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Alleging exclusion, Jewish faculty boycott James Madison University’s Holocaust commemoration event
(JTA) — An event that took place at a Virginia university Thursday night to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day was scheduled to feature lectures about the legacies of Auschwitz and the intersection between white supremacy and antisemitism. There was also a planned recitation of a poem and a musical performance.
Not on the docket at James Madison University: support for the event from the school’s Jewish faculty and staff.
Dozens of them announced in an open letter that they would boycott the event, titled “An Evening Conversation on the History and Legacy of the Holocaust,” citing concerns about its appropriateness. Of particular concern, according to multiple people familiar with the situation, was a planned performance by the university’s provost, a pianist, during a segment titled “Music as Refuge in the Holocaust.”
“There was no refuge for those targeted by the ‘Final Solution,’” said the open letter, which was unsigned but said it had the support of “24 of Jewish JMU Faculty, Faculty Emeriti, and Staff.”
The letter, which the school’s student newspaper The Breeze published Thursday morning, said the planning of the Holocaust event had “disrespected and disparaged Jewish individuals, dismissed Jewish participation and failed to reflect the inclusive values that JMU purports to foster.” The letter criticized the university’s decision to invite keynote speakers from other universities and the rabbi of a neighboring community to give a community address, rather than centering James Madison personnel or the local rabbi.
That rabbi, Jeffrey Kurtz-Lendner of Beth El Congregation of Harrisonburg, said the event had been planned with little to no input from Jews, and that three Jews who were added to the planning committee late in the process later resigned en masse.
In an interview, Kurtz-Lendner compared the event to “a Martin Luther King observance planned by an entire committee of white people.” He said he was joining the boycott and not encouraging his congregants, who include James Madison professors, to attend. He said the rabbi listed on the original program, from a Reform synagogue about 30 miles away in Staunton, would not attend, either.
“The program looks wholly insensitive,” he said. “Instead of being a commemoration of the Holocaust, it looks like it’s turning into an opportunity for celebration.”
That idea appeared to be rooted in the inclusion of music during the event. Maura Hametz, the Jewish chair of the university’s history department, said she had successfully argued against including instrumental music during last year’s commemoration, citing prohibitions in Jewish tradition against instrumental music in times of mourning.
“Biblically we don’t use instrumental music, as Jews,” to commemorate the Holocaust, she said. “If you use the instruments, it’s a celebration.” The proposal to include a musical interlude, she said, also had a history in “medieval church music, so that doesn’t track with what is good for us.”
The belief that Holocaust commemorations cannot include music is not universally held; some commemorations have featured music written by Jewish composers as acts of resistance or remembrance. International Holocaust Remembrance Day was created by the United Nations in 2005 as a way to mourn all victims of the Holocaust, distinct from Yom HaShoah, the Jewish holiday that takes place in April and was established by the Israeli government to commemorate specifically Jewish Holocaust victims.
Still, Hametz had made the case against music last year, so when she saw that this year’s event was again scheduled to include musical selections, she said, “It did surprise me.” She ultimately decided to boycott the event and sign the open letter.
The boycott was supported by one of the university centers sponsoring the event, the Mahatma Gandhi Center for Global Nonviolence. Its director, Taimi Castle, issued a statement to the student newspaper saying the center would “spend time reflecting on how we can support the Jewish community at JMU in addressing the harm caused by these actions.”
A James Madison University spokesperson said Thursday that the event itself was still scheduled to proceed as intended that evening. The university said it had reached out to “a spokesperson for this group” of critics and planned to hold a meeting “to gain further understanding and collectively work on a path forward.”
The episode comes amid broad questions about the role of Jews in efforts to promote diversity and inclusion in universities and workplaces. Jewish critics of the emerging field of diversity, equity and inclusion have charged that antisemitism is not always treated as similarly offensive to racism or homophobia, despite also being rooted in hatred based on identity. The Jewish open letter signers also cited a recent statewide report on antisemitism in Virginia as reason to take their concerns about Jewish representation at the university seriously.
James Madison’s Holocaust Remembrance Day event was sponsored in part by the university’s equity and inclusion office, and the associate provost for inclusive strategies and equity initiatives was scheduled to deliver opening remarks and also moderate a question-and-answer session at the event’s end.
“This event is to create an opportunity for people to learn about the lived experiences of others and honor the Holocaust Remembrance Day through educational and solemn means,” Malika Carter-Hoyt, the school’s vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion, said in a statement provided to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The statement did not mention Jews or antisemitism.
Carter-Hoyt said she hadn’t received “any notice about these concerns” prior to the letter.
“I acknowledge the letter and express compassion toward the concerns outlined by faculty,” Carter-Hoyt said. But she also defended the planning and suggested that having Jews on the planning committee had not been a specific university priority.
“Committee members were selected based on substantive expertise and commitment to the creation of an event that properly marks the occasion,” she wrote. “No one was included or excluded explicitly based on a particular protected characteristic.”
James Madison University, located in Harrisonburg, is a public college with about 21,000 students. About 1,200 of them are Jewish, according to Hillel International, which offers some services on campus but does not have a building or rabbi there. Efforts to reach anyone affiliated with JMU Hillel were unsuccessful. The chapter’s vice president was listed as a participant on the evening’s program, scheduled to read a poem by Primo Levi, an Italian Holocaust survivor.
The school also does not have a Jewish studies department, despite what Hametz said had been extensive lobbying by faculty members to establish one. Alan Berger, who launched Jewish studies departments at Syracuse and Florida Atlantic universities, was billed as a keynote speaker at the event Thursday.
James Madison’s provost Heather Coltman, who was scheduled to play piano at the Holocaust memorial event and also previously worked at Florida Atlantic University, has an uneasy relationship with the school’s faculty. This week the faculty senate sought to condemn her for reportedly retaliating against the authors of a report on transparency at the school.
While there are courses taught on Jewish topics, the lack of a separate department means that Jewish representation on campus is limited, Hametz said.
“There is no spokesperson here for the Jewish community,” she said. “There’s no central voice to say, ‘Hey, why is this happening? How is it possible that you go ahead with a Holocaust event with no Jewish people on the committee?’”
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The post Alleging exclusion, Jewish faculty boycott James Madison University’s Holocaust commemoration event appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran Soccer Federation President Uncertain on Country’s Participation in FIFA World Cup After US-Israel Strikes
Soccer Football – FIFA World Cup – Trophy arrives in Mexico – Felipe Angeles International Airport, Zumpango, Mexico – February 27, 2026 General view of the FIFA World Cup trophy. Photo: REUTERS/Luis Cortes
It remains unclear if Iran’s national soccer team will participate in the 2026 FIFA World Cup this summer following Saturday’s surprise attacks by the US and Israel on the Islamic Republic, Iran Football Federation President Mehdi Taj admitted over the weekend.
“What is certain is that after this attack, we cannot be expected to look forward to the World Cup with hope,” Taj told the sports portal Varzesh3, according to the Associated Press.
Iran is set to compete in Group G at the World Cup and is scheduled to face New Zealand on June 15 and Belgium on June 21, both in Los Angeles, before going head-to-head against Egypt on June 26 in Seattle.
The World Cup will be held across the US, Canada, and Mexico from June 11 to July 19.
Soccer fans from Iran are already barred from entering the United States for the World Cup as part of a travel ban that the Trump administration announced in June.
FIFA has not commented on Iran’s participation in this summer’s World Cup. Speaking on Saturday at the International Football Association Board’s annual general meeting in Cardiff, Wales, FIFA Secretary General Mattias Grafstrom reportedly said: “We had a meeting today and it is premature to comment in detail, but we will monitor developments around all issues around the world.”
The US and Israel launched joint airstrikes against Iran on Saturday that led to the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several other high-ranking Iranian officials.
Iran has retaliated with strikes against Israel as well as US military bases and civilian areas across the Middle East, including in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain. Israel is also carrying out strikes in Lebanon and the Israel Defense Forces announced that it has eliminated Hussein Makled, the head of Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters.
On Sunday, the Qatar football federation announced that it was suspending all competitions, tournaments and matches “until further notice” following the US-Israel strikes on Iran. It added that “new dates for the resumption of competitions will be announced in due course.”
It remains unclear what will happen to the “Finalissima” match between Spain and Argentina, a friendly game that was scheduled to take place March 27 in Doha with potential well-known players including Lionel Messi and Lamine Yamal.
The Asian Football Confederation has similarly postponed continental club championship playoffs set to take place in the Middle East this week, and the AFC Champions League Elite games will be rescheduled.
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Iran’s Supreme Leader Is Dead. Now What?
A demonstrator lights a cigarette with fire from a burning picture of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei outside the Iranian embassy during a rally in support of nationwide protests in Iran, in London, Britain, Jan. 12, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Toby Melville
The strike that killed Iran’s supreme leader over the weekend has split opinion over whether it speeds a regime collapse, keeps the Islamic Republic intact under a new figurehead, or produces a tougher, security-run version of the same system.
Israeli officials are projecting confidence that the war is not stopping at the killing of Ali Khamenei and several dozen regime leaders under him. “[US President Donald] Trump intends to go all the way with this move,” one senior official told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. “He wants to replace the regime, and he has no intention of taking his foot off the gas.”
US officials familiar with intelligence assessments have voiced a more cautious view, pointing to serious skepticism that even if Iranians took to the streets, the country’s battered opposition would not have the power to topple the regime.
Publicly, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have framed the war as a moment of political opportunity. “I call upon all Iranian patriots who yearn for freedom to seize this moment and take back your country,” Trump said in a video posted on Truth Social. Netanyahu struck a similar note, saying Israel would create the conditions for “the brave Iranian people to liberate themselves from the chains of tyranny.”
Raz Zimmt, an Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said that the success of the US-Israeli strikes so far would not guarantee the end of the regime.
“You cannot topple a regime through aerial strikes alone,” he said during a briefing with reporters on Sunday, adding that “millions of Iranians” were needed to do that.
But after weeks of suppression during last month’s anti-government protests, he said, the Iranian public is “very much traumatized,” and it is hard to imagine mass demonstrations resuming while “missiles and jets are above their heads.” Even if crowds return, he said, a protest movement is still unlikely to succeed as long as the security forces preserve cohesion and the determination to fight.
“The majority of the Iranian people are not organized, have no leaders,” he said, adding that many potential leaders are “in jails and prisons all over Iran.” The security elite, he argued, has every reason to hold the line because many of its members believe that if the regime collapses it will not only destroy their interests but “might actually kill them as well.”
The Islamic Republic “probably enjoys the support of perhaps between 15 to 20 percent” of the population, Zimmt said, adding that that minority is still large enough in a country of roughly 90 million people to sustain a committed base, fill institutions, and provide manpower for coercion.
Zimmt called Khamenei’s death “the end of an era,” describing him as “the last Iranian revolutionary” and, in recent years, a bottleneck blocking real change.
The larger question, in Zimmt’s view, is whether Iran now moves toward constitutional change – of the kind seen after the death of Khamenei’s predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1989 – and a different governing model, that might pave the way for some kind of political transition.
“Perhaps not a regime change as all of us would like to see but perhaps some kind of a change from within the regime,” he said.
Zimmt said that after the 12-day war with Israel and the US in June, pragmatic voices in Iran argued the regime should adjust strategic objectives and prioritize domestic problems over regional commitments.
“But at the end of the day, Khamenei made a decision to change almost nothing,” he said.
According to The New York Times, Khamenei made a short list of figures he viewed as acceptable successors in the wake of the June war. It included Ali Asghar Hejazi, his long-serving chief of staff and who Israel said it killed in Saturday’s strike; Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, the head of Iran’s judiciary; and Hassan Khomeini, a grandson of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The younger Khomeini is seen as more moderate than Khameinei’s own son and potential successor, Mojtaba.
Zimmt said that while Mojtaba has support in the security establishment, “a hereditary succession would only deepen the [regime’s] crisis of legitimacy,” because the Islamic Republic was founded against dynastic succession.
Alireza Arafi, a senior cleric who was named to Iran’s interim leadership council after Khamenei’s death, is also in the mix.
But the identity of Iran’s next supreme leader may matter less, Zimmt argued, than who controls power around him.
He singled out the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as “a very, very influential player” not just in security and the military sphere but also in politics and the economy. In that environment, Zimmt suggested, the succession could preserve the appearance of continuity with another senior cleric far weaker than Khamenei as the public face while the IRGC and other security circles are the driving force.
Former Israeli Ambassador to Germany Jeremy Issacharoff, whose work has focused on strategic policy and arms control, cautioned it was too early to know how events would unfold and said Tehran’s next leadership could yet prove “even more fanatical” than the Khamenei-led one but expressed hope the events of the past few days could reshape the region’s long-term trajectory.
“This is an opportunity for Iran, it’s an opportunity for the region, and above all, it’s a major opportunity for Israel,” Issacharoff told The Algemeiner.
He added that, in the near term, he expects the military campaign to keep targeting the pillars of Iranian state power, including missile and nuclear infrastructure, as well as core internal-security nodes such as IRGC headquarters, the affiliated Basij milita, and the Interior Ministry.
“At the end of it we could see a very different type of relationship with Iran, with the Iranian people,” he said.
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At this Dallas synagogue, Purim comes with fog machines, zip lines and Broadway flair
(JTA) — Excited chatter and the rattling of noisemakers echoed throughout the halls of Congregation Shearith Israel as 900 people streamed into its Purim spiel Sunday morning.
But as similar festivities commenced at synagogues around the world, the congregants of the historic Conservative shul in Dallas knew they were in for something far more ambitious than the average holiday festivities.
A Purim spiel, Yiddish for “play,” is the comedic retelling of the Book of Esther for the holiday of Purim. At many synagogues, the production features a costume parade, Jewish parodies of popular songs and the annual megillah reading.
For the past eight years, however, the Purim performance at Shearith Israel has taken the form of a high-octane theatrical performance, featuring intricate set designs, original music, and a yearly stunt that has included its rabbi riding into the sanctuary on horseback and ziplining onto the stage.
This year, the performance featured confetti canons and a mechanical rig that lowered a child onto the stage behind a giant disco ball.
The congregation’s annual performance did not always resemble the elaborate, effects-laden production it is today. The spectacular is the brainchild of one of the synagogue’s senior rabbis, Adam Roffman, whose second act in the clergy followed an earlier stint in a musical theater in New York City.
“The Purim spiel is a love letter to the community,” Roffman said. “I work on this for, you know, close to 200 hours … it’s tedious, it’s difficult, but ultimately, what gets me over the hump of like, okay, it’s 11 o’clock at night, and I’ve been staring in front of my computer for the last five hours making a video, is I love these people.”
Melissa Goldberg, a congregant whose husband’s family had been members of Congregation Shearith Israel for five generations, said the spiel had become her family’s “favorite time of year.”
“I love it because it gives Rabbi Roffman a chance to create, to flex his creative muscles, so we don’t lose him to Broadway, because he can have his moment every year,” said Goldberg.
Roffman grew up in Baltimore attending a Jewish day school where he said he “idolized and worshiped” his rabbis before he was “bit by the bug” of musical theater in high school.
After graduating from Amherst College, Roffman studied musical theater at Circle in the Square Theater School in New York City and began his stint as an actor and director.
But a few years into the scene, Roffman said that he began to question whether the profession suited him.
“In my mid 20s, I found myself kind of realizing, like, it didn’t matter how much talent I had as an actor, the industry was not for me,” said Roffman. “When you’re an actor, you’re the president of Adam Roffman Inc, you have to fight for yourself all the time, and that just isn’t my personality, and what I was missing, I think, was sort of connection and community.”
So Roffman reengaged in the Jewish community, saying he became “addicted in the same way that I was when I started acting in high school.” His rediscovered passion soon inspired him to seek rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City.
After coming to Dallas to join Congregation Shearith Israel’s clergy with his wife, Rabbi Shira Wallach, in 2013, Roffman said the pair soon discovered that the local Jewish community had “tremendous institutional loyalty” and a unique commitment to Jewish life.
“They’re very cognizant of the fact that they are the minority here in the Bible Belt,” said Roffman. “This is a Christian place, and that gives them even more incentive to commit to their Judaism and to commit to being here, being present here.”
Roffman said he spent his first few years adjusting to the role before beginning to think about how to get back on the stage — even though, for him, the parallels between the two professions were endless.
“I think a lot about the overlap between Jewish practice and theater,” said Roffman. “I think of the prayer book as a script. It’s one of the oldest scripts written, I think, in human history, because it is a book of words written by somebody else that you have to open up and personalize and process.”
During his time at Shearith Israel, Roffman has performed two self-written autobiographical one-man-shows at local theaters, including “On Sunday the Rabbi Sang Sondheim” in 2017 and “Songs the Rabbi Shouldn’t Sing,” which he took a sabbatical to write in 2023.
In 2019, Roffman told his fellow rabbis that he would be taking over preparations for the Purim spiel.
It began fairly simple, with Roffman pulling off a Broadway-themed performance that featured him and Wallach singing songs from “Phantom of the Opera” as they rolled into the sanctuary in a canoe surrounded by fog.
Things escalated from there, with Roffman incorporating a “stunt” every year to outdo the last, including standing atop a cherrypicker for a “Lion King”-inspired spiel, riding into the sanctuary on a horse and ziplining above congregants’ heads for last year’s “Wicked” theme.
“We try and do something that nobody’s really ever seen before in a synagogue,” said Roffman. “But there’s a primary goal, really, which is that the people see their rabbis, all four of us on stage, really putting it out there and doing crazy stuff to show that we’re people too, and also to really build a connection between us and the people who are here.”
The buildup to the Purim spiel is a monthslong affair, with Roffman beginning to work on his concept in December. In the weeks leading up to the extravaganza, he said his colleagues rotate him out of leading Shabbat so he can focus his efforts on crafting the performance.
“Starting in January, I start to work on lyrics, and then four weeks out, basically what I do is I do lifecycle events, I teach on Shabbat, and that’s it,” said Roffman. “I’m spending another 40 or 50 hours a week just on Purim.”
Roffman said the performance was largely unconstrained by a budget, noting that “it could cost $20,000, and then it could be a lot more than that, and people would be OK with that.” He and others declined to say what was being spent on this year’s production.
“The people here are just extremely committed to Judaism and Jewish life and Jewish continuity, so the fact that this Purim show costs what it does, and people don’t blink an eye,” said Roffman.
During this year’s spiel, the congregation screamed and applauded as Queen Esther descended onto the stage in a giant disco ball suspended on a mechanical lift, a fog cannon blasting as she made her entrance.
Later in the performance, the clergy danced to Roffman’s parody of the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.,” complete with the lyric “It’s fun to pray to the yud hey vav hey,” a reference to the Hebrew name for God. Audience members lifted coordinated signs to spell out the letters in unison.
Rabbi Ari Sunshine, Roffman and Wallach’s co-senior rabbi, said the attendance to the spiel had more than doubled since the first year Roffman took over.
“We like to joke ‘we take our Purim fun seriously’ because we think that this is a great opportunity,” said Sunshine. “We know it’s one that people look forward to, we know it’s a great community-building experience.”
The spiel is not the only place where the synagogue has seen a surge in participation. Over the past five years, Shearith Israel’s religious school has gone from 60 students to 250.
“When we first came, the shul was kind of in a little bit of a downturn in terms of energy and membership,” said Wallach. “One of the things that was really important to Adam and me when we came is that we changed the culture so that it was really warm and embracing.”
Debbie Mack, who has belonged to Congregation Shearith Israel for 48 years, said the synagogue “wasn’t always as lively and as fun and youthful” as it feels today.
“Our children don’t live here, our grandchildren are not here, but we love coming to see all that the synagogue is now, and remember the difference between how it was and the way it is,” said Mack.
But even amid the spectacle, the story’s darker themes were not lost on congregants.
For Shiva Delrahim Beck, a Persian congregant who has attended the Shearith Israel Purim spiel for 12 years, this year had a special significance in the wake of joint U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran.
“For us, the story of Purim and the way that they did it at the spiel really brought to life the significance of Purim and modern day Purim, as it happened yesterday,” said Delrahim Beck. “So this was great for my family, and I could not be happier to be here.”
During the opening prayers for the performance, Wallach, Roffman’s wife and co-senior rabbi, drew parallels between the story of Purim and the burgeoning conflict in Iran.
“In that same way, our heroes of today are risking their lives so that we can continue to do what we are doing here, showing our love for and pride in Judaism and the Jewish people in Israel and all over the world,” said Wallach.
This year was not the first time that the spiel intersected with heavier themes. Last year, when the spiel’s theme was “Wicked,” Roffman played a montage of images of the Israeli hostages coming out of Gaza as the congregation’s cantor sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
“I think it really moved people,” said Roffman. “They weren’t expecting it, because they were there to laugh, but, you know, that’s the thing about theater. It sort of hits you in places that you don’t expect.”
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