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‘An American Tail’ musical adaptation hopes its Jewish immigration story will resonate in 2023
(JTA) — Itamar Moses was 10 years old when he watched “An American Tail” at his Jewish day school in California. He was struck by the 1986 film, an animated musical about a family of Russian-Jewish mice who immigrate to America. Even though he was surrounded by Jewish classmates and teachers, he had never seen a cartoon with Jewish protagonists.
“Watching this mainstream hit American animated movie where the central character and the central family were specifically Jewish — it was unusual,” Moses told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I think there was something that felt inclusive to us about that.”
Now a Tony Award-winning playwright, Moses has adapted the children’s classic for the stage. “An American Tail the Musical” will premiere at the Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis on April 25 and run through June 18. Along with writing by Moses, who won his Tony for a Broadway adaptation of the Israeli film “The Band’s Visit,” the new production features familiar songs such as “Somewhere Out There” and new music and lyrics by Michael Mahler and Alan Schmuckler (“Diary of a Wimpy Kid the Musical”). The team hopes to tour the show if it has success in Minneapolis.
The original film created by Don Bluth and Steven Spielberg follows the journey of a young, tenacious mouse named Fievel Mousekewitz. Fievel’s family lives below the human Moskowitz family in Shostka, a city in the Russian Empire, in 1885. Spielberg, who had yet to make “Schindler’s List” or widely address his Jewish family history, named the character after his maternal grandfather — Phillip or “Fievel” Posner — an immigrant from Russia.
The movie begins with the Mousekewitzes and the Moskowitzes celebrating Hanukkah when Cossacks tear through Shostka in an antisemitic pogrom, together with their animal counterparts — a battery of evil cats. The Mouskewitzes flee Europe and board a ship to America, where Papa Mouskewitz (voiced by Nehemiah Persoff) promises “there are no cats” and “the streets are paved with cheese.” But a thunderstorm at sea washes Fievel overboard, leaving his devastated parents and sister to arrive in New York City without him. Although they believe he did not survive, Fievel floats to shore in a bottle and sets out to find his family.
Of course, he quickly learns there are cats in America — along with corruption and exploitation. Fievel is sold to a sweatshop by Warren T. Rat, a cat disguised as a rat. A crooked mouse politician called Honest John (a caricature of the real Tammany Hall boss John Kelly) wanders Irish wakes, scribbling dead mice’s names in his list of “ghost votes.” But Fievel finds camaraderie with other immigrant mice rallying for freedom from the cats’ attacks and Warren T. Rat’s extortion. He befriends Italian mouse Tony and Irish mouse Bridget, who join the quest to reunite his family.
The film’s metaphors will be presented similarly in the stage version, which is also set in the 1880s, although Moses has expanded its lens on the immigrant groups that populated New York at the time. The musical will incorporate more “mice” communities, such as Chinese, Caribbean and Scandinavian mice, along with African Americans and former slaves.
A scene from rehearsal. (Kaitlin Randolph)
“An American Tail” was part of a shift in mainstream media toward Jewish representation, said Jennifer Caplan, an assistant professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Cincinnati who has studied this cultural change.
“It came out in 1986, and then ‘Seinfeld’ premiered in 1989,” Caplan told the JTA. “People point to 1989 as this moment when representations of Jews changed. There was this feeling in the late ‘80s that people were looking for new, different, possibly even more explicit representations of Jews.”
Yet despite the movie’s resonance with children like Moses, some film critics complained that it wasn’t Jewish enough. Critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave the film “two thumbs down” on a 1986 episode of their program “At The Movies,” calling it “way too depressing” for children and arguing that it “chickened out” of an explicitly Jewish story. Ebert noted that while most adults would understand the Mousekewitzes were Jewish, the word “Jewish” never appears in the film, potentially leaving young audiences in the dark.
“This seems to be a Jewish parable that doesn’t want to declare itself,” he said at the time.
Unlike in Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel “Maus,” where Jews are mice and Nazis are cats, the cat-and-mouse metaphor of “An American Tail” is expansive. The cats represent a universal force of oppression — Cossacks in Russia or capitalists in America — while the mice encompass all persecuted immigrants, regardless of their religion, ethnicity or national origin.
Caplan admitted that some might not have seen it as a Jewish story at the time.
“In 1986, we’re right at the birth of the multicultural push in American schools,” said Caplan. “You’ve got kids who are learning about the melting pot. I think if you are not looking for the coded Jewishness and you’re not familiar with it, then this just seems like a movie about immigrants.”
But Moses, who said the movie held a “mystical place” in his imagination, did not view the story’s broad allegory as a shortcoming. Instead, he saw an opportunity to pull its continuous thread for a message he hopes will feel relevant today: that while immigrants discover inequality and abuse in America, the forces of injustice are changeable, and that people can overcome life’s harsh realities through “grit and hard work and coming together.”
“That message is always timely, but definitely coming out of the last few years and the conversations that America is having about immigration,” said Moses. “I wanted to tell this story that’s really a fable, so you can get at these ideas indirectly as opposed to in a dry, didactic way.”
Jodi Eichler-Levine, a Jewish studies professor at Lehigh University, argued the tale’s success lies in being a “story of Jewish immigration that appeals to non-Jews as well” and called the movie a “fairytale about America.” It premiered 100 years after the Statue of Liberty’s dedication in 1886, amid centennial celebrations of the country’s immigration history. In the film, the statue comes alive, winking at Fievel and his sister once they find each other and look west at the vast expanse of the United States.
Itamar Moses won acclaim for adapting “The Band’s Visit” for Broadway. (Courtesy of Moses)
Whether viewers still buy into the optimistic crescendo of “An American Tail” remains to be seen. Do Americans still believe, as Moses hopes, that immigrants and oppressed peoples can unite to overthrow the tyrants of unfettered capitalism? A Gallup poll from February showed that Americans’ satisfaction with the country’s level of immigration has dropped to 28%, the lowest point in a decade.
Moses is betting that children’s theater has a way of refreshing themes adults have exhausted with political discourse. Children want to grapple with the ideas at the core of the show, he said, such as “the needs of the individual and the needs of the collective, the need to go out on your own but still remain connected to your family and your background.”
“The most successful material for kids tends to engage with real things that they’re thinking about and worrying about,” he said.
Today, another wave of families has fled Fievel’s hometown: though Shostka was part of the Russian Empire in the 19th century, it is now in the Sumy region of northeastern Ukraine. The Sumy Oblast was among the first regions stormed by Russian forces in February 2022 and continues to suffer daily shelling. Eichler-Levine expects that global refugee crises will only continue to broaden the appeal of a migration story.
“The ideas [in An American Tail] are sadly relevant for most of the planet right now, given that climate change and devastation from war are leading to another tremendous wave of global migration,” said Eichler-Levine.
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The post ‘An American Tail’ musical adaptation hopes its Jewish immigration story will resonate in 2023 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Cruz Calls for US to Join Israel, Taiwan in Recognizing Somaliland
US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaks during a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on April 15, 2026. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has renewed his calls for the Trump administration to recognize Somaliland as an independent and sovereign state, arguing the self-declared African republic would be a significant strategic partner if Washington were to formalize relations.
“Somaliland is a geo-strategic US maritime security partner in Africa,” Cruz said last week during a hearing on US counterterrorism approaches in Africa. “It sits along the Gulf of Aden near one of the world’s busiest shipping corridors and its forces actively contribute to counterterrorism and anti-piracy missions.”
Somaliland, which has claimed independence for decades in East Africa but remains largely unrecognized, is situated on the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden and bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, Ethiopia to the south and west, and Somalia to the south and east. It has sought to break off from Somalia since 1991 and utilized its own passports, currency, military, and law enforcement.
Unlike most states in its region, Somaliland has relative security, regular elections, and a degree of political stability.
“Somaliland stands with our allies, including Taiwan and Israel, and aligns with US interests in a region where China is aggressively expanding,” Cruz said. “Most recently, Israel’s decision to formally recognize Somaliland in December 2025 underscores its growing strategic relevance.”
In December, Israel recognized Somaliland’s independence, becoming the first UN-recognized country in the world to do so — Taiwan did in 2020 — while igniting a diplomatic firestorm in Somalia and dozens of Muslim nations which condemned the decision.
Israel announced the appointment of its first ambassador to Somaliland earlier this month. Less than two months earlier, the first official delegation from the self-declared African republic — 25 water sector workers — arrived in Israel for help on tackling their water crisis at home.
As for the US, Cruz noted that Gen. Dagvin Anderson, the Commander of US Africa Command, had met with partners in Somaliland last year “to assess the security environment and to review Berbera’s operational capacity.”
“This is the kind of partner we should be encouraging and one that will shape how we confront CT challenges in the Horn of Africa,” he added.
Anderson visited Somaliland’s capital Hargeisa and Berbera, the site of a rapidly developing trading port operated by Dubai’s DP World, one of the world’s top shipping and logistics companies which manages 10 percent of global container trade.
On Thursday, Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi visited the United Arab Emirates (UAE), responding to an official state invitation. The UAE has nurtured a longstanding relationship with Somaliland, previously supporting training for the country’s military in 2018. The deal for constructing the Berbera port will allow the UAE to maintain a presence for 30 years.
Israel’s recognition of Somaliland has “solidified a ‘Berbera Axis’ (Israel-UAE-Ethiopia) centered on port access and maritime monitoring,” according to an analysis by Marie de Vries, a researcher at the French think tank La Fondation Méditerranéenne D’études Stratégiques (Mediterranean Foundation for Strategic Studies), or FMES. In contrast, she added, a “Mogadishu Axis” has emerged due to a partnership of Somalia with Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia
Cruz’s comments came after US Rep. John Rose (R-TN) told The Algemeiner that he supported the US recognizing Somaliland.
“I think it’s also an important element that this is a relatively well-functioning democracy, and we think the United States should encourage that,” said Rose, who also touted the strategic benefits for the US. He introduced legislation to push the US government to study boosting economic ties with Somaliland.
Cruz addressed the arguments of those who oppose recognition of Somaliland in last week’s hearing.
“Critics argue that recognizing Somaliland could introduce new CT [counterterrorism] risks or undermine our posture in Mogadishu. I would argue the opposite,” Cruz said. “Working with a capable, willing partner like Somaliland strengthens our posture, particularly when Somalia itself continues to struggle with instability and persistent terrorist threats.”
Nick Checker, senior official in the US State Department’s Bureau of Africa Affairs who testified at the hearing, said that while Somaliland has been a “very good partner” on counterterrorism, US President Donald Trump’s current position is not to support formal recognition.
“I certainly agree with you that Somaliland has been a very good partner CT and otherwise with the United States. We’ve had a positive relationship with both them and other member states,” Checker said. “But you know the policy of the administration for now is that we do continue to recognize, as you know, the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the federal government of Somalia. But within that framework, we still do obviously look for opportunities to deepen our cooperation with Somaliland.”
Cruz expressed optimism that Trump would change his position.
“Well, I think the implications would be strengthening an ally, and I think clarity is powerfully effective in foreign policy and national security,” Cruz responded. “And I think that is an approach that President Trump has embodied. So, I have a high level of optimism that by the end of this term, President Trump will recognize Somaliland.”
Cruz previously called on Trump to recognize Somaliland in an August 2025 letter.
Somaliland “has proposed hosting a US military presence near the Red Sea along the Gulf of Aden and is open to critical minerals agreements that would support our supply chain resilience,” Cruz wrote in his letter. “The US-Somaliland partnership is robust, and it is deepening.”
Somaliland says it has significant mineral resources, and officials have expressed a willingness to offer the US a strategic military base at the entrance to the Red Sea and critical minerals as part of a deal that would include formal recognition.
However, China has strongly opposed any such moves.
“The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is using economic and diplomatic coercion to punish Somaliland for its support for Taiwan, as well as to undermine that support,” Cruz wrote in last year’s letter. “The government of Somalia has played an unfortunate role in these efforts: In April 2025, the CCP arranged for Somalia to bar Taiwanese passport holders from transiting into Somaliland, and Chinese support to Somalia is benefiting anti-Somaliland groups working to erode its sovereignty.”
China’s embassy in Somalia released a statement in response to Cruz’s letter declaring that Beijing “firmly opposes this misconduct. Senator Cruz’s remarks constitute serious interference in the internal affairs of Somalia and reflect the hegemonic and bullying attitude of certain US politicians towards the Somali people.”
Cruz referenced China’s response during last week’s hearing.
“Unsurprisingly, the Chinese Communist Party immediately condemned my letter, which only shows how important Somaliland is to US national security,” he said.
De Vries described in her FMES report that “recognition of Somaliland risks normalizing Taiwan’s presence in a region where China has heavily invested in ports, telecommunications, and security partnerships. China’s reaction is driven less by the legal status of Somaliland than by a broader strategic calculus focused on preventing Taiwanese visibility and safeguarding Djibouti’s role as a primary regional hub.”
China established its first overseas military base in Djibouti in 2017.
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‘Scarier Than the Holocaust’: Survivor of Nazi Camps, Oct. 7 Dies at 92
Daniel Louz speaks at Auschwitz-Birkenau as part of the annual March of the Living, May 2024. Photo: Screenshot
Less than two weeks after lighting a Holocaust Remembrance Day torch and saying the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel was scarier than the Nazis’ genocide of European Jews, Daniel Louz, who escaped Nazi persecution as a child and survived the Hamas massacre at Kibbutz Be’eri eight decades later, has died at 92.
The nonagenarian lit a torch at the Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, where the annual Holocaust and Heroism Memorial Rally has been held for decades. In an interview with the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper before the ceremony, he spoke prophetically – and with humor – about his declining health.
“You see me happy and smiling in the photo, but my health is really not good,” he said. “Soon I will have to return my soul to the Creator, but I make an effort for the camera.”
Born in France, Louz was a child when Nazi Germany invaded in 1940. He and his family were held in three concentration camps in France, separated for years between different camps, with his mother and sister in one place and his father in another. The family survived, but most of his relatives, including 10 aunts and uncles and two cousins, did not.
Two years ago, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, Louz visited Auschwitz-Birkenau with the annual March of the Living, where he also took part in a torch-lighting ceremony.
Louz immigrated to Israel in 1949. He first lived on Kibbutz Nirim in the Negev and later made his home at Kibbutz Be’eri.
“I began to breathe again,” Louz said of the move to Israel.
Louz described the events of Oct. 7, 2023, in Be’eri, one of the communities hit hardest during the Hamas-led attack. On Oct. 6, like many Be’eri residents, Louz marked the kibbutz’s anniversary. The next morning, Hamas terrorists stormed the community. Of the kibbutz’s roughly 1,200 residents, 101 were murdered and 30 were kidnapped. Hundreds of homes were destroyed and more than two years later, most of the community is still living elsewhere.
Louz was inside his home as the attack unfolded.
“We were already hostages in our own home, when Hamas terrorists entered the kibbutz,” he said.
“It was a deathly fear. It was even scarier than I remember as a child during that war,” he added.
Louz said he had not recovered from the trauma of the attack and expressed his hope for an end to war, adding that while he no longer believed he would live to see peace himself, he hoped his grandchildren would.
At Birkenau, Louz tied the memory of the Holocaust directly to the massacre in southern Israel.
“We, the survivors of the Holocaust, who established a home and a state – that constitute our great victory over the Nazis and antisemitism – light this torch in memory of those who perished in the Holocaust, and in memory of those murdered on Oct. 7,” he said, his voice shaking.
Approximately 2,500 Holocaust survivors were in areas directly affected by Oct 7, according to Israel’s Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs. Roughly 2,000 of these survivors were forced to evacuate their homes from the Gaza envelope and northern Israel due to the subsequent war.
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An Indiana town had no Jewish cemetery. When its mayor died, it built one
When Marcus Levy died in Aurora, Indiana, in September 1871, the city gathered.
Levy was 63 years old, a native of Prague, and the mayor of Aurora. After the upheavals of 1848, he left Europe and arrived in New York a stranger and without means before making his way west. He came to Aurora around 1855 and, over the years, served as city treasurer, county treasurer, school trustee, and then mayor at the time of his death.
He was unmarried and died a poor man after a failed business investment. At his funeral, one fraternal resolution noted the “entire absence of any one related to him by blood.” But he did not die unknown. He had, as The Israelite newspaper of Cincinnati put it, gained the respect of those around him through “his integrity, his talents, and his goodness of heart, both in his private and public life.”
His funeral was held in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the largest building in town. Rabbi Goldammer of Cincinnati had traveled roughly 40 miles to Aurora to officiate. When Levy’s death was announced, one local report noted, “the grief of his friends and the public at large was no less poignant.”
Aurora marked the death formally. The town council recorded its “unfeigned sorrow,” described Levy as “a competent, faithful, and honest public official,” ordered Council Hall draped in mourning for 30 days, and directed city officers to attend the funeral as a group.
At 1 p.m., according to an account of the day, the services began. The church was filled to capacity, and probably more than half of those who came could not get in. One account estimated the attendance at more than 4,000 people.
Then the procession formed.
A German band led. The Aurora lodge of Masons followed in full regalia. Then came the Odd Fellows lodges, also in regalia. Another band. The hearse. Ladies and gentlemen “of the Jewish faith” in carriages. Citizens on foot.
The procession moved under direction through the city to River View Cemetery. One account said it extended nearly three miles. Another called it the largest funeral procession Aurora had ever seen.
At the graveside, rites were performed. The Masons and Odd Fellows conducted their fraternal ceremonies. Afterward, Rabbi Goldammer read the Jewish funeral service.
‘The wind is favorable’
The burial itself had nearly taken place elsewhere.
Because Aurora’s Jewish population numbered just four families, local Jews had first agreed to send Levy’s remains to Cincinnati, where there was an established Jewish cemetery.
But Aurora resisted that plan. According to one report, the “impressive desire of the community” was to keep within the city “as a dear memory” the remains of the man they had respected for so many years. Another account stated Levy’s friends in the city, “irrespective of religious belief,” insisted that he should be buried where he had spent so much of his life.
And so he was.
Levy was interred in River View Cemetery, and Rabbi Goldammer consecrated the ground. Yet the work did not end with the funeral. Rabbi Isaac M. Wise later explained that the Jews of Aurora and neighboring Lawrenceburgh, “few in numbers,” attempted to purchase three adjoining lots so that Levy’s grave might become part of a Jewish burial ground.
A second effort followed: to place “an appropriate monument” above Levy’s grave.
To raise the money, local Jews turned outward. Wise wrote that Abram Epstein and Joseph Meyer of Aurora took the matter in hand and invited him to lecture in the city for the benefit of the monument fund. Wise had refused other outside engagements that winter, but he went to Aurora on Jan. 20, 1873.
The lecture was held in the Presbyterian church. Its pastor, the Rev. A.W. Freeman, with the unanimous consent of his congregation, offered the building for the occasion. Wise described it as “a very pleasant and spacious building.” Before the lecture, Freeman’s daughter played the organ, and four local vocalists, including “one of the most respected bankers of the place and his lady,” sang a quartet.
Though revival meetings were underway in two other churches that same evening, Wise said the church was well filled with “a highly intelligent class of people,” who listened patiently for an hour and a quarter as he lectured on episodes from Jewish history and the world’s progress since then.
Afterward, Freeman, who had introduced Wise, rose and proposed a vote of thanks, which was unanimously approved.
Wise did not know how much money had been raised. He hoped only that the work would continue until the fund was sufficient to erect “a respectable monument” to Levy. He added that he would willingly serve again for that purpose.
A local writer had remarked that the event would be a curious spectacle, a Jewish rabbi speaking in a Christian church before a Christian audience. Wise rejected the novelty. There was nothing peculiar in it, he wrote, for one “to whom all men are equals whatever their creeds, languages, or places of nativity may be.” He added, “We worship one God and love one human family,” and told readers afterward, “We are steering in that direction, and the wind is favorable.”
In Aurora, a Jewish mayor died, and the town did not send him away.
They buried him and then worked to mark the ground.
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