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9 classic Jewish New York movies you can stream right now

(New York Jewish Week) — Jewish people have made New York City home for centuries now, often finding opportunity and acceptance where it elsewhere had been denied. So when Jews began to tell their stories of their lives on film, it only makes sense that they would feature New York City front and center.
From the tenements of the Lower East Side to the present-day Diamond District, New York City has shaped the lives of millions of Jews, and in turn we’ve reflected the city back to itself — the good, the bad and the sometimes ugly.
Below are nine classic films created by Jews, starring Jews and featuring the unique foibles of being a Jewish person in New York City that are all available to stream now. As we head into winter (and, for many, a Christmas break where film-watching is de rigueur), it’s the perfect time to get cozy and stream an iconic Jewish New York movie or two … or all nine.
1. “The Jazz Singer”
Streaming free on Tubi and available to rent on Amazon, Apple and more.
Not only is this the first movie on our list, it’s the first movie that had sound, period. The conflict at the center of this 1927 musical is one that continues to echo in films today: A cantor’s son, Jacob (Al Jolson), seeks to use his talent to serve his own ambitions and desires rather than following in his father’s footsteps. Filmed on the Lower East Side, the movie is a peek how Jews lived when the neighborhood remained a religious enclave, yet were tempted by what the secular city had to offer.
Content warning: A character appears in blackface in this film.
2. “Hester Street”
Streaming free on Tubi and on Mubi and Kanopy (in certain locations). Available to rent on YouTube, GooglePlay and more.
Though there’s been a Jewish community in New York since 1654, the Jewish population in the city began to boom in the late 1800s as thousands fled deadly pogroms in Eastern Europe. Joan Micklin Silver’s “Hester Street,” released in 1975, transports viewers to the Lower East Side in this complicated era, which was both painful and liberating for Jews. Gitl (Carol Kane) and her son Yossele are at last summoned to join the family patriarch, Yankel aka Jake (Steven Keats) in the new country — but, once arrived, Gitl struggles to assimilate. Shot in black and white, with dialogue in both Yiddish and English, “Hester Street” is faithful to its source material, the 1896 novella “Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto” by Abraham Cahan. “Hester Street” is an essential look at Jewish culture at one of its most watershed moments.
3. “The Producers”
Streaming free on Pluto and available to rent from Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube and more.
Zero Mostel, left, and Gene Wilder star in the Mel Brooks classic “The Producer.” (Screenshot)
As the saying goes: Only in New York. And when it comes to “The Producers,” we’ll say it’s certainly one of those only in New York — and only written by a Jewish New Yorker — stories. Written and directed by Mel Brooks, this film finds disgraced Broadway producer Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) realize he could make more money off a flop than a hit. So he and his partner, Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder) decide to stage “Springtime for Hitler.” Hilarity ensues as the pair run around 1960s New York City to pull their scheme off, but despite its comedic trappings, the movie has some serious undertones: Brooks wrote it with the understanding that sometimes the best way to take down an antisemite is not with a grandiose speech, but with laughter.
4. “Girlfriends”
Available for rent from Amazon Prime, YouTube and Google Play.
Before there was Lena Dunham’s “Girls,” there was Claudia Weill’s 1978 film “Girlfriends.” When bar mitzvah and wedding photographer Susan Weinblatt (Melanie Mayron) discovers her best friend and roommate is moving out to marry her boyfriend Martin (Bob Balaban), her world is turned upside down. What ensues is a charming tale of the search for self-discovery in New York City, complete with an inappropriate relationship with a religious figure and a haircut that would be a devastating blow to any Jewish girl with a curl pattern. If you’ve ever tried (and flailed) to do something creative in the Big Apple, you’ll feel seen by all of the small, one-step-forward, two-steps-back moments this movie contains.
5. “Crossing Delancey”
Streaming free on YouTube; available to rent from Amazon, AppleTV, Google Play and more.
Peter Riegert and Amy Irving starred in “Crossing Delancey.” Riegert played a pickle shop owner. (Warner Brothers/Getty Images)
Another feature from barrier-breaking director Joan Micklin Silver, 1988’s “Crossing Delancey” once again confronts that eternal conflict of wanting to break from tradition in pursuit of modernity. Izzy (Amy Irving) meets pickle man Sam (Peter Riegert) at the behest of her bubbe and the local matchmaker, but is unable to reconcile her past (the Lower East Side) with her more erudite future (the Upper West Side). Come for the charming romantic comedy, stay for the wonderful shots of a Lower East Side that once represented a bustling Jewish and multicultural haven, instead of a trendy neighborhood that’s home for expensive cocktail bars and countless vape shops.
6. “When Harry Met Sally”
Streaming free with Hulu Live and Fubo subscriptions; available to rent on Amazon and for purchase from Vudu and YouTube.
Nora Ephron once said that the difference between Christian and Jewish rom coms is that “external forces separate lovers in the former, while characters’ neuroses obstruct happiness in the latter.” If this is true, writer Ephron and director Rob Reiner’s 1989 hit “When Harry Met Sally” certainly fits the bill as a Jewish rom-com. Former college classmates Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) and Sally Albright (Meg Ryan) reunite in New York 15 years after they drove from Chicago to New York together; they maturely decide to be friends, only to realize there might be deeper feelings between them. While religion isn’t overtly discussed, the film’s sensibilities are undeniably Jewish — and it’s credited with putting Jewish institution Katz’s Deli forever on the map.
7. “Kissing Jessica Stein”
Available to rent on YouTube, Amazon, GooglePlay and more.
How many movies open on Yom Kippur services? In a Cinderella story that would make any Jewish mother proud, “Kissing Jessica Stein” began as an off-off-Broadway play titled “Lipshtick,” co-written by its stars Jennifer Westfeldt and Heather Juergensen, and became an indie film in 2001. Westfeldt stars as the titular Stein, of the Scarsdale Steins, with a mother (Tovah Feldshuh) who’s eager for her to find a Nice Jewish Boy to settle down with. Instead, Jessica finds herself drawn to a non-Jewish woman, Helen (Juergensen), and frets over how her traditional Jewish family might receive their relationship. What entails is a beautiful meditation on the search for acceptance, both from family and of yourself.
8. “Obvious Child”
Streaming free on Kanopy (in certain locations) and Cinemax with subscription; available to rent on Amazon, Google Play, YouTube and more.
Written and directed by Jewish native New Yorker Gillian Robespierre (you can check out her film “Landline” for a peek into her childhood), this 2014 film centers on a young Jewish woman, Donna (Jenny Slate), who ventures where many, many Jewish people have before her: The world of standup comedy. “Obvious Child” delivers a more modern look at Jewish life in New York City, as Donna contemplates getting an abortion after her one-night stand with nice guy Max (Jake Lacey) has more lingering consequences than intended. If you’ve ever felt more like a menorah that accidentally burns down the Christmas tree than the angel on top, then this movie is for you.
9. “Uncut Gems”
Streaming free on Netflix with subscription; available to rent from YouTube, GooglePlay, Amazon and more.
Adam Sandler plays Howard Ratner in “Uncut Gems.” (Courtesy A24)
If “Die Hard” is considered a Christmas movie, then the Safdie brothers’ 2019 “Uncut Gems” is a Passover movie, featuring Adam Sandler in a departure from his usual comedy fare as Howard Ratner, a Jewish anti-hero with unbridled hubris for the ages. Deemed by many to be an extraordinarily stressful watch, the film will still send chills of recognition up your spine — particularly during that seder scene, which shows no matter how bad the fighting may be between you and your family, you still make time to sing “Dayenu” — and brings life to some of the city’s more offbeat characters, who are often pushed to the margins, both in real life and on film.
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The post 9 classic Jewish New York movies you can stream right now appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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New York City Jews Targeted for Most Hate Crimes in March, NYPD Stats Show

Orthodox Jewish man waiting for the train in the New York City subway. Photo: Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect.
Jews in New York City were victims of more hate crimes in March than any other group even as crime across the Five Boroughs fell to “historic” lows, according to statistics issued by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) on Thursday.
39 hate crimes targeted Jews last month, the Algemeiner reviewed data shows, outstripping the combined total of all other groups combined — 28 — and constituting 58 percent of all hate crimes reported to authorities. So far, there have born 85 antisemitic hate crimes in New York City through the first three months of 2025, with the month of February seeing a 100 percent increase in them over the previous year and March seeing no improvement at all.
The data continues a trend that has persisted for several years and concurred with a rise in antisemitic incidents across the US.
Jews represented a disproportionate share of hate crimes perpetrated in New York City in 2024 as well. Of the 641 total hate crimes tallied by the NYPD that year, Jews were victims of 345, which, in addition to being a 7 percent increase over the previous year, amounted to 54 percent of all hate crimes in the city.
As The Algemeiner has previously reported, antisemitic hate crimes have posed a major threat to the quality of life of New York City’s Orthodox Jewish community, which was the target in many of the incidents. In just eight days between the end of October and the beginning of November, three Hasidim, including children, were brutally assaulted in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. In one instance, an Orthodox man was accosted by two assailants, one masked, who “chased and beat him” after he refused to surrender his cellphone in compliance with what appeared to have been an attempted robbery.
In another incident, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily Jewish neighborhood. Less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face as he was walking in Brooklyn. Days after the week-long antisemitic hate crime spree, three men attempted to rob a Hasidic man after stalking him through the Crown Heights neighborhood.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post New York City Jews Targeted for Most Hate Crimes in March, NYPD Stats Show first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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NYC ‘Dyke March’ Bans Zionists From Participating in Annual Demonstration

(Source: Reuters)
NYC Dyke March, a public demonstration held by members of the lesbian community in New York City, has banned self-proclaimed “Zionists” from its annual event, citing a desire to stand against the so-called “genocide” occuring in Gaza.
The group revealed in a statement that their decision to ban Israel supporters from their ranks came after multiple members dropped out of the organization due to differences in “political beliefs and values.” After engaging in discussions with frustrated members, the NYC Dyke March committee agreed to adopt “an explicitly anti-Zionist position.” The organization claims that it will “strengthen our commitment” to fighting against Israel and advocating on behalf of Palestinians.
Last year, the NYC Dyke March previously came under scrutiny after organizers settled on “genocide” as the theme of its 2024 event. In a statement, decrying “ethnic cleansing, violence, and dehumanization,” the organization compared the ongoing war in Gaza, to the mass slaughters occurring in Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Sudan.
The organization plans on recycling the same theme for this year’s march, titling it “Dykes Against Genocide.” The group released a statement clarifying that Jews are allowed to attend and condemned the Oct. 7 slaughters as a “senseless loss of life.” After an apparent uproar from its members, the organization deleted the post and wrote that the group “unapologetically stands in support of Palestinian liberation.” In addition, the group affirmed that “anti-Zionism is not antisemitism and any language we put out which is not clearly opposed to a Zionist, imperialist agenda is harmful to us all.”
In the 17 months following the Hamas-led massacre of roughly 1200 people throughout Israel, the NYC Dyke March has produced numerous statements lambasting Israel and declaring “solidarity” with Palestinians amid their so-called “ongoing genocide.” The organization also accused Israel of engaging in supposed “pinkwashing” and “manipulative use of Jewish and queer identities,” with the aim of justifying its war efforts in Gaza.
Israel offers an expansive set of rights for members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transngender (LGBT) community, including recognition of same-sex marriages. Every year in June, Tel Aviv holds one of the largest LGBT Pride celebrations in the world. Meanwhile, members of the LGBT community are routinely imprisoned or murdered in other parts of the Middle East, including the Palestinian territories.
The NYC Dyke March’s announcement was met with widespread condemnation.
“You cannot exclude the majority of Jews and call yourself inclusive,” said the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in a post on X/Twitter, adding that the group “essentially equates Zionism with racism” in their announcement.
The post NYC ‘Dyke March’ Bans Zionists From Participating in Annual Demonstration first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Administration Planning $510 Million Cut to Brown University Budget, Report Says

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with journalists onboard Air Force One en route to Miami, Florida, U.S., April 3, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
The Trump administration reportedly plans to terminate $510 million worth of federal contracts and grants awarded to Brown University, according to media reports.
Brown University’s failure to mount a satisfactory response to the campus antisemitism crisis, as well as its embrace of the diversity, equity, and, inclusion (DEI) movement — perceived by many across the political spectrum as an assault on merit-based upward mobility and causing incidents of anti-White and anti-Asian discrimination — prompted the alleged pending action by the federal government, according to the right-leaning outlet The Daily Caller.
The announcement comes as Brown scrambles to cover a $46 million budget shortfall and other universities across the country have faced similar funding cuts.
Brown University officials, however, denied that the university had received any directives from the Trump Administration.
“We have no information to substantiate these rumors,” Brown University provost Francis Doyle issued a statement. “We are closely monitoring notifications related to grants, but have nothing more we can share as of now.”
Meanwhile, Brown’s Jewish community rushed to the university’s defense, issuing a joint statement with the Brown Corporation which said that the campus is “peaceful and supportive campus for its Jewish community.”
The letter, signed by members of the local Hillel International chapter and Chabad on College Hill, continued: “Brown University is a place where Jewish life not only exists but thrives. While there is more work to be done, Brown, through the dedicated efforts of its administration, leadership, and resilient spirit of its Jewish community, continues to uphold the principles of inclusion, tolerance, and intellectual freedom that have been central to its identity since 1764.”
Brown Divest Coalition — an anti-Zionist group which recently saw its campaign for the university to adopt the boycott, divest, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel defeated by the Brown Corporation — weighed in too, denouncing the reported cut as “a means of suppressing all forms of popular dissent to the renewed violence of the US war machine abroad.” US Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) also criticized the move, accusing the administration “of a broader pattern of behavior…that will negatively impact communities across the country and lead to layoffs, restrict research, and more.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the Trump administration is following through on its threats to inflict potentially catastrophic financial injuries on colleges and universities deemed as soft on antisemitism or excessively “woke.” The past six weeks has seen the policy imposed on elite universities including Harvard and Columbia, rattling a higher education establishment that has for better and worse operated for decades with little interference from the federal government even as it polarized the public and contributed to a growing sense that elites are contemptuous of Americans who live outside of their cultural enclaves.
In March, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon announced the cancellation of $400 million in federal contracts and grants for Columbia University, a measure that secured the school’s acceding to a slew of demands the administration put forth as preconditions for restoring the money. Later, the Trump administration disclosed its reviewing $9 billion worth of federal grants and contracts awarded to Harvard University, jeopardizing a substantial source of the school’s income over its alleged failure to quell antisemitic and pro-Hamas activity on campus following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. Princeton University saw $210 million of its federal grants and funding suspended too, prompting its president, Christopher Eisgruber to say the institution is “committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination.”
Additionally, 60 universities are being investigated by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights over their handling of campus antisemitism, a project that will serve as an early test of the administration’s ability to perform the essential functions of the agency after downsizing its workforce to increase its efficiency.
One of those universities, Northwestern University, on Monday touted its progress in addressing campus antisemitism, noting that it has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, a reference tool which aids officials in determining what constitutes antisemitism, and begun holding “mandatory antisemitism training” sessions which “all students, faculty, and staff” must attend.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Trump Administration Planning $510 Million Cut to Brown University Budget, Report Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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