RSS
‘And Just Like That…’ star Alexa Swinton is having her bat mitzvah in Israel

A version of this story originally appeared on Kveller.
Last year, Alexa Swinton brought us arguably one of the most high profile TV b’nai mitzvah ceremonies of all time — or rather, the “they mitzvah” that wasn’t.
Swinton, who plays Rock Goldenblatt in “And Just Like That…”, gave viewers a relatable portrayal of a teen struggling with their gender identity and their connection to Judaism. In the final episode of the first season of the show, Rock refuses to celebrate their Jewish coming of age, and their mom, Charlotte York Goldenblatt — one of the main “Sex and the City” characters — takes to the bimah instead, both in affirmation of her own faith and as her own way of accepting her child’s choice.
In real life, Swinton, a prolific actress who has starred in shows like “Billions” and “Emergence,” is celebrating the debut of the second season of HBO’s “And Just Like That…”, which premiered last week — and her own bat mitzvah.
Swinton and her family are currently in Israel, where she and her older sister, Ava, who didn’t get to experience the Jewish rite of passage because of the COVID-19 pandemic, will celebrate together in a joint ceremony. It will take place next week at Apollonia National Park in Herzliya, her mother told Kveller.
It’s Swinton’s first visit to Israel, where she has many relatives she has never met before. Swinton is also part of a program that allows her to honor a child who was killed during the Holocaust.
“You get to learn about their history and kind of give them a chance to also have their own bat mitzvah while you have yours. I think it’s really beautiful,” she said.
Just like Rock and her upcoming character in the Netflix movie “Maestro,” Swinton comes from a mixed background. Swinton’s Jewish mother, Inna, immigrated from the Soviet Union as a child. Her father’s family is Scottish and she is distantly related to Academy Award winner Tilda Swinton. After the ceremonies in Israel, the family will travel to Scotland on a heritage trip of sorts.
“I get to celebrate both parts of my culture and who I am as a person,” Swinton said.
While Rock may have flubbed their bat mitzvah readings, Swinton is highly invested in hers.
“My portion is from Pinchas,” an ebullient Swinton tells me over Zoom, sitting side by side with her Jewish mom. “It’s a lot about feminism… and how women have been trying to make history and a name for themselves for so long.”
Swinton is very connected to her Judaism in part because her grandmother could not practice her faith in the Soviet Union. “Being Jewish to me is more about who I am as a person than the religion,” she said. “It’s beyond God.”
She celebrates both Christmas and Hanukkah (“I’m not going to complain about eight nights of gifts,” she joked) and her favorite food is her grandmother’s chicken soup (she knows it’s a basic choice, she said it’s really unbeatable). She loves going to temple where she lives in New Jersey, where she talks to friends of her mother and grandmother and learns about their Jewish childhoods.
Swinton has also played her mother onstage and onscreen, in the off-Broadway play and the upcoming short film “Kooky Spook,” which tells the story of Inna’s young adulthood and first Halloween as a new immigrant in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. They filmed the movie in both Fair Lawn, where Inna’s family landed after immigrating to the United States, and in Riga, Latvia.
Swinton has been up for a lot of Jewish roles — from Hannah in “Fleishman Is In Trouble,” where her younger brother, Maxim, got the role of Solly, to Anne Frank in Disney’s “A Small Light.” That role went to another Jewish actress, Billie Boullet, and losing it left Swinton a little heartbroken.
“Being a young Jewish girl, like an actor, your dream role is going to be Anne Frank,” she said. But she was up for roles in both “Maestro” and “A Small Light” at the same time, and at the end of the day “we were super happy” to get that role, she said.
“Maestro” is a biopic about Jewish music legend Leonard Bernstein, and Swinton will be playing Bernstein’s youngest daughter, Nina in the upcoming Netflix movie. She did know of the Jewish composer beforehand — “we’re a very musical family” — but she’s done a lot more research to prepare for the role, including spending time at the Bernstein family home.
When she and her mother got the “Maestro,” script “we were like, oh my god, this is beautiful, this is about Leonard Bernstein. It’s incredible script about a Jewish family,” she said.
Unfortunately, the timing was not great — Swinton had to film her audition in a hotel closet during a trip with her mother and sister and did not think she would get the role. But she soon earned a direct audition with Bradley Cooper.
“I don’t really know if I met Bradley,” she jested to me about working with Cooper on “Maestro,” “I think I might have just met a modern rendition of Leonard, because he was always on.”
Swinton is also proud of the Jewish representation she’s been able to bring to her projects.
“I think it’s wonderful that I’ve gotten to play so many Jewish people,” she said. “It’s nice just to have something in common with the character you’re playing, and it makes you feel much more connected.”
For now, viewers can watch Swinton playing the moody and lovable Rock in the new season of “And Just Like That,” which airs a new episode every Thursday until Aug. 3.
This season, Rock will be investing a lot more time in their hobbies. “I think they find a lot about themselves,” Swinton said, “and they wear some pretty cool clothes.”
Swinton added that she didn’t know her character would be gender nonconforming at first. “One of the audition scenes was the scene where Rock was like, oh, I don’t really feel like a girl. So I was like, ‘Oh, I’m interested to see where this will go.’”
She was happy to see representation of young people questioning their gender make it into the plot.
“A lot of times, kids that are exploring their identity don’t really have a lot to back off of,” she says. “Like, maybe there’ll be one random TikToker who is 25 years old. It’s great, because finally, there’s someone who’s 13 years old on television, who is trying to figure out who they are as a person.”
—
The post ‘And Just Like That…’ star Alexa Swinton is having her bat mitzvah in Israel appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
‘With or Without Russia’s Help’: Iran Pledges to Block South Caucasus Route Opened Up By Peace Deal

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – Iran will block the establishment of a US-backed transit corridor in the South Caucasus region with or without Moscow’s help, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader was quoted as saying on Saturday by the Iran International website, one day after the historic peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
“Mr. Trump thinks the Caucasus is a piece of real estate he can lease for 99 years,” Ali Akbar Velayati said of the so-called Zangezur corridor, the establishment of which is stipulated in the peace deal unveiled on Friday by US President Donald Trump. The White House said the transit route would facilitate greater exports of energy and other resources.
“This passage will not become a gateway for Trump’s mercenaries — it will become their graveyard,” the Khamenei advisor added.
Baku and Yerevan have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani region mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Azerbaijan took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting or forcing almost all of the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
Yet that painful history was put to the side on Friday at the White House, as Trump oversaw a signing ceremony, flanked by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
The peace deal with Azerbaijan—a pro-Western ally of Israel—is expected to pull Armenia out of the Russian and Iranian sphere of influence and could transform the South Caucasus, an energy-producing region neighboring Russia, Europe, Turkey and Iran.
RSS
UK Police Arrest 150 at Protest for Banned Palestine Action Group

People holding signs sit during a rally organised by Defend Our Juries, challenging the British government’s proscription of “Palestine Action” under anti-terrorism laws, in Parliament Square, in London, Britain, August 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
London’s Metropolitan Police said on Saturday it had arrested 150 people at a protest against Britain’s decision to ban the group Palestine Action, adding it was making further arrests.
Officers made arrests after crowds, waving placards expressing support for the group, gathered in Parliament Square, the force said on X.
Protesters, some wearing black and white Palestinian scarves, chanted “shame on you” and “hands off Gaza,” and held signs such as “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action,” video taken by Reuters at the scene showed.
In July, British lawmakers banned Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation after some of its members broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged planes in protest against Britain’s support for Israel.
The ban makes it a crime to be a member of the group, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
The co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, last week won a bid to bring a legal challenge against the ban.
RSS
‘No Leniency’: Iran Announces Arrest of 20 ‘Zionist Agents’

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi addresses a special session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, June 20, 2025. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
i24 News – Iranian authorities have in recent months arrested 20 people charged with being “Israeli Mossad operatives,” the judiciary said, adding that the Islamic regime will mete out the harshest punishments.
“The judiciary will show no leniency toward spies and agents of the Zionist regime, and with firm rulings, will make an example of them all,” spokesperson Asghar Jahangiri told Iranian media. However, it is understood that an unspecified number of detainees were released, apparently after the charges against them could not be substantiated.
The Islamic Republic was left reeling by a devastating 12-day war with Israel earlier in the summer that left a significant proportion of its military arsenal in ruins and dealt a serious setback to its uranium enrichment program. The fallout included an uptick in executions of Iranians convicted of spying for Israel, with at least eight death sentences carried out in recent months. Hit with international sanctions, the country is in dire economic straights, with frequent energy outages and skyrocketing unemployment.
In recent weeks Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi affirmed that Tehran cannot give up on its nuclear enrichment program even as it was severely damaged during the war.
“It is stopped because, yes, damages are serious and severe. But obviously we cannot give up of enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists. And now, more than that, it is a question of national pride,” the official told Fox News.