RSS
After getting cut from ‘American Ninja Warrior,’ Orthodox contestant celebrates NBC’s decision to release unaired footage
(JTA) — When Michael Neuman found out his run on this season of the NBC obstacle course competition show “American Ninja Warrior” would not air, the competitor inside of him was crushed. Part of the filming schedule had conflicted with his Shabbat observance.
But Neuman was even more disappointed that he would not get to keep any footage from the show. Neuman, a 30-year-old psychotherapist from Miami Beach, had arranged to bring three young people from his Jewish Inspiration Foundation — which supports Jewish youth with physical challenges through sports — onto the show with him. Their parents were counting on keeping the footage of their family members on the obstacle course sidelines as a keepsake of a bright moment in their lives.
Now, just over two weeks after a Jewish Telegraphic Agency article about their story, the show has given Neuman and the families he brought on set a 47-second montage clip from Neuman’s time on the show. In an email reviewed by JTA, a producer alluded to the article and commended Neuman for his foundation’s work.
“I’m so appreciative to ‘American Ninja Warrior’ for releasing the clip to us,” Neuman told JTA. “I think it means a lot more than just a clip from the show. It means people care, and we are all in this together as humans.”
He added that having the video “means the world” to the families. “It’s so impactful and so inspiring that [the show] would do something so generous,” he said.
Here is the clip from “American Ninja Warrior”:
Neuman’s cohort of young adults was put up in a five-star hotel at Universal Studios, served kosher food and participated in promotional filming for the show. When Neuman competed in the show’s obstacle course — a run that would initially earn him a spot in the semifinals — they cheered him on from the sidelines.
Neuman, an Orthodox Jew, ultimately forfeited his spot in the semifinals because filming for the episode fell on Shabbat. As a result, he was later cut entirely from the show, along with the footage of his fan section.
Leah Cohen, who traveled to Los Angeles with her son Ari, who has the rare chromosomal disorder mosaic trisomy 9, appealed to one of the show’s producers to share the footage with the foundation.
“I said, ‘Listen, you guys made a decision not to air [Michael]. I don’t know why you did that. But that’s your thing,’” Cohen recounted to JTA. “‘But at least share those pictures with us. I can’t fathom that that’s out there and one day when my son, God forbid, is not here, to know that those pictures and those videos are out there, and I won’t be able to have any comfort in looking at them and seeing them and being proud of them.’”
Sam Bullard, a supervising producer for “American Ninja Warrior,” told JTA last month that Neuman was “cut for time” and that it’s “standard practice” to remove contestants in post-production. He said NBC would not release the footage.
Cohen said she was “shocked” to hear that NBC had changed its mind.
“What I saw brought me back to one of the happiest moments of my life,” she said about the video. “It’s showing the world that there are people who care about you and who are exhibiting kindness.”
—
The post After getting cut from ‘American Ninja Warrior,’ Orthodox contestant celebrates NBC’s decision to release unaired footage appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Treasure Trove explores the curious case of a stamp from an imaginary land
This 1 V. postage revenue stamp from West Refaim was postmarked in Virikoso in South Giantsland 100 years ago. Problem is—none of these places ever existed. There is a second […]
The post Treasure Trove explores the curious case of a stamp from an imaginary land appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
RSS
Israel Has Told ICC It Will Contest Arrest Warrants, Netanyahu Says
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant during a press conference in the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, Israel, Oct. 28, 2023. Photo: ABIR SULTAN POOL/Pool via REUTERS
Israel has informed the International Criminal Court that it will contest arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant over their conduct of the Gaza war, Netanyahu’s office said on Wednesday.
The office also said that US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham had updated Netanyahu “on a series of measures he is promoting in the US Congress against the International Criminal Court and against countries that would cooperate with it.”
The ICC issued arrest warrants last Thursday for Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri, known as Mohammed Deif, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict.
The move comes after the ICC prosecutor Karim Khan announced on May 20 that he was seeking arrest warrants for alleged crimes connected to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas and the Israeli military response in Gaza.
Israel has rejected the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court and denies war crimes in Gaza.
“Israel today submitted a notice to the International Criminal Court of its intention to appeal to the court, along with a demand to delay the execution of the arrest warrants,” Netanyahu’s office said.
Court spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah told journalists that if requests for an appeal were submitted it would be up to the judges to decide
The court’s rules allow for the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution that would pause or defer an investigation or a prosecution for a year, with the possibility of renewing that annually.
After a warrant is issued the country involved or a person named in an arrest warrant can also issue a challenge to the jurisdiction of the court or the admissibility of the case.
The post Israel Has Told ICC It Will Contest Arrest Warrants, Netanyahu Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Jewish Girls Attacked in London With Glass Bottles in Antisemitic Outrage
Shomrim officers at the scene of a hate crime in London in which Jewish girls were struck with glass bottles. Photo: Shomrim Stamford Hill/Screenshot
A group of young Jewish girls were the victims of an “abhorrent hate crime” when a man hurled glass bottles at them from a balcony as they were walking through the Stamford Hill section of London on Monday evening.
One of the girls was struck in the head and rushed to the hospital with serious but non-life threatening injuries, according to local law enforcement.
A spokesperson for London’s Metropolitan Police said officers were called to the Woodberry Down Estate in the city’s borough of Hackney following reports of an assault on Monday evening at 7:44 pm local time.
“A group of schoolgirls had been walking through the estate when a bottle was thrown from the upper floor of a building,” the spokesperson said. “A 16-year-old girl was struck on the head and was taken to hospital. Her injuries have since been assessed as non-life changing.”
Police noted they were unable to locate the suspect and an investigation is ongoing before adding, “The incident is being treated as a potential antisemitic hate crime.”
Following the incident, Shomrim, a Jewish organization that monitors antisemitism and serves as a neighborhood watch group, reported that the girls were en route to a rehearsal for an upcoming event. The community, the group added, was “shocked” by the attack on “innocent young Jewish girls,” calling it an “abhorrent hate crime.”
14-year-old girl rushed to Hospital with head & facial injuries following an attack in #StamfordHill.
Young Jewish girls on their way to a rehearsal were pelted with glass bottles by a male on a balcony at Woodberry Down Estate N4.
This… pic.twitter.com/MzHPHusgyX
— Shomrim (London North & East) (@Shomrim) November 26, 2024
Since then, another Jewish girl, age 14, has reported being pelted with a hard object which caused her to be “knocked unconscious, and left feeling dizzy and with a bump on her head,” according to Shomrim.
Monday’s crime was one among many which have targeted London Jews in recent years, an issue The Algemeiner has reported on extensively.
Last December, an Orthodox Jewish man was assaulted by a man riding a bicycle on the sidewalk, two attackers brutally mauled a Jewish woman, and a group of Jewish children was berated by a woman who screamed “I’ll kill all of you Jews. You are murderers!” A similar incident occurred when a man confronted a Jewish shopper and shouted, “You f—king Jew, I will kill you!”
Months prior, a perpetrator stalked and assaulted an Orthodox Jewish woman. He followed her, shouting “dirty Jew” before snatching her shopping bag and “spilling her shopping onto the pavement whilst laughing.” That incident followed a woman wielding a wooden stick approaching a Jewish woman near the Seven Sisters area and declaring “I am doing it because you are Jew,” while striking her over the head and pouring liquid on her. The next day, the same woman — described by an eyewitness as a “serial racist” — chased a mother and her baby with a wooden stick after spraying liquid on the baby. That same week, three people accosted a Jewish teenager and knocked his hat off his head while yelling “f—king Jew.”
According to an Algemeiner review of Metropolitan Police Service data, 2,383 antisemitic hate crimes occurred in London between October 2023 and October 2024, eclipsing the full-year totals of 550 in 2022 and 845 in 2021. The problem is so serious that city officials created a new bus route to help Jewish residents “feel safe” when they travel.
“Jewish Londoners have felt scared to leave their homes,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan told The Jewish Chronicle in a statement about the policy decision earlier this year. “So, this direct bus link between these two significant communities [Stamford Hill in Hackney and Golders Green in Barnet, areas with two of the biggest Jewish communities in London] means you can travel on the 310, not need to change, and be safe and feel safer. I hope that will lead to more Londoners from these communities using public transport safely.”
Khan added that the route “connects communities, connects congregations” and would reassure Jewish Londoners they would be “safe when they travel between these two communities.”
However, it doesn’t solve the problem at hand — an explosion of antisemitism unlike anything seen in the Western world since World War II. Just this week, according to a story by GB News, an unknown group scattered leaflets across the streets of London which threatened that “every Zionist needs to leave Britain or be slaughtered.”
Responding to this latest incident, the director of the Jewish civil rights group StandWithUs UK Isaaz Zarfati told GB News that the comments should be taken “seriously.”
“We are witnessing a troubling trend of red lines being repeatedly crossed,” he said. “This is not just another wave that will pass if we remain passive. We must take those threats and statement seriously because they will one day turn into actions, and decisive steps are needed to combat this alarming phenomenon.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Jewish Girls Attacked in London With Glass Bottles in Antisemitic Outrage first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login