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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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As voting nears, Israeli democracy is not healthy
When Israel’s Supreme Court upheld the right of Arab parties last week to run in the country’s Oct. 27 election, they didn’t only provide Israel’s 2 million-plus Arab citizens a reason to vote. They also sent yet another signal in the incredible noise of these elections: Israeli democracy is not healthy.
Every time Israel has held elections in the last two decades, this cycle repeats: The Central Elections Committee — a body mostly made up of politicians — bars Arab parties or candidates, the Supreme Court puts them back on the ballot, and the country congratulates itself that its democratic guardrails held up to the pressure. But when Israel’s political representatives think democracy means disqualifying parties representing 20% of its electorate, the guardrails are not holding. When that 20% of the electorate is told its voices are unwanted and its opinions suspect enough to ban, it is nearly impossible to call Israel a healthy democracy.
And there’s a deeper story here, too — one that came to a head in 2023, connected to the decades-long march of the populist far-right in Israel against the Supreme Court. Recall that one of the first things that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government did upon taking power was to announce a “judicial overhaul plan” built on the populist claim that the elected politicians are the only true representatives of the people, and the unelected, elitist, liberal-leftist Supreme Court ought to be subservient to them.
Since then, they have tried to eliminate the Court’s ability to review the quasi-constitutional Basic Laws, left the court’s top positions unfilled and languishing, and managed to pass a bill putting judicial appointments in political hands. In short, the Court is not simply a neutral referee in the fight over whether Arab parties can run. Its independence and authority are themselves at the center of Israel’s political struggle.
When the court restored Arab parties to the ballot, and liberals breathed a sigh of relief, the right went to work. It is telling its base that the Court, by simply upholding the most basic tenet of a democratic system — that parties be allowed to run regardless of their political positions — is in bed with the enemy: Arabs. In other words, it weaponizes the court ruling as proof of what it has been saying all along: that this is not the court of the Israeli people, it is the Arab’s court, the left’s court, and it must be brought to heel.
This is the double bind the Israeli Supreme Court has existed in for years. It is more hostage than guardrail. I have spent my career in Israeli civil society, and now lead an organization that funds a good deal of it, which is a long way of saying I have watched this cycle from close enough to know that the relief is a trap.
The court recognizes the part it plays in this game of political football, and it is caving to pressures and changing its own internal approach. The discussions it held last week were not limited to the Elections Committee’s decision to disqualify all the Arab parties. It went further. The court recommended Sami Abu Shehadeh of the Balad party withdraw his candidacy so that it would not have to disqualify him. Yes, Sami wrote an appalling article on Oct. 8 — one that I find deeply repugnant. But for many years, the court held that disqualification required extensive and consistent evidence of support for terrorism or opposition to democracy. On that basis, it allowed both Jewish and Arab candidates to run, even when they had written or said things that were unpopular, racist, or dangerous. And when it came to Abu Shehadeh, there was no solid evidence of a sustained pattern showing that he supported violence or opposed democratic principles. The court did not want to depart from its own precedent, but it could not withstand the pressure of public sentiment, so it asked Sami not to run. He withdrew.
It is clear to me that if Sami were Jewish, he would never have been disqualified. Jewish politicians have said things just as horrifying as he has, and they are consistently allowed to run. People fighting for Israeli democracy — both here in the U.S. and in Israel — can’t go to the mat for Israel’s democratic institutions without dealing with the essence of what democracy is.
In a democracy, the majority does not extend equality to the minority as a kindness. And for members of the minority, democracy is a bargain: You choose to live with the outcome because you had a real chance to shape it — by voting for politicians who represent your interests. With these bans, Israel asks two million citizens of the country to hold up their end of this bargain — to pay taxes and vote— while informing them every few years that the state’s end of the bargain is actually negotiable. That equality is not assured. That their parties could be barred from running.
Democracy is only more than a word if every citizen has both the right to vote and the right to govern. Israel simply is not a democracy if it fails to offer Palestinian citizens full participation. Period. Israel’s Palestinian citizens are not a test Israeli democracy has to pass, where the Supreme Court is a cheat code. Israel’s Palestinian citizens and their rights are what Israeli democracy ought to be made of.
Yes, it is a relief to know that Israel’s Supreme Court restored the Arab parties to the ballot, but we ought to notice what we are relieved about: that judges had to stop Israel’s elected representatives from cutting out a fifth of the electorate just five weeks before a general election. A democracy that has to be rescued from its own politicians on a regular basis is not a healthy one.
The post As voting nears, Israeli democracy is not healthy appeared first on The Forward.
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‘Remember 7.10.23’: In Israel, Hostage Square bears few remnants of a national crisis – but trauma lingers
(JTA) — TEL AVIV – In the days following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, the families of the hostages held in Gaza turned the plaza next to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art into what became known as Hostage Square.
Filled with “Bring Them Home” signs and hostage posters, yellow ribbons and yellow balloons, the square hosted demonstrations and press conferences.
It was here that the families created a replica of a Hamas tunnel and established the Empty Shabbat Table, a haunting art installation to remind visitors – and especially the Israeli government – that their loved ones still languished in Gaza. And it was here, two years later, that the families and thousands of other Israelis gathered to watch the last of the living hostages return to Israel.
Three years after the attack on Simchat Torah, there are few remnants of the hostage families’ encampment: the tunnel replica, a few yellow ribbons and a sign bearing the words “Remember 7.10.23.” During the days leading up to the third anniversary, some paid respects to the few hostage families who set up a sukkah on the square, but the plaza was nearly empty.
By all outward appearances, Israelis have moved on.
Yet beneath the surface, many are still grappling with the trauma of Oct. 7 and the multifront war the attack triggered.
In a Channel 12 TV poll in June, 74% of respondents said they fear that terrorists will carry out another large-scale attack, and 66% said they want the Oct. 7 attack to be investigated by a state commission of inquiry.
Last month, in an Israel Democracy Institute survey, 68% of Jewish Israelis and 32% of Arab Israelis said the Oct. 7 attack is a “central factor” in deciding which party to vote for, behind security and the high cost of living.
In the café at the edge of Hostage Square, Isaac Badra, a 33-year-old realtor, recalled how he and his wife opened their home to their upstairs neighbors because the Badras live on the “safer” ground floor and their Tel Aviv building has no bomb shelter. The trauma persists, he said.
He vividly remembered the air-raid sirens, reserve soldiers rushing to base on Simchat Torah and the frantic phone calls with his wife’s family near the Gaza border as Hamas attacked Sderot, where they live.
“My wife’s mother said she saw terrorists in the street, but I couldn’t grasp what she was saying,” he recalled. When he turned on the TV, he realized the scale of the attack. “I locked all of our doors and our windows and prayed.”
Three years later, Badra said, “When I hear noises outside, I jump. When Arab construction workers shout out to each other, I jump. And now I doubt whether my friends abroad really have our back.”
Roni Shoval, a defense industry worker from northern Israel not far from the Lebanon border, said the trauma of the past three years “is still inside me.” He called the attacks “a modern Holocaust for Israel.”
Even three years later, “I’m not ready to visit Nova,” he said, referring to the memorial at the site of the music festival where Hamas murdered 378 people and abducted dozens more. “Look, I’m getting goosebumps now just talking about it.”
Shoval, 54, is still doing IDF reserve duty, years beyond the maximum age because the IDF needs his expertise. He doesn’t want the same for his children.
“My son will be drafted soon,” he said. “Back in the day, I served in Gaza and Lebanon. I don’t want him sent to Gaza and Lebanon.”
At a nearby table, 24-year-old Yael Meyer sat with classmates from Tel Aviv University. The attack the previous day aboard a flydubai flight bound for Tel Aviv, they said, only reinforced the trauma of Oct. 7 and the war that followed.
“I’m always aware that there could be another terror attack. But I always had the sense that the security services would protect us.” Since Oct. 7, that trust in the government is gone, she said.
Her friend Talia Zecler, also 24, said she felt “helpless” after the attack. “I was angry at my country. Entire families were killed or kidnapped,” she added. “It feels like we’re living in an endless war.”
Her heart races when the sound of a passing motorcycle resembles an air-raid siren. But at the same time, she still marvels at the bravery and solidarity of ordinary Israelis in the months after the attack.
“People became more connected after Oct. 7. They volunteered everywhere, including at Hostage Square,” she said. “There was a sense of unity, that we’re in this together, and we saw it on the flydubai flight.
“This is the Israeli spirit.”
Sitting in the café with her parents, S., a 19-year-old IDF soldier, said the trauma she experienced on Oct. 7 at her home in Jerusalem “is minuscule” compared to the experience of those whose families were directly harmed by the attacks on the Gaza border and, later, attacks by Hezbollah, Iran and the Houthis.
“Sure, when I hear a plane flying in the sky, I think, will there be another war with Iran? I immediately go there,” said S., whose name could not be published due to military protocol.
But as the country prepares to vote for the next government on Oct. 27, she plans to channel her hopes and dreams in the voting booth.
“The most important things for me right now are to have a national investigation of what happened on Oct. 7 and to repair our relations not only with our immediate neighbors but everywhere. We don’t live in a vacuum,” she said.
The post ‘Remember 7.10.23’: In Israel, Hostage Square bears few remnants of a national crisis – but trauma lingers appeared first on The Forward.
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Antisemitic flyers turn up in Ontario neighborhood where a man charged at a synagogue two weeks ago
(JTA) — Police in the Ontario town where a gunman charged the Sons of Jacob synagogue on Yom Kippur are investigating antisemitic flyers distributed around the synagogue’s neighborhood..
In an Oct. 1 press release, Belleville, Ontario, police encouraged those with tips or video evidence to contact police.
“We recognize that incidents such as this can cause concern within our community,” the police said. “Hate has no place in Belleville, and the Belleville Police Service remains in contact with community leaders and are taking proactive steps to support the safety and well-being of residents.”
Police have not identified the distributor of the flyers, and no arrests have been made.
The Canadian Jewish News published photos of the flyers, which included antisemitic conspiracy theories, such as “every single aspect of the Covid agenda is Jewish” and “every single aspect of abortion is Jewish.”
Coming so soon after the attack, the flyers rattled Sons of Jacob congregant Sari Watson, 40. “It’s so incredibly concerning to see this sort of antisemitic rhetoric surface, less than two weeks after the shooting,” said Watson, who skipped attending services the night of the shooting because she was wary of the increase in antisemitic violence in Canada. “This is a sign that this sort of hatred has infiltrated the public consciousness here.”
Belleville police chief Murray Rodd has confirmed the Sept. 20 attack was deliberate.
“This was an exclusive threat to our Jewish community,” he said soon after the attack. “There is no indication there was a threat to any other population or segment of our community, and it was a hate-motivated crime.”
According to police and Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit, the shooter, identified as 29-year-old Sean Ward of nearby Quinte West, Ontario, opened fire on Const. Jeff Smith, who was stationed outside the synagogue as security. Smith, who was seriously wounded, returned fire, and another officer who arrived at the scene also fired at Ward. Ward later died of his injuries. Smith remains hospitalized.
A GoFundMe site dedicated to Smith’s recovery has raised nearly $1 million on behalf of the Canadian Jewish community.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Antisemitic flyers turn up in Ontario neighborhood where a man charged at a synagogue two weeks ago appeared first on The Forward.
