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A family-friendly Jewish play explores themes of forgiveness with puppets, music and more
(New York Jewish Week) — Just in time for the High Holidays, a new, family-friendly Jewish play will make its Off-Broadway debut on Sunday, Sept. 10.
“Out of the Apple Orchard” is based on the first book of Yvonne David’s acclaimed “Apple Tree” series. The two-book series — a third is forthcoming — follows the Jewish Bieman family as they immigrate from a shtetl in Lithuania, first to New York City and then to the Catskill Mountains. Adam Bieman, the boy whose family life is chronicled in the series, is inspired by the author’s own son, who was coming of age when she began writing the books.
Premiering at Actors’ Temple Theater (339 West 47th St.) on Sunday, just days before Rosh Hashanah, “Out of the Apple Orchard” explores themes of forgiveness and reconciliation — perfectly timed for Judaism’s annual season of self-reflection. During the Jewish months of Elul and Tishrei, which fall in the late summer/early fall, Jews are encouraged to look within, connect to who they’ve been and who they want to be. “Out of the Apple Orchard” follows a Jewish family at the turn of the last century that is doing just that — and in doing so provides audiences with an opportunity for both fun and introspection.
“This play has so many layers,” director Nicole Raphael told the New York Jewish Week. “It’s all about unfolding the story and its complexities. We really see things from the children’s points of view. They see the sentimentality for the Old Country, but also the harsh reality of pogroms and Cossacks; the love that permeates family life, but also the very real mistakes both adults and children make.”
“The play really asks how to handle mistakes, how to mend your ways,” she added. “To me, this is such an important theme — and especially during Rosh Hashanah.”
The “Out of the Apple Orchard” script was crafted by Ellen W. Kaplan, professor emerita of acting and directing at Smith College, who worked closely with David and Raphael to create a staged version that would bring the philosophy behind the story to the fore.
The play opens with Adam Bieman dreaming that he and his Bubbe are in a sepia-toned photograph. The picture comes alive as the family matriarch relates tales of the shtetl — setting the scene for what is to come. When the play premiered in Orlando in 2016, the staging of this scene was reminiscent of the nightmare sequence from “Fiddler on the Roof.” In the New York production, however, the ancestors aren’t warning of changes to come. Instead, Bubbe is detailing the brutality of the pogroms and the importance of leaving Lithuania for a new life.
The year is 1910, and the Bieman family leave Europe to find their fortunes in America. After a time on the Lower East Side of New York City, though, Adam’s father becomes ill. The Biemans are advised to head to the Catskills, with the idea that mountain air will do Papa a world of good. So they head north.
But the Catskills are as harsh as the city or the shtetl, albeit in different ways. Poverty persists. Papa is still ill. The family is hungry. Adam, tempted by ripe red apples in a nearby orchard, shoves some pieces of fruit under his hand-me-down cap. Later, riddled with guilt, he becomes haunted by his thievery. Through this and other travails, Adam and his family are faced with a central question: How can they retain their moral understanding of the world when hardship abounds?
“The story is almost a continuation of ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’” Raphael said. “Imagine what would happen when Tevye arrived on the Lower East Side — you know, so many immigrants got sick at the turn of the last century. Adam’s Papa was a brilliant tailor, but now he’s sick. Still, he brought his family to America, did everything so they could to thrive. We want the audience to fall in love with Papa, to appreciate him for how he tries to support his family.”
And, indeed, Adam’s Papa cares deeply about his family. He worries about not being able to care for them, conceding eventually that they should help him sew the suits he was once famous for making. “With my family helping me finish the suits, we will not starve,” he says in his central scene. “My heart is kvelling and swelling with love.”
Throughout the play, a fiddler, portrayed by Victoria Chaieb (who both performs and wrote the violin music), follows Adam across the stage, emphasizing his internal process. Ben Rauch composed and orchestrated an original score inspired by traditional Yiddish and Jewish melodies and, to a lesser extent, vaudeville-inspired songs.
Extensive puppetry adds an otherworldly — even mystical — air to the staging, too. For example, as the young protagonist descends into a spiral of guilt over his thievery, a large red bird flutters around him. In the book, Adam simply glimpses a red bird as he dwells on his moral dilemma while at school. “It’s visually thrilling,” author David told the New York Jewish Week. “It represents Adam’s conscience.”
In addition to directing the play, Raphael has created an accompanying curriculum in partnership with Park Avenue Synagogue, where she’s a second-grade Hebrew school teacher. The lessons include themes of teshuva, or repentance, Yiddish culture and the Jewish history of the Catskill Mountains. Eventually, she envisions the play and the curriculum being distributed across the country and used in classrooms everywhere. “I see this as the continuation of our oral history, both for our communities and everyone else in the modern day,” she said. “I’ve been an educator in Manhattan for 15 years at different synagogues; I really feel that directing the play and developing the companion curriculum is like everything I’ve worked on all coming together.”
While the themes of the play are rooted in Jewish culture and history, Raphael and David both told New York Jewish Week they see the play’s overarching theme as a universal one.
“There’s so much upsetting divisiveness in this country,” David said. “I think we need to come together. We’re squandering our lives on anger and discrimination. In the end, we’re all in this world together and it’s up to us to make the best of everything, not the worst.”
“Out of the Apple Orchard” is playing at Actors’ Temple Theater (339 West 47th Street) from Sunday, Sept. 10 through Thursday, Sept. 14. Tickets and info here.
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The post A family-friendly Jewish play explores themes of forgiveness with puppets, music and more appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire
Explosions send smoke into the air in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, July 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing said on Friday that while the Palestinian terrorist group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a full package deal to end the conflict.
Hamas has previously offered to release all the hostages held in Gaza and conclude a permanent ceasefire agreement, and Israel has refused, Abu Ubaida added in a televised speech.
Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the war.
Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on a call he had with Pope Leo on Friday that Israel‘s efforts to secure a hostage release deal and 60-day ceasefire “have so far not been reciprocated by Hamas.”
As part of the potential deal, 10 hostages held in Gaza would be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.
“If the enemy remains obstinate and evades this round as it has done every time before, we cannot guarantee a return to partial deals or the proposal of the 10 captives,” said Abu Ubaida.
Disputes remain over maps of Israeli army withdrawals, aid delivery mechanisms into Gaza, and guarantees that any eventual truce would lead to ending the war, said two Hamas officials who spoke to Reuters on Friday.
The officials said the talks have not reached a breakthrough on the issues under discussion.
Hamas says any agreement must lead to ending the war, while Netanyahu says the war will only end once Hamas is disarmed and its leaders expelled from Gaza.
Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Over 250 hostages were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.
Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
The post Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel
People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas
Iran on Friday marked the 31st anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by slamming Argentina for what it called “baseless” accusations over Tehran’s alleged role in the terrorist attack and accusing Israel of politicizing the atrocity to influence the investigation and judicial process.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the anniversary of Argentina’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.
“While completely rejecting the accusations against Iranian citizens, the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns attempts by certain Argentine factions to pressure the judiciary into issuing baseless charges and politically motivated rulings,” the statement read.
“Reaffirming that the charges against its citizens are unfounded, the Islamic Republic of Iran insists on restoring their reputation and calls for an end to this staged legal proceeding,” it continued.
Last month, a federal judge in Argentina ordered the trial in absentia of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of orchestrating the attack in Buenos Aires.
The ten suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the terrorist attack.
In its statement on Friday, Iran also accused Israel of influencing the investigation to advance a political campaign against the Islamist regime in Tehran, claiming the case has been used to serve Israeli interests and hinder efforts to uncover the truth.
“From the outset, elements and entities linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] exploited this suspicious explosion, pushing the investigation down a false and misleading path, among whose consequences was to disrupt the long‑standing relations between the people of Iran and Argentina,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.
“Clear, undeniable evidence now shows the Zionist regime and its affiliates exerting influence on the Argentine judiciary to frame Iranian nationals,” the statement continued.
In April, lead prosecutor Sebastián Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Alberto Nisman — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.
Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.
In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, released a statement commemorating the 31st anniversary of the bombing.
“It was a brutal attack on Argentina, its democracy, and its rule of law,” the group said. “At DAIA, we continue to demand truth and justice — because impunity is painful, and memory is a commitment to both the present and the future.”
31 años del atentado a la AMIA – DAIA. 31 años sin justicia.
El 18 de julio de 1994, un atentado terrorista dejó 85 personas muertas y más de 300 heridas. Fue un ataque brutal contra la Argentina, su democracia y su Estado de derecho.
Desde la DAIA, seguimos exigiendo verdad y… pic.twitter.com/kV2ReGNTIk
— DAIA (@DAIAArgentina) July 18, 2025
Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.
Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.
To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.
In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.
Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.
Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.
The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.
The post Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns
Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, attends an interview with Reuters in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak
The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements, has been implicated in a wide-ranging network of illegal financial activities in Jordan and abroad, according to a new investigative report.
Investigations conducted by Jordanian authorities — along with evidence gathered from seized materials — revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood raised tens of millions of Jordanian dinars through various illegal activities, the Jordan news agency (Petra) reported this week.
With operations intensifying over the past eight years, the report showed that the group’s complex financial network was funded through various sources, including illegal donations, profits from investments in Jordan and abroad, and monthly fees paid by members inside and outside the country.
The report also indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken advantage of the war in Gaza to raise donations illegally.
Out of all donations meant for Gaza, the group provided no information on where the funds came from, how much was collected, or how they were distributed, and failed to work with any international or relief organizations to manage the transfers properly.
Rather, the investigations revealed that the Islamist network used illicit financial mechanisms to transfer funds abroad.
According to Jordanian authorities, the group gathered more than JD 30 million (around $42 million) over recent years.
With funds transferred to several Arab, regional, and foreign countries, part of the money was allegedly used to finance domestic political campaigns in 2024, as well as illegal activities and cells.
In April, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets after members of the Islamist movement were found to be linked to a sabotage plot.
The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.
Opponents of the group, which is banned in most Arab countries, label it a terrorist organization. However, the movement claims it renounced violence decades ago and now promotes its Islamist agenda through peaceful means.
The post Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.