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Beyond the ‘Day of Hate’: The best strategy to keep American Jews safe over the long term

(JTA) — My synagogue sent out a cautiously anxious email yesterday about an event coming this Shabbat, a neo-Nazi “Day of Hate.” The email triggered fuzzy memories of one of the strangest episodes that I can remember from my childhood.

Sometime around 1990, in response to local neo-Nazi activity, some Jews from my community decided to “fight back.” I don’t know whether they were members of the militant Jewish Defense League, or perhaps just sympathetic to a JDL-style approach. When our local Jewish newspaper covered the story, it ran on its front cover a full-page photo of a kid from my Orthodox Jewish high school. The photo showed a teenage boy from behind, wearing a kippah and carrying a baseball bat that was leaning threateningly on his shoulder.

As it happens, “Danny” was not a member of the JDL, he was a kid on his way to play baseball. Sometimes, a baseball bat is just a baseball bat. But not for us anxious Jews in America: We want to see ourselves as protagonists taking control of our destiny, responding to antisemites with agency, with power, with a plan. I’m sorry to say that as I look around our community today, it seems to me that we have agency, and we have power — but we certainly don’t seem to have a plan. 

The tactics that the American Jewish community uses to fight back against antisemitism are often ineffective on their own and do not constitute a meaningful strategy in the composite. One is that American Jews join in a partisan chorus that erodes our politics and fixates on the antisemitism in the party they don’t vote for. This exacerbates the partisan divide, which weakens democratic culture, and turns the weaponizing of antisemitism into merely a partisan electoral tactic for both sides. 

Another tactic comes from a wide set of organizations who have declared themselves the referees on the subject and take to Twitter to name and shame antisemites. This seems to amplify and popularize antisemitism more than it does to suppress it. 

A third common tactic is to pour more and more dollars into protecting our institutions with robust security measures, which no one thinks will defeat antisemitism, but at least seeks to protect those inside those institutions from violence, though it does little to protect Jews down the street. Richer Jewish institutions will be safer than poorer ones, but Jews will continue to suffer either way. 

A fourth tactic our communal organizations use to fight antisemitism is to try to exact apologies or even fines from antisemites to get them to retract their beliefs and get in line, as the Anti-Defamation League did with Kyrie Irving, an approach that Yair Rosenberg has wisely argued is a no-win proposition. Yet another tactic is the insistence by some that the best way to fight antisemitism is to be proud Jews, which has the perverse effect of making our commitment to Jewishness dependent on antisemitism as a motivator. 

And finally, the most perverse tactic is that some on both the right and the left fight antisemitism by attacking the ADL itself. Since it is so hard to defeat our opponents, we have started beating up on those that are trying to protect us. What could go wrong?

Steadily, like a drumbeat, these tactics fail, demonstrating themselves to be not a strategy at all, and the statistics continue to show a rise in antisemitism. 

Perhaps we are too fixated on the idea that antisemitism is continuous throughout Jewish history, proving only that there is no effective strategy for combating this most persistent of hatreds.

Instead, we would do well to recall how we responded to a critical moment in American Jewish history in the early 20th century. In the aftermath of the Leo Frank lynching in 1915 – the murder of a Jewish man amid an atmosphere of intense antisemitism — Jewish leaders formed what would become the ADL by building a relationship with law enforcement and the American legal and political establishment. The ADL recognized that the best strategy to keep American Jews safe over the long term, in ways that would transcend and withstand the political winds of change, was to embed in the police and criminal justice system the idea that antisemitism was their problem to defeat. These Jewish leaders flipped the script of previous diasporic experiences; not only did they become “insiders,” they made antisemitism anathema to America itself. (And yes, it was the Leo Frank incident that inspired “Parade,” the forthcoming Broadway musical that this week attracted white supremacist protesters.)

For Jews, the high-water mark of this strategy came in the aftermath of the Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh. It was the low point in many ways of the American Jewish experience, the most violent act against Jews on American soil, but it was followed by a mourning process that was shared across the greater Pittsburgh community. The words of the Kaddish appeared above the fold of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. That is inconceivable at most other times of Jewish oppression and persecution. It tells the story of when we are successful – when antisemitism is repudiated by the general public. It is the most likely indicator that we will be collectively safe in the long run. 

We were lucky that this move to partner with the establishment was successful. I felt this deeply on a recent trip to Montgomery, Alabama. Seeing the memorials to Black Americans persecuted and lynched by and under the very system that should have been protecting them from the worst elements of society is a reminder that not all minorities in America could then — or today — win over the elements of American society that control criminal justice. 

Visitors view items left by well-wishers along the fence at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on the first anniversary of the attack there, Oct. 27, 2019. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)

A strategic plan to defeat antisemitism that must be collectively embraced by American Jews would build on this earlier success and invest in the infrastructure of American democracy as the framework for Jewish thriving and surviving, and continue the historic relationship-building that changed the Jews’ position in America. It would stop the counterproductive internecine and partisan battle that is undermining the possibility of Jewish collective mobilization. 

It means more investment, across partisan divides, in relationships with local governments and law enforcement, using the imperfect “definitions of antisemitism” as they are intended — not for boundary policing, but to inform and help law enforcement to monitor and prevent violent extremism. It means supporting lawsuits and other creative legal strategies, like Integrity First for America’s groundbreaking efforts against the Unite the Right rally organizers, which stymie such movements in legal gridlock and can help bankrupt them. 

It means practicing the lost art of consensus Jewish collective politics which recognize that there must be some baseline agreement that antisemitism is a collective threat, even if any “unity” we imagine for the Jewish community is always going to be be instrumental and short-lived. 

It means supporting institutions like the ADL, even as they remain imperfect, even as they sometimes get stuck in some of the failed strategies I decried above, because they have the relationships with powerful current and would-be allies in the American political and civic marketplace, and because they are fighting against antisemitism while trying to stay above the partisan fray. 

It means real education and relationship-building with other ethnic and faith communities that is neither purely instrumental nor performative — enough public relations visits to Holocaust museums! — so that we have the allies we need when we need them, and so that we can partner for our collective betterment.  

And most importantly, it means investing in the plodding, unsexy work of supporting vibrant American democracy — free and fair elections, voting rights, the rule of law, peaceful transitions of power — because stable liberal democracies have been the safest homes for minorities, Jews included. 

I doubt we will ever be able to “end” individual antisemitic acts, much less eradicate antisemitic hate. “Shver tzu zayn a Yid” (it’s hard to be a Jew). We join with our fellow Americans who live in fear of the lone wolves and the hatemongers who periodically terrorize us. But we are much more capable than we are currently behaving to fight back against the collective threats against us. Instead, let’s be the smart Americans we once were. 

The real work right now is not baseball bats or billboards, it is not Jewish pride banalities or Twitter refereeing: It is quiet and powerful and, if done right, as American Jews demonstrated in the last century, it will serve us for the long term.


The post Beyond the ‘Day of Hate’: The best strategy to keep American Jews safe over the long term appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Proposed U.S. $24.3 billion sale of F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia advances

(JTA) — The State Department has approved a possible $24.3 billion sale of 48 F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia — a move that would make the kingdom the second Middle Eastern country after Israel to have the world’s most powerful combat aircraft.

“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a major non-NATO ally,” the department said in a statement.

Israel wants the sale attached to a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, but that doesn’t appear to be on the horizon. However, there is a small chance that Congress could keep the sale from happening.

When President Donald Trump first confirmed that he was considering the sale last November, Israeli officials told Axios that while they don’t oppose the sale itself, they wanted it “to be subject to Saudi normalization with Israel.”

Although Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly brushed off the deal’s significance last fall, a security source at the time warned on CNN that the possibility of Saudi Arabia acquiring “the same capabilities” as Israel was “very concerning.”

The prime minister was more vocal in his opposition to a July announcement from Trump that he was weighing selling the advanced jets to Turkey as well, telling CNN that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is “not exactly a model ally of the United States.”

Israel has already purchased 50 F-35 jets, in two procurement rounds that occurred in 2016 and in 2017, according to the Israeli Defense Ministry. However, local media reports indicate that two of the 50 have yet to arrive, meaning that just 48 are on the ground – the same number of planes that the State Department has approved for Saudi Arabia’s potential purchase.

Israel would have many more F-35s than Saudi Arabia for the time being, because its Defense Ministry announced in 2024 that it would be procuring 25 more of the planes, slated to begin arriving in 2028. Earlier this year, the Defense Ministry revealed that it would be procuring yet another squadron of the jets, although the quantity remained unclear.

Congressional approval is not assured; wariness of the Saudi regime, stemming in part from the state-sanctioned 2018 murder of a U.S.-based journalist in Turkey, crosses party lines.

The U.S. Arms Export Control Act requires the executive branch of the government to notify Congress regarding major defense equipment sales to most countries. Congress can then deem a country ineligible to participate in a sale through a joint resolution. The president can then veto the resolution, which Congress would need a two-thirds supermajority to override.

Additionally, U.S. law requires the president to ensure that Israel maintains “a qualitative military edge over military threats” when considering arms sales to other Middle Eastern countries. Israel, per the law, must be able “to counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat” from both other nations and “non-state actors.”

“The proposed sale of this equipment and support will not alter the military balance in the region,” the State Department said on Thursday. It called Saudi Arabia “a force for political stability and economic progress in the Gulf region,” adding that the sale would help “deter current and future threats by strengthening its homeland defense.”

The department maintained that not only would the sale improve Saudi Arabia’s defense capabilities, but it would also boost “interoperability” with both U.S. forces and other players from NATO and the region.

As for the potential deal’s logistics, Saudi Arabia has requested 48 of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter Jets, as well as 49 Pratt & Whitney engines, according to the State Department.

The kingdom is also seeking to acquire other non-major defense equipment, such as cryptographic devices, precision navigation, secure communications, simple key loaders and support for electronic warfare databases, maintenance and personnel training.

Producing and delivering these planes can take many years.

Meanwhile, just a day before Trump’s announcement, The New York Times surfaced intelligence concerns that China could acquire F-35 technology by spying on Saudi Arabia or through its partnerships with the kingdom.

U.S. House Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat from Illinois, warned in a statement on X that “Beijing has spent decades stealing American intellectual property” and that this deal could “help them do it.”

“Our own intelligence community is warning that it could put the crown jewels of American military technology within reach of the Chinese Communist Party,” Krishnamoorthi added.

The Biden administration reportedly ended a past F-35 deal with the United Arab Emirates — secured by the first Trump administration — due to similar concerns about the country’s connections to China, as well as to Russia.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Proposed U.S. $24.3 billion sale of F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia advances appeared first on The Forward.

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After outcry, Texas lieutenant governor says schools should teach Holocaust books ‘Night,’ ‘Anne Frank’

(JTA) — The lieutenant governor of Texas says his recent call for the state’s public schools to remove “over 2,000 titles” of “dirty, filthy and vulgar books” was not meant to include books about the Holocaust.

Dan Patrick’s statement, provided exclusively to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday, comes after a month of confusion following a press conference in which he and a conservative Christian activist threatened schools with potential loss of state funding if they did not comply with his directive to purge their libraries.

“I believe Texas students must learn about the Holocaust, and that includes reading books such as ‘Night’ by Elie Wiesel, ‘The Diary of Anne Frank,’ and other books about the Holocaust,” Patrick told JTA, singling out two books on the removal list he had promoted – one of which, “Night,” that he previously explicitly called for removal from middle schools.

Patrick added that his initiative was “focused on age-inappropriate, sexually explicit books in public school libraries across Texas.” At his earlier press conference, he had directed viewers to an online list compiled by an activist group that features several books about the Holocaust and Jewish identity.

Patrick’s threats have teeth. In Texas, lieutenant governors are more powerful than in many other states, playing central roles in shaping the budget and determining the legislative agenda.

Patrick also appeared to walk back some of the harsher proclamations from his Aug. 19 press conference, at which the Republican had stated, “We’re coming for the books.”

“As the law states, local communities have the right to make their own decisions about their public school libraries,” he told JTA Friday.

The lieutenant governor, who is up for reelection this fall, appeared at the conference with Bonnie Wallace, the head of the activist group Recover America, and told viewers to “go to RecoverAmerica.com.” That group has circulated a list of more than 2,100 “Harmful Books in Libraries.” Its list, which it describes as “books with harmful, sexually explicit, and vulgar content,” includes more than a dozen titles of particular import to Jewish readers.

Recover America’s flagged books include both volumes of Art Spiegelman’s “Maus,” a comic-book adaptation of Frank’s diary and Bernard Malamud’s novel of a blood libel “The Fixer” — all books that have been removed from school districts in Texas and other states in the past amid broader conservative-led library culture wars. In some cases those books were restored to the districts following public outcry, but spurred deeper dialogue about the state of Holocaust education and antisemitism awareness in public schools.

Patrick’s latest push would go much further than a handful of districts, affecting the more than 5.5 million students in public schools across the state.

The author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel in his office in 1980, surrounded by books and papers
Political activist and writer Elie Wiesel on November 3, 1980 in New York, New York. (Santi Visalli/Getty Images)

One book of particular contention on Recover America’s list was “Night,” Elie Wiesel’s bestselling memoir of surviving Auschwitz and Buchenwald, which has been taught in schools for decades. After a Houston Chronicle story noted the book’s inclusion on the Recover America “harmful” list, Patrick initially doubled down on “Night,” saying that it was not appropriate for middle schools owing to its “violence.”

“If ‘Night,’ by Elie Wiesel, were made into a movie, it would likely be rated R,” Patrick wrote on the social network X on Aug. 26. “‘Night,’ which includes depictions of graphic violence and the machine-gunning of babies, should not be available to sixth graders in middle-school libraries. High school is more age-appropriate.”

His tweet appeared to contradict the state’s own K-12 required reading list, passed this summer, which mandates that “Night” be taught in the eighth grade beginning in 2030.

Now, in response to questions from JTA, the lieutenant governor said he would defer to the Texas State Board of Education on the appropriate grade to teach “Night.”

“The State Board of Education decides the appropriate grade level for books and will determine whether ‘Night,’ by Elie Wiesel, is at the appropriate grade level,” Patrick told JTA in his statement.

He continued to insist that books in schools should be held to “FCC standards,” referring to the Federal Communications Commission, an agency that governs broadcasting content and does not regulate publishing.

The head of the Texas Holocaust, Genocide and Antisemitism Advisory Commission, a governor-appointed panel which advised the state on the inclusion of “Night” and other Holocaust texts on its required reading list, did not return a JTA request for comment.

In a statement, the Texas Educational Authority, which drafted the required-reading list, told JTA, “When Texas students learn about the Holocaust, they will be exposed to the horrors of the Holocaust. That is why the SBOE placed the book in 8th Grade to ensure age appropriateness for students.”

Maria Cuomo Cole, Kim A. Snyder, winners of the Exceptional Merit In Documentary Filmmaking for “The Librarians”, Jimmy Kimmel, winner of the Outstanding Host For A Game Show award for “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire”, and Lois Vossen, Becky Calzada, Amanda Jones and Janique L. Robillard, winners of the Exceptional Merit In Documentary Filmmaking for “The Librarians”, poses in the Winner’s Walk during the 78th Emmy Awards Night 1 at Peacock Theater on September 05, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. Participants hold up books including “Night” and “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation.” (Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

At the Emmys this week, when “The Librarians,” a documentary about librarians facing book removal threats, won an award, retired Texas librarian Carolyn Foote joined the producers on the stage and held up a copy of “Night” in protest.

“I felt like it was very symbolic to bring ‘Night,’” Foote, a subject of the film and a co-founder of the librarian activist group FReadom Fighters, told JTA. “Having read it, I just know the importance of not forgetting our past. And that’s part of Elie Wiesel’s whole legacy, is remembrance, and so it just felt very important for me to carry that book, coming from Texas.” Another librarian onstage for the win held up “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation.”

Elisha Wiesel, Elie’s son and chair of the Elie Wiesel Foundation, told JTA that “Texas deserves credit for recognizing that Holocaust education belongs in the eighth-grade curriculum.” Yet, the younger Wiesel suggested, Patrick’s concerns about the book’s violence were misplaced.

“‘Night’ contains violence because the Holocaust was violent; its purpose is not to shock young people, but to help them understand where hatred and indifference can lead,” he wrote in an email. “With context and guidance, students should not be shielded from this history. They should be equipped to confront it.”

Despite having directed viewers to Recover America’s book list during his press conference, Patrick’s new statement to JTA said, “I do not have a book list.” He pointed instead to a law passed in the state legislature in 2025 regulating school books that he said districts were required to follow.

Yet some districts in the state have removed every book on Recover America’s list from their own libraries out of fear of losing funding, Foote told JTA. While the list nominally contains a ratings system, many of the books do not have a rating.

A book cover
“Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation” (Courtesy Anne Frank Fonds)

Besides “Night,” “Maus,” “Anne Frank’s Diary” and “The Fixer,” other books about Judaism and the Holocaust on Recover America’s list of “Harmful Books” include:

  • “Annexed,” a young-adult novel about Peter van Pels, who hid in the Amsterdam annex with Anne Frank
  • “The Berlin Boxing Club,” a young-adult historical novel based on German boxer Max Schmeling, who helped young Jews during Hitler’s rise to power
  • “Black, White and Jewish,” a memoir by Rebecca Walker, the mixed-race Jewish daughter of author Alice Walker
  • “Caste: The Origins of our Discontents,” a nonfiction book analyzing the “caste systems” of Nazi Germany. “Caste” had been included on an earlier, Wallace-spearheaded list of books for removal from a Texas public library in a case that the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear in 2025, allowing the removals to proceed.
  • “Kasher in the Rye,” a memoir by Jewish comedian Moshe Kasher
  • “Pride: the story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag,” a children’s picture-book biography of the pioneering Jewish LGBTQ legislator
  • “Sophie’s Choice,” the bestselling Holocaust novel for adults
  • “The Violin Maker’s Daughter,” a historical novel about a Jewish family of musicians during the Holocaust
  • “White Bird,” a young-reader graphic novel about a Jewish girl in Nazi-occupied France

In response to JTA sharing a list of the above books, Patrick’s statement mentioned only “Night” and Anne Frank by name. The Recover America list is largely made up of romance and fantasy novels, many with an LGBTQ element, while also including classics such as “The Glass Menagerie” and “Cat’s Cradle” and some picture books for children.

Recover America did not immediately return a JTA request for comment Friday on Patrick’s new statement. Wallace, the group’s leader who has also appeared on Patrick’s podcast, previously told the Houston Chronicle that she had “thought long and hard” about including “Night” on her list.

She ultimately did so, she said, because “an eighth-grade student is 13 years old. Do they need to read about soldiers massacring, throwing up babies, and killing them with machine guns?”

She added, “It’s not to say this doesn’t happen in life. And the Holocaust was maybe the worst tragedy in the history of the world.”

For Cameron Samuels, a Jewish alum of Texas public schools and founder of the activist group Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, such efforts do not help Jewish students.

“Non-Jewish people are deciding for us what’s best, and making this public policy,” Samuels said. “We can’t readily access these books and stories. And that makes students feel alone. It also means that our classroom peers are not learning authentic Jewish narratives.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post After outcry, Texas lieutenant governor says schools should teach Holocaust books ‘Night,’ ‘Anne Frank’ appeared first on The Forward.

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‘Checkout’ and ‘Fauda’ test the appetite for Israeli spy stories after Oct. 7

(JTA) — Is there still an appetite for Israeli spy stories?

That is one question being tested by two different productions arriving in the United States this month: “Checkout,” a dark Israeli comedy about an aging Mossad operative, and the fifth season of “Fauda,” the Israeli action thriller about undercover counterterrorism agents.

One is an indie film that spent years getting to the screen; the other is a global Netflix hit whose new season plunges directly into the trauma of Oct. 7.

The two projects are seeking audiences in a challenging climate. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in March found that 60% of Americans had an unfavorable view of Israel, compared with 37% who viewed the country favorably. And Israeli cultural exports have faced increasing scrutiny abroad over the country’s conduct since Oct. 7.

Yet “Fauda” has returned to Netflix with considerable international attention, while “Checkout” opened in Manhattan to a sold-out audience.

“It’s hard for Israeli movies right now to find an audience because everything translates to, you know, the ‘P’ [Palestinian] problem,” Jonathan Dekel, the writer, director and executive producer of “Checkout,” said in an interview. “It’s problematic.”

“Checkout” opened Sept. 17 to a sold-out audience at the Quad Cinema in Greenwich Village, which Dekel described as a “stalwart of indie cinema.”

Dekel has said the film’s six-year production was almost as difficult as the journey of its protagonist. They shot in Ukraine in November 2020, at the height of the pandemic, and barely escaped with the film’s hard drive after the set was bombed when Russia invaded. They had just finished editing when Oct. 7, 2023, arrived, and Dekel was called up for military service.

Dekel knew that the movie would debut in a world transformed by the war and its aftermath.

“Trying to find a good time to put out a movie, a satire — a dark comedy about the Israeli special forces — was very, very touch and go until we finally decided to go for it,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“Checkout” is not a conventional spy thriller. Its protagonist, Dov, is an American-born New Yorker who moved to Israel and is now about to retire from the Mossad.

“The day he checks out of his hotel to retire, someone else checks in and it turns out it’s Mossad’s number one target — an arch terrorist [code-]named Gilgamesh,” Dekel said. “The entire movie is this weird weekend in a hotel where these two middle-aged men, spy-versus-spy, try to figure out who they are. They’re trying to find out about each other, but they find themselves.”

Josh Pais, who plays Dov, said his character is a man searching for meaning in his life — and comes to believe he can find it by tracking down and stopping a terrorist.

“He is possibly stepping into delusion,” said Pais. “What was appealing to me was that this is a story of what really happens to spies. So many movies tap into, you know, the James Bond of being a spy. Those movies are awesome, but this movie is about what it’s really like to be sent to a distant land, to be on location and to pretend that you’re someone else. Over a certain amount of time these guys start to lose touch with reality because, in truth, the vast majority of time as a spy nothing happens.”

Shai Satran, the movie’s co-writer, said he believes this is the “perfect moment for a movie about the Israeli intelligence community and an operation gone bad.”

“His driving force is not really to catch that guy — he doesn’t care about that guy. The driving force is to be accepted by his peers, the people who sent him — that’s at the core,” said Satran.  “I don’t want to be crude about this, but there was something pre-Oct. 7 about the Israeli security forces, maybe the special forces: There’s a certain arrogance in being only worried about your peers and not being aware of” the wider mission. In the lead-up to the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, “Israel, in a sense, thought that they were more in control of the situation than they were,” he said

That idea — of intelligence work as something more complicated than heroic missions and exotic adventures — also runs through “Fauda,” though in a much more conventional action-thriller format.

The Israeli series has been an international success since its Netflix debut in 2016, and its fifth season, which arrived on Netflix Sept. 8, is now testing whether audiences will follow its characters into a story shaped directly by and set two years after Oct. 7.

Lior Raz stars as an undercover operative in the fifth season of the hit Israeli show “Fauda.” (Netflix)

Lior Raz, the show’s creator, co-writer and star, said last month at a fundraiser in Lenox, Massachusetts for Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service that he was genuinely surprised by the show’s reception in unlikely places: Previous seasons of the show hit No. 1 in popularity in Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates and it was No. 2 in Qatar.

Season four ran in 2022 in Israel and early the next year on Netflix. The show’s creators had originally begun writing a different fifth season. But after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, Raz said, those scripts were discarded. The new season deals directly with the aftermath of the attack and what Raz described as the nature of revenge. One reviewer called it “gripping, emotionally exhausting and often deeply difficult to watch,” particularly because of its depiction, in flashbacks, of Oct. 7.

Raz, in his MDA talk, said the backlash against Israel was a campaign orchestrated by radical activists and Israel’s enemies. The latest season of “Fauda” is in part an attempt to depict the Israeli perspective for those open to nuance. “I want them to look in my character’s eyes, and to see what we felt on those days,” he told the New York Times. “If it would happen in their countries, they would feel exactly like we felt and how we feel about the world. So I hope it would open people’s eyes to see what happened on Oct. 7.”

Although its reception abroad is hard to gauge, the latest season was a hit in Israel: The Times reported that it had already been the most-watched season of any show in the history of Israel’s Yes network.

Lacking the backing of a streaming giant, Checkout will have to work harder to find an audience. The Sundance Screenwriters Lab supported the “Checkout” script, Dekel said, but that was before Oct. 7. Since then, “finding a distributor, finding a Netflix, Amazon or Hulu was pretty much crickets [silence] all over. It might be our movie, but looking around [at] movies from my colleagues — Israelis — I think it’s pretty much a broad phenomenon.”

Asked if he believed the difficulty he faced was because it is an Israeli movie or because it involved Jews, Dekel replied, “Is there a difference?”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post ‘Checkout’ and ‘Fauda’ test the appetite for Israeli spy stories after Oct. 7 appeared first on The Forward.

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