Uncategorized
‘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.
—
The post ‘An American Tail’ musical adaptation hopes its Jewish immigration story will resonate in 2023 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
UAE Leaves OPEC in Blow to Global Oil Producers’ Group
Ships and boats in the Strait of Hormuz, Musandam, Oman, April 22, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
The United Arab Emirates on Tuesday said it was quitting OPEC, dealing a blow to the oil producers’ group as an unprecedented energy crisis caused by the Iran war exposes discord among Gulf nations.
The exit of the UAE – one of the group’s biggest producers – weakens OPEC’s control over global oil supplies and widens a rift between the UAE and its neighbor Saudi Arabia, effectively the leader of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
It could also free the UAE to increase output once exports via the Gulf resume as it would no longer be governed by OPEC quotas.
In his first public comments since the announcement, UAE Energy Minister Suhail Mohamed al-Mazrouei told Reuters in a telephone interview that the decision was taken after examining the country’s energy strategies.
He said the UAE had not discussed the issue with any other country.
“This is a policy decision, it has been done after a careful look at current and future policies related to level of production,” Mazrouei said.
UAE WILL LEAVE ON MAY 1
He also said the world would demand more energy, implying the UAE would be positioned to meet that need.
Oil prices on international markets trimmed gains on Tuesday following the UAE‘s announcement it would on May 1 leave OPEC and OPEC+, which brings together OPEC and allied producers.
Mazrouei said he did not expect much immediate market impact from the news because of constraints in the Strait of Hormuz.
OPEC Gulf producers have been struggling to ship exports through the Strait, a chokepoint between Iran and Oman through which a fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes, because of Iranian threats and attacks against vessels.
As Gulf supplies have become stuck, the International Energy Agency said OPEC+’s share of global oil output fell to 44% in March from about 48% in February. It is likely to fall further in April as production shut-ins become more pronounced – and then further in May as the fourth biggest producer leaves the group.
A WIN FOR US PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP?
The UAE‘s exit represents a win for US President Donald Trump, who in a 2018 address to the UN General Assembly accused the organization of “ripping off the rest of the world” by inflating oil prices.
Trump has also linked US military support for the Gulf with oil prices, saying that while the US defends OPEC members, they “exploit this by imposing high oil prices.”
Analysts said it was also positive for consumers and the broader economy.
“This opens the door for the UAE to gain global market share when the geopolitical situation normalizes,” said Monica Malik, chief economist at ADCB.
Jorge Leon, analyst at Rystad, noted the UAE‘s significance as one of the few members of OPEC, apart from Saudi Arabia, with spare production capacity that allows it to add extra oil to the market.
“Outside the group, the UAE would have both the incentive and the ability to increase production, raising broader questions about the sustainability of Saudi Arabia’s role as the market’s central stabilizer,” he said.
WIDENING RIFT BETWEEN UAE AND SAUDI ARABIA
Once firm allies, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh have developed a simmering rivalry, clashing on issues from oil policy and regional geopolitics to the race for foreign talent and capital.
The UAE is a regional business and financial hub and one of Washington’s most important allies. It has pursued an assertive foreign policy and carved its own sphere of influence across the Middle East and Africa.
Especially after coming under attack during the Iran war, the UAE has strengthened its relationships with the United States and Israel, with which it opened ties in the 2020 Abraham Accords. It views the relationship with Israel as a lever for regional influence and a unique channel to Washington.
Some Gulf leaders, meanwhile, met in person on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia, a summit that a Gulf official said aimed to craft a response to the thousands of Iranian missile and drone strikes their nations have faced since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran in late February.
Uncategorized
University of California Regent ‘Disgusted’ by UCLA Student Government for Condemning Israeli Hostage Event
Former hostage Omer Shem Tov speaks, as people celebrate at the “Hostages square,” after US President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Hamas agreed on the first phase of a Gaza ceasefire, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Oct. 9, 2025. Photo: Shir Torem via Reuters Connect
A member of the University of California system’s governing body has lambasted the Los Angeles campus’ student government for writing an open letter which condemned a university-sponsored event headlined by an Israeli who survived being kidnapped and held hostage by Hamas in the aftermath of the Palestinian terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
Jay Sures, who sites on UC’s Board of Regents, on Friday sent a searing letter to UCLA’s Undergraduate Student Association, saying he was “disgusted and appalled” by their condemnation of the April 14 event and refusal to consider different opinions.
“Talk about a missed opportunity. Rather than hearing the perspective of a 23-year-old peer abducted by terrorists at a music festival … those of you who voted for the letter of condemnation chose not to listen at all,” Sures wrote. “You claim you want balance in programming and more than a ‘single narrative’ from speakers at UCLA. Balance, by definition, inherently involves equal consideration of more than one point of view. By condemning this speaker’s public appearance on our campus, your words and actions make clear you have no interest in balance at all.”
He added, “That is the biggest double standard of all.”
UCLA’s undergraduate student government issued its missive after learning that Omer Shem Tov would be speaking on campus as a guest of the campus’ Hillel International chapter.
Shem Tov, who was a college student at the time of his abduction, endured 505 days as a prisoner of Hamas and was one of 168 people who survived captivity throughout the duration of the war in Gaza. He has been speaking across the US about his experience, and his scheduled talk at UCLA stood to be routine until the student government resolved to argue that his being on campus would threaten Muslim students.
“While we affirm the humanity of people impacted by violence, we reject the selective platforming of narratives that obscure the broader reality of ongoing state violence,” said the letter, which also included false accusations of a genocide of Palestinians. “Institutional sponsorship of this event reflects a troubling disregard for Palestinian life and contribute to a campus climate in which Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students are further marginalized, silenced, and harmed.”
It continued, “Universities must not be complicit in the production or amplification of one-sided narratives that erase systems of oppression and occupation. USAC has and continues to stand in unwavering solidarity with Palestinian students and all those impacted by state violence and displacement.”
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists kidnapped 251 hostages during their Oct. 7 onslaught, which included systematic sexual violence against Israeli civilians and the murder of 1,200 people — the biggest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
Sures was not the only member of the University of California community who spoke out against UCLA’s student government,
“Members of the UCLA student government have once again shown they are anti-dialogue, anti-learning, anti-truth, anti-student, and anti-Jewish and antisemitic in condemning our beautiful event last week with Omer Shem Tov,” Hillel at UCLA told the Daily Bruin in a statement.
Meanwhile a Jewish member of the student government who helped organize the event with Shem Tov alleged that the body intentionally elected to vote to release the letter on a day she could not be present.
In another stinging rebuke, UCLA issued its own statement praising the event, which went on as planned, for promoting a “message … of resilience and respect for human rights and dignity.”
UCLA has taken efforts to combat campus antisemitism and anti-Zionist extremism, but it stands against the current of an overwhelmingly anti-Zionist student body and faculty.
In February 2025, some 50 members of the university’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter, joined by Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine, amassed on the property of Sures’s private home and threatened that he must “divest now or pay.” As part of the demonstration, the students imprinted their hands, which had been submerged in red paint to symbolize the spilling of blood, all over Sures’s garage door and cordoned the area with caution tape.
That same month, a Jewish faculty group at the university issued an open letter calling attention to a slew of indignities to which they have been subjected since the Oct. 7 attack. It enumerated a litany of falsehoods spread about Jews by a task force created to study anti-Arab bigotry on the campus — including that Jewish faculty have conspired to undermine academic freedom with “coordinated repression,” promoted the interests of conservative groups, and harmed minority students by opposing “racial justice.”
Several months later, the university announced a grand initiative to fight antisemitism head on, calling the current moment an “inflection point.”
Said UCLA chancellir Dr. Julio Frenk, “Building on past efforts and lessons, we must now push ourselves to extinguish antisemitism, completely and definitively. The principles on which UCLA was founded — and which we continue to advance — point us toward a clear course of action: We must persevere in our fight to end hate, however it manifests itself.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
Uncategorized
King Charles Promotes US-UK Unity in Speech to Congress Amid Iran Tensions
Britain’s King Charles addresses a joint meeting of Congress, next to US Vice President JD Vance and US House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), in the House Chamber of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, April 28, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Kylie Cooper/Pool
Britain’s King Charles told the US Congress on Tuesday that despite an age of uncertainty and conflict in Europe and the Middle East, the UK and the US will always be staunch allies united in defending democracy, at a time of deep divisions between the two long-time allies over the war with Iran.
“Whatever our differences, whatever disagreements we may have, we stand united in our commitment to uphold democracy, to protect all our people from harm, and to salute the courage of those who daily risk their lives in the service of our countries,” Charles told US lawmakers during a rare speech to a joint meeting of the US Senate and US House of Representatives, and after a prolonged standing ovation at his entrance with Queen Camilla.
Charles’ address came on the second day of a four-day state visit to the US during a tense time in relations between the two countries, after US President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer for what Trump says is his lack of help in prosecuting the Iran war.
“I come here today with the highest respect for the United States Congress – this citadel of democracy created to represent the voice of all American people to advance sacred rights and freedoms,” Charles said.
Trump has said Starmer, who has won some plaudits at home for not joining the Iran offensive, was no Winston Churchill, while he belittled a later offer of military assistance to defend allies in the region.
Before his speech Charles met with top Republican and Democratic lawmakers after a morning visit to the White House with Camilla that included a closed-door meeting between the king and Trump. The events are part of a visit to the US designed to underscore ties forged between Britain and its former colony over the 250 years since American independence.
The king was only the second British sovereign to address the US Congress. His mother, Queen Elizabeth II, spoke to both houses in 1991.
TRUMP UNDERSCORES FRIENDSHIP
Earlier, during a ceremonial outdoor reception at the White House, Trump stressed the friendship that has evolved between Britons and Americans since their days as adversaries during the War of Independence and the “wounds of war” it caused.
“The soldiers who once called each other Redcoats and Yankees became the Tommies and the GIs who together saved the free world as brothers in arms and brothers in eternity,” the president said in a reference to World War II as hundreds of guests gathered on the South Lawn with the Washington Monument in the distance.
After escorting the king and queen to their limousine for departure from the White House, Trump told reporters, “It was a really good meeting. He’s a fantastic person. They’re incredible people and it’s a real honor.”
Addresses to joint meetings of Congress are generally reserved for the closest US allies or major world figures. The last was by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in July 2024.
As tensions between the two countries have grown over the US-Israeli offensive against Iran, an internal Pentagon email suggested Washington could review its support for Britain’s claim to the Falkland Islands.
The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that Britain’s ambassador to Washington, Christian Turner, had said that the only “special relationship” the US has is with “probably Israel” and that he disliked the phrase because it is “quite nostalgic” and it has a “lot of baggage about it.”
Asked about the report, a foreign office spokesperson said Turner was making “private, informal comments” to a group of teenage British students who visited the US in early February. “They are certainly not any reflection of the UK government’s position,” the spokesperson said.
TRUMP CRITICAL OF ALLIES
Trump’s administration has repeatedly criticized many of the US-led military alliance’s other members for not offering more assistance to US operations against Iran and pressed European countries into sharing more of the financial burden for supporting Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.
While written on the advice of the British government, much of the language and tone in the speech came from Charles himself, a Buckingham Palace source said.
Charles’ visit comes after a gunman tried to storm the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday that was attended by Trump, his wife, and much of his cabinet. They were rushed to safety by law enforcement.
Asked earlier at the White House how she was doing following the incident, Melania Trump replied: “Very well, thank you.”
Tuesday night’s state dinner will be the first at the White House since Trump had the East Wing torn down to make way for his planned ballroom. The East Wing for decades has been the official entrance for guests arriving for state dinners and other functions, and with the area now a construction zone, they will have to take a different route into the building.
Charles presented Trump with a framed facsimile of the 1879 design plans for the president’s Resolute Desk, the originals of which are in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London.
The Resolute Desk, located in the Oval Office, was created from the timbers of the British exploration ship HMS Resolute and presented to President Rutherford B. Hayes by Queen Victoria.
Trump gave the king a facsimile of a 1785 letter by John Adams, describing his reception by King George III as the first US ambassador to Britain at St. James’s Palace and their mutual pledges of friendship following American independence.