed that that resonance would be there for a certain percentage of the audience but, to be honest, I don’t think it’s there for the vast majority of people.”
At one point in the play, after learning his father died, Abe even says the line “Hineni, here I am,” to ground himself and calm his emotions. It’s a phrase in the Torah that usually translates to “I am ready,” which Abraham says to God before being asked to sacrifice his son, Isaac, as well as a prayer of humility chanted on Rosh Hashanah. But it’s also, possibly, a nod to Safran Foer’s 2016 novel “Here I Am.”
Neither Krauss nor Safran Foer responded to requests for comment on the play. “For people in my generation and younger, the recognition might be there, but it was also so many years ago now,” said Zielger, 44. “So I guess the only people who remember it are the people on whom it made an impact.”
Which is fine — “The Wanderers” stands on its own even if you don’t know the backstory. Plus, the themes of the play stretch far beyond infidelity: It also explores loneliness, free will and inherited family trauma.
Originally, Ziegler set out to write something about arranged marriages, specifically within the Jewish community. “I had always been kind of fascinated and beguiled by the idea of arranged marriage — thinking about what it would be like spending that first night together, that notion always kind of haunted me,” she said.
“I had these two different plays [one about Portman and Safran Foer and the other about arranged marriages], and they seemed thematically related,” she added. “At some point, I concluded that they really were two strands at the same play and so I started weaving them together.”
Ziegler chose to write about the Hasidic Jewish community in particular because she was “somewhat familiar with that culture and community,” she told me.
Still, as a secular Jew, it’s a topic she approached delicately. She hired a cultural consultant and an accent coach for the actors who were both from the community. Ziegler herself, who lives in Brooklyn, spent time in Williamsburg, and read memoirs and watched documentaries.
In the play, the Hasidic wife Esther (Lucy Freyer) struggles to be seen by her community and to feel in control of her life. She doesn’t know where to turn and wonders if she’s fulfilled her potential — as a parent, wife, human and Jew. “One of the great joys of being an actor is being able to learn and dive head first into a community that you ordinarily wouldn’t get to know,” Freyer said.
As the story unfolds, it’s revealed that Esther left the community with her infant son, who grows up to be the renowned Jewish author Abe, who marries his childhood friend Sophie (Sarah Cooper, the comic and actress who broke big with videos mocking Donald Trump). The younger couple is almost entirely secular, yet they grapple with the same search for meaning and belonging, the same doubt as to whether they’ve chosen the right path for themselves — or if it had been chosen for them.
“All five characters, not just Schmuli and Esther, are trying to figure out how can you be happy with what you have, with where you stand in your own skin,” said Dave Klasko, who plays Schmuli.
“We say in the play the Hebrew phrase, ‘Ein ba’al hanes makir b’niso,’ which [Ziegler] poetically translates to ‘We are never aware of the miracles, especially when we are inside them,’” Klasko added. “How can I, in my own life, realize the miracle that I’m living in before I’m on the other side of it?”
For Ziegler, these are very Jewish questions — and the questions of the “Xillennial” generation. “We’re left [with] the complex heritage of feeling chosen, but also self-hating,” said Ziegler, whose previous plays include “Photograph 51,” about Rosalind Franklin, the Jewish X-ray crystallographer who helped Watson and Crick crack the DNA model. “I think this is the most Jewish of my plays, and it’s funny because I’m not that religious, but I have found in my career that there seems to be a hunger for plays about Judaism.”
“At some point in my career, I began to be thought of as a ‘Jewish writer’ — for better or for worse,” she added.
Safran Foer, 46, and Krauss, 48, have also wrestled with the “Jewish writer” term, as well as the play’s big questions of identity, self-doubt and complicated family relationships. In fact, as Ziegler and the actors point out, issues of the play are universal, and have nothing to do with how famous you are, how expensive your home may be, or how strictly you adhere to religious law. The celebrity allusion — plus the chance to see an actual celebrity, Holmes — may be a reason to buy a ticket to see “The Wanderers,” but the timeless message is what will keep you in your seat.
“The Wanderers” is playing at the Roundabout Theatre Company (111 West 46th Street) through April 2. Find tickets and more information here.
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Richmond mayor facing resignation calls over posts calling Sydney massacre ‘false flag’
Bay Area Jewish leaders are calling for the resignation of Richmond Mayor Eduardo Martinez after he re-shared multiple LinkedIn posts that called Sunday’s massacre of Jewish people in Sydney an Israeli “false flag attack.”
Martinez, who was elected by the city just north of Berkeley in 2023, also shared posts claiming that “the root cause of antisemitism is the behavior of Israel and Israelis.”
Martinez has since removed the posts from his account and apologized for sharing them “without thinking” — but he did not disavow the false flag conspiracy theory about the attack. He clarified only that “we know that antisemitism was here before the creation of the state of Israel.”
“As I’ve said many times before, we should not conflate Zionism with Judaism,” Martinez wrote on LinkedIn. “They are two separate beliefs.”
He later added, “I want to assure everyone that these postings are my opinions (or my mistakes) and mine only. They are not statements from my office or the city of Richmond. If I make a mistake, that mistake is mine only. Once again, I apologize for posting in haste without full understanding of the posting.”
He did not discuss the attack, which killed 15 people and injured dozens.
The Jewish Community Relations Council of the Bay Area was outraged by Martinez’s online activity and left cold by his apology. It called for his resignation Thursday in a statement posted to JCRC social media.
“These actions reflect a consistent and deeply troubling disregard for the safety and dignity of Jewish people,” the organization wrote on Instagram. “They erode public trust and send a chilling message to Jewish residents that they are neither protected nor respected by their own mayor.”
The local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, ADL Central Pacific, also condemned the post.
“There’s no excuse for an elected leader to be amplifying warped antisemitic conspiracy theories that seek to blame the victim,” ADL regional director Marc Levine wrote in a statement to J. The Jewish News of Northern California. “The Australian community has already faced enough tragedy over the last few days. We hope Mayor Martinez will reconsider his hurtful words, which have absolutely no place in public discourse.”
The Forward has reached out to Martinez for comment.
Martinez’s LinkedIn posts were the latest in what local leaders say is a slew of antisemitic incidents during the progressive’s tenure. In 2023, just weeks after the Oct. 7 attacks, Martinez
Martinez, a former schoolteacher, posts regularly about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on LinkedIn, sometimes multiple times per day.
In August, speaking at the People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit, Martinez likened the Oct. 7 attack to someone snapping after being bullied on the playground, J. reported, adding that whether he supported Hamas was “complicated.”
The post Richmond mayor facing resignation calls over posts calling Sydney massacre ‘false flag’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Mamdani appointee resigns over past antisemitic online posts about ‘money hungry Jews’
(JTA) — New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s pick for a crucial City Hall position resigned on Thursday, shortly after her history of antisemitic posts on X came to light.
Mamdani had announced his appointment of Catherine Almonte Da Costa as director of appointments, responsible for staffing City Hall, on Wednesday. But on Thursday, several posts on X where she peddled age-old antisemitic stereotypes were published by the Judge Street Journal, a Substack about New York City politics.
“Money hungry Jews smh,” Da Costa posted on a now-deleted account on X in January 2011, when she 19 years old.
In another post from June 2012, she wrote, “Far Rockaway train is the Jew train,” appearing to reference the large Jewish communities off the line.
The Judge Street Journal also highlighted posts that suggested an antipathy to white men by Da Costa, who has worked in diversity, equity and inclusion roles in multiple companies.
As a firestorm grew, Da Costa said she would step down.
“I spoke with the mayor-elect this afternoon, apologized, and expressed my deep regret for my past statements,” she said in a statement shared by the Mamdani transition team. “These statements are not indicative of who I am. As the mother of Jewish children, I feel a profound sense of sadness and remorse at the harm these words have caused. As this has become a distraction from the work at hand, I have offered my resignation.”
Mamdani released a statement of his own. “Catherine expressed her deep remorse over her past statements and tendered her resignation, and I accepted,” he said.
The incident came as Mamdani’s election has roiled the city’s Jewish community, with many expressing fear and discomfort over the mayor-elect’s history of anti-Israel rhetoric and policies. He has emphasized that he aims to make the city safe and welcoming for all of its residents, including Jews, and has condemned antisemitic rhetoric and displays since his election.
Still, his transition period has been dotted with tensions, including While Mamdani has made inroads in the city’s Jewish community since election night last month, the appointment of an official with a visible history of antisemitic rhetoric could pose another hurdle for his incoming term.
The New York and New Jersey branch of the Anti-Defamation League, which launched what it is calling a “Mamdani Monitor” following November’s election, called Da Costa’s posts “indefensible” in a post on X.
“We appreciate Da Costa has relationships with members of the Jewish community,” the group tweeted. “But her posts require immediate explanation — not just from Ms. Da Costa, but also from the Mayor-Elect.”
Several Jewish leaders praised Da Costa’s resignation.
The CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, Halie Soifer, welcomed the news of in a statement Thursday evening.
“Glad to see that Catherine Almonte Da Costa has resigned,” said Soifer in a statement. “The views she expressed are unacceptable and intolerable. Especially at a time of rising antisemitism, she had no place in the mayor’s office of the city with the largest Jewish population in the world.”
Sara Forman, executive director of the New York Solidarity Network, which backed Mamdani’s leading opponent in the election, praised “cutting ties” with Da Costa as” the right thing to do.” But Forman speculated that “had she said ‘Zionist’ instead of ‘Jew’ the response from the incoming Mamdani administration and the outcome we just witnessed would likely have been quite different.”
Da Costa’s husband, Ricky Da Costa, is a deputy in the office of Comptroller Brad Lander, Mamdani’s most prominent Jewish backer during the campaign. He is Jewish and posted on X for the first time in more than a year in a half on Thursday afternoon, in response to the criticism of his wife.
“I don’t come back to this awful place much these days but as the Jew who married Cat, I can guarantee she has grown so much since some dumb tweets when she was 19,” he wrote. “Her remorse, like everything else about her, is deeply genuine & she works so hard for a NYC where everyone is safe.”
The post Mamdani appointee resigns over past antisemitic online posts about ‘money hungry Jews’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Belgium Reverses Decision to Cut Federal Security in Antwerp’s Jewish District Amid Community Outcry
Police officers on patrol in the Belgian city of Antwerp. Photo: Reuters / Nicolas Maeterlink
After facing strong opposition from public officials and the local Jewish community over plans to withdraw federal security in Antwerp’s Jewish district, the Belgian government announced it will maintain current security measures, keeping federal police deployed for the time being.
Belgian Interior Minister Bernard Quintin announced on Thursday that federal officers will remain deployed in the district, reversing an earlier government plan to cut the police presence there by roughly half. The reversal followed Quintin’s meeting with representatives of Antwerp’s Jewish community
Avec des représentants de la communauté juive d’#Anvers.
Leur sécurité est une priorité absolue: les dispositifs actuellement en place sont maintenus.
Je souhaite les renforcer par la présence de #militaires et espère que cette mesure pourra aboutir dans les heures à venir. pic.twitter.com/ODKh8sjMZ6
— Bernard Quintin (@BernardQuintin_) December 18, 2025
This latest decision comes just days after a deadly attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach that left 15 dead and at least 40 injured, amid ongoing concerns about threats to Jewish communities worldwide.
On Monday, the Antwerp branch of the far-right political party Vlaams Belang had called for increased protection for Jewish schools and institutions during a city council meeting, Belgian media reported.
The government had originally rejected calls to bolster security, planning instead to withdraw the federal deployment, a move that sparked outrage from city leaders and renewed concern within the Jewish community amid ongoing threats.
Addressing these concerns, Quintin stressed that protecting Jewish sites is a top priority for the government, but emphasized that the federal police presence in Antwerp is not intended as a permanent solution, with local police responsible for maintaining security on the ground.
Antwerp Mayor Els van Doesburg had condemned the government’s earlier decision as “incomprehensible,” warning that the city cannot risk a security gap, especially in the wake of the Bondi Beach attack on Sunday.
“There must be no vacuum in the safety of Antwerp’s Jewish quarter,” Doesburg told Belgian media. “This is something we have to do together. It goes beyond the Antwerp police.”
Since the deadly attack at Brussels’ Jewish Museum in 2014, security measures have been strengthened, with Belgian intelligence consistently warning of elevated threats to Jewish sites.
In response, Antwerp has long maintained a mixed model in which local and federal police share responsibility for their protection.
The federal government has now proposed an alternative plan to deploy military personnel at Jewish community sites in Antwerp to support local police and increase capacity, though a government-wide consensus has yet to be reached.
Jewish community leaders had previously sharply criticized proposals to reduce security, dismissing Quintin’s explanation and denouncing it as a “political decision.”
Ralph Pais, deputy chair of the Jewish Information and Documentation Center (JID), a Belgian nonprofit that combats antisemitism, noted that the planned withdrawal, both in its timing and execution, had heightened concern within the community.
Despite the community’s expectation that authorities would address the issue, Pais had warned that inadequate security could lead to serious problems.
Dus geen 48 uur na de verschrikkelijke aanslag op joden in Australië zet nota bene onze minister van Binnenlandse Zaken @BernardQuintin_ de federale politiebeveiliging in @Stad_Antwerpen stop!
Burgemeester @elsvandoesburg vindt het uiteraard…
— JID (@s_antisemitisme) December 16, 2025
Van Doesburg had called for federal officers to remain in place until a suitable replacement could be established, whether through increased local police staffing or the deployment of military personnel — a request now addressed by the government’s decision to maintain current measures.
The European Jewish Association (EJA) said in a statement that it “welcomed” the move to maintain current federal police levels in Antwerp, noting that the initial plan “caused deep concern within the Jewish community and beyond.”
“This decision follows direct engagement with elected officials and Jewish representatives and sends an important message: the safety of Jewish life is a core responsibility of the state and cannot be subject to uncertainty or gradual erosion,” the EJA said. “The EJA wishes to express its sincere appreciation to [Quintin] for listening carefully to these concerns and for acting decisively to prevent any security vacuum. We also commend MP Michael Freilich, who raised the issue forcefully in Parliament.”