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25 years ago, ‘Saving Private Ryan’ presented a rare portrait of a Jewish soldier in film
(JTA) — According to the Jewish Virtual Library, 550,000 Jews served in the United States armed forces during World War II. There were 38,338 Jewish casualties, while 26,000 Jewish soldiers “received citations for valor and merit.”
But in high-profile TV and film, identifiably Jewish soldiers have been a rare sight.
One exception came 25 years ago this week, when Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” hit theaters.
The movie is perhaps best known for its opening sequence, for which Spielberg brutally recreated the invasion of Normandy. From there, the film follows a unit led by Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) searching through Nazi-occupied France to rescue Private James Francis Ryan (a very young Matt Damon), whose three brothers were all killed in combat.
The characters are played by the likes of Barry Pepper, Jeremy Davies, Edward Burns, Tom Sizemore and Giovanni Ribisi; the Jew of the group is Stanley “Fish” Mellish, a witty wisecracker implicitly from New York played by Adam Goldberg.
“Every WWII combat squad seems to have been issued a statistically precise percentage of American types — Irish guy, Italian guy, Jewish guy, farm boy, city boy, old guy, young guy etc — but that trope [in WWII films] was very important in teaching the lessons of teamwork and tolerance,” Prof. Thomas Doherty of Brandeis University, author of the book “Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II,” told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“It had resonance because so many of the combat squads really were made up of a diverse collection of American types, working shoulder to shoulder and encountering each [other] for the first time,” he added.
Doherty said that his own father, an Irish-American World War II veteran, “didn’t really know any Jews until he served with some” during the war.
Mellish is a proud Jew, as his dialogue makes clear. “Your father was circumcised by my rabbi,” he yells at Nazis in the middle of a gun battle. In one famous scene, Mellish brandishes his Jewish star necklace and taunts German prisoners by saying: “I’m Juden. You know, Juden.”
In an interview with JTA earlier this year, Goldberg said that the horrors of Nazi antisemitism seemed like a distant part of history when “Private Ryan” was made in the 1990s (just five years after Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List”). But more recent events have disabused him of that notion.
“What’s interesting about that, is that… I don’t know how moved I was by that at the time,” Goldberg said of the “Juden” scene while promoting an episode of his CBS procedural “The Equalizer,” in which his character deals with a wave of antisemitic hate crimes. “If you’re doing a good job, and you’re there and you’re present, and it’s 1944… but the truth of it was, it was 1997. And it wouldn’t be until a couple of years later, when I found my name on a white supremacist website, which consisted at that time of a single page… I had no idea how bad shit was, until the internet. And how bad it’s gotten IRL.”
During the years that Donald Trump was president, when Jews on social media received a steep uptick in online antisemitism, Goldberg became known online for tangling with Jew-hating trolls. He told JTA he keeps a folder called “Nazis” on his phone of screenshots of Twitter and other messages from people expressing “an incredible amount of hate” towards him.
Goldberg, who went on to star in the schlocky comedy “The Hebrew Hammer,” said that he is often asked about his turn in “Saving Private Ryan,” which was released when he was 28 years old.
Near the end of the film, Mellish dies, stabbed by a German after a protracted knife fight. Goldberg told JTA that mechanics of his death scene came about from “my facility with a bayonet,” as established during a boot camp training period.
Spielberg, in hat and shown on the set, won the Oscar for best director in 1999. (Paramount Pictures/Fotos International/Getty Images)
While Spielberg hasn’t spoken much over the years about the specifics of the Mellish character, actor Jeremy Davies told the Los Angeles Times five years ago that Spielberg had determined on the day the scene was shot how exactly Mellish’s death would be presented (which includes Davies’ character of Private Upham freezing up as his friend is slowly killed).
The depiction of the Mellish character wasn’t universally loved. The famed critic Andrew Sarris, writing in the New York Observer, argued that no war movies at the time “even bothered to suggest that the war against Hitler was connected to his persecution of the Jews.” He thought the film implied that soldiers like Mellish, in 1944, wouldn’t have known about the death camps at that time.
In terms of other World War II movies that touched on the Jewish experience of the war, Doherty mentioned “The Young Lions” (1958), “The Pride of the Marines” (1945) and “Gentleman’s Agreement” (1947), in which John Garfield “plays a Jewish combat vet subjected to antisemitism.”
Goldberg looked fondly upon his experience making the film.
“It was a very deeply collaborative experience,” he said. “Steven I think had really made a point of hiring people who he knew were going to give him a lot of feedback, improvisation… there’s a whole scene that was cut from the movie… where we improvised an entire scene in character where we talk about death.”
“It was an experience like no other, and it was a history lesson that I could not have had in any other way,” he added.
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Antisemitic Incidents at Argentina Local Soccer Match Spark Official Investigations, Condemnations
Fans of Argentinian soccer club All Boys marched through the streets before their match against Atlanta soccer club, carrying a coffin draped with an Israeli flag alongside Iranian and Palestinian flags. Photo: Screenshot
Argentinian authorities and soccer officials have launched investigations following antisemitic incidents by Club Atlético All Boys fans during Sunday’s local match against Atlanta.
Atlanta, a soccer team based in the Villa Crespo neighborhood of Buenos Aires, has deep historical ties to Argentina’s Jewish community, which has long been a significant presence in the area.
This latest antisemitic incident took place outside the stadium before the game had even started.
All Boys fans were seen waving Palestinian and Iranian flags, carrying a coffin draped with an Israeli flag, and handing out flyers bearing messages like “Free Palestine” and “Israel and Atlanta are the same crap.”
Before a football match today against the Argentine sports club Atlanta, which is closely associated with the Jewish community, fans of the opposing team, All Boys, waved Islamic Republic and Palestinian flags while parading a coffin draped in an Israeli flag through the streets.… pic.twitter.com/IQs4v6eoFz
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) June 29, 2025
Then, during the match — which ended in a 0-0 draw — a drone carrying a Palestinian flag flew over the stadium, while some fans reportedly chanted anti-Israel slogans.
Local police confirmed they have issued citations to individuals accused of inciting public disorder and related offenses.
On Monday, the Argentine Football Association (AFA) condemned the incidents as “abhorrent” and confirmed the organization has opened a formal inquiry into the events.
“This is not folklore. This is discrimination,” the statement reads.
Argentina’s Security Minister Patricia Bullrich also announced that a criminal complaint has been filed, citing “acts of violence, expressions of racial and religious hatred, and public intimidation.”
In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, condemned the incidents and called on both local authorities and the soccer officials to “take firm action against these acts of hatred.”
“We urge the authorities to take all necessary actions and apply the full force of the law,” the statement reads. “Violence and discrimination must have no place in our society.”
Repudiamos enérgicamente las expresiones antisemitas ocurridas hoy en las inmediaciones del estadio Malvinas Argentinas.
Exigimos a las autoridades correspondientes, a la AFA y al Club All Boys que actúen con firmeza ante estos hechos de odio.
La violencia y la discriminación no… pic.twitter.com/3AmY7IQscY— DAIA (@DAIAArgentina) June 29, 2025
Since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Argentina has experienced a surge in antisemitic incidents and anti-Jewish hate crimes.
According to a recent report by DAIA, Argentina experienced a 15 percent increase in antisemitic activity last year, with 687 anti-Jewish hate crimes recorded — up from 598 incidents in 2023 — marking a significant rise nationwide.
The study indicates that 66 percent of the antisemitic incidents originated in the digital realm, with a significant rise in Nazi symbols and conspiracy theories, but there was also a 34 percent increase in reported physical assaults, with such hate crimes rising in schools and neighborhoods.
The post Antisemitic Incidents at Argentina Local Soccer Match Spark Official Investigations, Condemnations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iranian nuclear program degraded by up to two years, Pentagon says
A satellite image of Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility. Photo: File.
The Pentagon said on Wednesday that US strikes 10 days ago had degraded Iran’s nuclear program by up to two years, suggesting the U.S. military operation likely achieved its goals despite a far more cautious initial assessment that leaked to the public.
Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, offered the figure at a briefing to reporters, adding that the official estimate was “probably closer to two years.” Parnell did not provide evidence to back up his assessment.
“We have degraded their program by one to two years, at least intel assessments inside the Department [of Defense] assess that,” Parnell told a news briefing.
U.S. military bombers carried out strikes against three Iranian nuclear facilities on June 22 using more than a dozen 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs and more than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles.
The evolving U.S. intelligence about the impact of the strikes is being closely watched, after President Donald Trump said almost immediately after they took place that Iran’s program had been obliterated, language echoed by Parnell at Wednesday’s briefing.
Such conclusions often take the U.S. intelligence community weeks or more to determine.
“All of the intelligence that we’ve seen [has] led us to believe that Iran’s — those facilities especially, have been completely obliterated,” Parnell said.
Over the weekend, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, said that Iran could be producing enriched uranium in a few months, raising doubts about how effective US strikes to destroy Tehran’s nuclear program have been.
Several experts have also cautioned that Iran likely moved a stockpile of near weapons-grade highly enriched uranium out of the deeply buried Fordow site before the strikes and could be hiding it.
But US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last week he was unaware of intelligence suggesting Iran had moved its highly enriched uranium to shield it from US strikes.
A preliminary assessment last week from the Defense Intelligence Agency suggested that the strikes may have only set back Iran’s nuclear program by months. But Trump administration officials said that assessment was low confidence and had been overtaken by intelligence showing Iran’s nuclear program was severely damaged.
According to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, the strikes on the Fordow nuclear site caused severe damage.
“No one exactly knows what has transpired in Fordow. That being said, what we know so far is that the facilities have been seriously and heavily damaged,” Araqchi said in the interview broadcast by CBS News on Tuesday.
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Switzerland Moves to Close Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s Geneva Office Over Legal Irregularities
Palestinians carry aid supplies received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
Switzerland has moved to shut down the Geneva office of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US- and Israeli-backed aid group, citing legal irregularities in its establishment.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza in late May, implementing a new aid delivery model aimed at preventing the diversion of supplies by Hamas, as Israel continues its defensive military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group.
The initiative has drawn criticism from the UN and international organizations, some of which have claimed that Jerusalem is causing starvation in the war-torn enclave.
Israel has vehemently denied such accusations, noting that, until its recently imposed blockade, it had provided significant humanitarian aid in the enclave throughout the war.
Israeli officials have also said much of the aid that flows into Gaza is stolen by Hamas, which uses it for terrorist operations and sells the rest at high prices to Gazan civilians.
With a subsidiary registered in Geneva, the GHF — headquartered in Delaware — reports having delivered over 56 million meals to Palestinians in just one month.
According to a regulatory announcement published Wednesday in the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce, the Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations (ESA) may order the dissolution of the GHF if no creditors come forward within the legal 30-day period.
The Trump administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Swiss decision to shut down its Geneva office.
“The GHF confirmed to the ESA that it had never carried out activities in Switzerland … and that it intends to dissolve the Geneva-registered branch,” the ESA said in a statement.
Last week, Geneva authorities gave the GHF a 30-day deadline to address legal shortcomings or risk facing enforcement measures.
Under local laws and regulations, the foundation failed to meet several requirements: it did not appoint a board member authorized to sign documents domiciled in Switzerland, did not have the minimum three board members, lacked a Swiss bank account and valid address, and operated without an auditing body.
The GHF operates independently from UN-backed mechanisms, which Hamas has sought to reinstate, arguing that these vehicles are more neutral.
Israeli and American officials have rejected those calls, saying Hamas previously exploited UN-run systems to siphon aid for its war effort.
The UN has denied those allegations while expressing concerns that the GHF’s approach forces civilians to risk their safety by traveling long distances across active conflict zones to reach food distribution points.
The post Switzerland Moves to Close Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s Geneva Office Over Legal Irregularities first appeared on Algemeiner.com.