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Evan Gershkovich, Judy Blume among 10 Jews on Time’s 2023 ‘Most Influential’ list
(JTA) — The journalist who was arrested in Russia last month and the Biden administration’s antisemitism envoy are among the 10 Jewish members of Time magazine’s “100 most influential people of 2023.”
The magazine’s annual list, released Thursday, includes politician, business titans, artists and innovators from around the world, from President Joe Biden to a YouTube sensation with 145 million subscribers. Each entry is accompanied by a short essay by another prominent figure. Here are the Jews who made the cut.
Sam Altman is the tech entrepreneur who is CEO and co-founder of the OpenAI artificial intelligence laboratory. In 2016, the entrepreneur Peter Thiel told the New Yorker that Altman is “culturally very Jewish — an optimist yet a survivalist, with a sense that things can always go deeply wrong, and that there’s no single place in the world where you’re deeply at home.”
Judy Blume is the children’s author whose books deal frankly with puberty and other challenges of growing up. A film adaptation of her 1970 novel “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” — one of the first mainstream treatments of interfaith families — is opening in theaters this month.
Doja Cat is a rapper and performance artist who burst onto the scene in 2020, when she won MTV’s best new artist award. The daughter of an Ashkenazi Jewish mother and a Black South African father, she is renowned for blending genres.
Nathan Fielder is a comedian and performance artist whose genre-defying 2022 series “The Rehearsal” tackled antisemitism, Holocaust denial and interfaith parenting. It also featured a Portland, Oregon, Hebrew tutor.
Neil Gaiman is a science-fiction writer whose comic book series “The Sandman” was recently made into a Netflix series. Raised by a Jewish family that dabbled with Scientology, he was also an early critic of the Tennessee school district that banned the Holocaust memoir “Maus” last year.
Evan Gershkovich is a Wall Street Journal reporter who was detained in Russian in March on spying charges that the State Department has called part of Russia’s “ongoing war against the truth.” The American child of Jewish refugees from the Soviet Union, Gershkovich was the subject of an awareness campaign urged during this month’s Passover celebrations.
Bob Iger is the CEO of Disney after returning to the company last year. “His return as CEO in 2022 ushered in a new era of transformation and creative excellence” for the entertainment company, General Motors CEO and Disney board member Mary Barra wrote in Time. He received the 2019 Humanitarian Award from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, warning that “Hitler would have loved social media.”
Deborah Lipstadt was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in March 2022 as the State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism. A well-known academic specializing in the history of antisemitism and Holocaust denial, she welcomed Time’s recognition by tweeting, “Receiving this award advances my ongoing fight to stamp out antisemitism and all forms of hate.”
Natasha Lyonne is the writer, director and actress whose popular series on Netflix, “Russian Doll,” used sci-fi conventions to explore identity, trauma and the intergenerational effects of the Holocaust. In his Time essay, actor and director Taika Waititi, who is also Jewish, called Lyonne “the coolest person in the room.”
Janet Yellen is the first woman to hold the role of U.S. treasury secretary. Born to Polish Jewish immigrant parents, she has featured in antisemitic conspiracy theories about “globalist” control of financial institutions.
A handful of other people on the list have Jewish backgrounds. The actor and businesswoman Drew Barrymore, recognized by the comedian Jimmy Fallon for being “a true role model,” is married to a Jewish man, raising a Jewish child and said she has “embraced Judaism,” though she has not announced a conversion. Lea Michele, who last year took over the lead role in “Funny Girl” on Broadway, has a Jewish father but does not identify as Jewish. And the skier Mikaela Shifrin has a Jewish grandfather but, according to the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association, is “not connected to the Jewish community.”
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TikTok Removes Videos by Antisemitic Polish Lawmaker After Hate Speech Complaint
Grzegorz Braun, member of far-right political alliance Confederation, speaks during a session at the Parliament in Warsaw, Poland, Dec. 12, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Aleksandra Szmigiel
TikTok has removed six videos posted by a Polish far–right politician best known for provoking international outrage by using a fire extinguisher on Hanukkah candles in the country’s parliament, an anti-racism organization said on Wednesday.
Once viewed by many Poles as a fringe extremist, Grzegorz Braun has become an increasingly important figure in right-wing politics, with his Confederation of the Polish Crown party regularly polling in double digits.
Those numbers could give it a say in the formation of a future coalition, but Braun’s antisemitism and aggressive social media stunts have led the government to say his party may be banned, while the leader of opposition nationalists Law and Justice (PiS) has ruled out working with him.
Rafal Pankowski, from the “Never Again” Association, which advises social media companies on eliminating hate speech and flagged the videos to TikTok, said the films, including one about the Hanukkah candles, were just the “tip of the iceberg.”
“There is simply a whole lot of such material, such content, which is evidently saturated with hostility, primarily towards Jews and often also towards various other minorities … I think that the worst thing in all this is that there is this element of glorification, incitement to violence,” he said.
TikTok confirmed that it had removed certain videos for violating its rules on hate speech.
A spokesperson for the Confederation of the Polish Crown did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. Braun has said he is trying to protect predominantly Catholic Poland from the influence of Jews and Ukrainians.
Pankowski said the “Never Again” Association had reported more of Braun’s films to TikTok.
From launching into an antisemitic tirade outside the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, where Nazi Germany killed more than 1.1 million Jews, to tearing down Ukrainian flags or demolishing exhibitions about LGBT rights, Braun’s actions have outraged many Poles but have also generated significant publicity.
Braun, a Member of the European Parliament, has had his immunity from prosecution lifted by the legislature. Polish prosecutors have charged him with seven offences including public disorder and offending religious sentiments.
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Clashes in Syria’s Aleppo Deepen Rift Between Government, Kurdish Forces
A woman carries her child as she flees, following renewed clashes between the Syrian army and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in Aleppo, Syria, Jan. 7, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Karam al-Masri
Fierce fighting in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo between government forces and Kurdish fighters drove thousands of civilians from their homes on Wednesday, with Washington reported to be mediating a de-escalation.
The violence, and statements trading blame over who started it, signaled that a stalemate between Damascus and Kurdish authorities that have resisted integrating into the central government was deepening and growing deadlier.
Deadly clashes broke out on Tuesday between Syrian government troops and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
After relative calm overnight, shelling resumed on Wednesday and intensified in the afternoon, Reuters reporters in the city said.
A spokesperson for Aleppo‘s health directorate told Reuters that four civilians had been killed on Tuesday and more than two dozen wounded on Tuesday and Wednesday. Security sources separately told Reuters that two fighters had also been killed.
The health directorate said there were no civilian fatalities on Wednesday, and that it was not authorized to comment on deaths among fighters.
By Wednesday evening, fighting had subsided, the Reuters reporters said. Ilham Ahmed, who heads the foreign affairs department of the Kurdish administration, told Reuters that international mediation efforts were underway to de-escalate. A source familiar with the matter told Reuters the US was mediating.
THOUSANDS OF CIVILIANS FLEE
The directorate for social affairs said on Wednesday night that more than 45,000 people had been displaced from Aleppo city, most of them heading northwest towards the enclave of Afrin.
The Syrian army announced that military positions in the Kurdish-held neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah were “legitimate military targets.” Two Syrian security officials told Reuters that they expected a significant military operation in the city.
The government opened humanitarian corridors for civilians to flee flashpoint neighborhoods, ferrying them out on city buses.
“We move them safely to the places they want to go to according to their desire or to displaced shelters,” said Faisal Mohammad Ali, operations chief of the civil defense force in Aleppo.
The latest fighting has disrupted civilian life in what is a leading Syrian city, closing the airport and a highway to Turkey, halting operations at factories in an industrial zone and paralyzing major roads into the city center.
The Damascus government said its forces were responding to rocket fire, drone attacks, and shelling from Kurdish-held neighborhoods. Kurdish forces said they held Damascus “fully and directly responsible for … the dangerous escalation that threatens the lives of thousands of civilians and undermines stability in the city.”
During Syria’s 14-year civil war, Kurdish authorities began running a semi-autonomous zone in northeast Syria, as well as in parts of Aleppo city.
They have been reluctant to give up those zones and integrate fully into the Islamist-led government that took over after ex-President Bashar al-Assad’s ousting in late 2024.
Last year, the Damascus government reached a deal with the SDF that envisaged a full integration by the end of 2025, but the two sides have made little progress, each accusing the other of stalling or acting in bad faith.
The US has stepped in as a mediator, holding meetings as recently as Sunday to try to nudge the process forward. Sunday’s meetings ended with no tangible progress.
Failure to integrate the SDF into Syria’s army risks further violence and could potentially draw in Turkey, which has threatened an incursion against Kurdish fighters it views as terrorists.
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Israel-Backed Militia Says It Killed Two Hamas Operatives in Gaza
Palestinian Hamas terrorists stand guard at a site as Hamas says it continues to search for the bodies of deceased hostages, in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, Dec. 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
An Israeli-backed Palestinian militia said on Wednesday it had killed two Hamas operatives in southern Gaza, marking a renewed challenge to Hamas after Israel empowered its rivals in areas under Israeli military control.
The armed group, known as the Popular Forces, said in a statement it had carried out a raid in Rafah, killing two Hamas members who refused to surrender and detaining a third. It shared a photo that it said depicted one of the slain men.
Hamas, which brands such groups as “collaborators,” declined to comment on the claim, which Reuters couldn’t independently authenticate. Rafah sits in territory under Israeli control under the terms of an October Israel–Hamas deal.
The Popular Forces, founded by an anti-Hamas armed Bedouin leader, Yasser Abu Shabab, is believed to be the largest group operating in Israel-controlled areas.
Abu Shabab was killed in December in what the group described as a family feud. He was replaced by his deputy Ghassan Duhine, who vowed not to let up in the fight against Hamas, the terrorist group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades. The Popular Forces and others have reported more recruits since the October deal took effect.
The emergence of the groups, though they remain small and localized, has added to pressures on Islamist Hamas and could complicate efforts to stabilize and unify a divided Gaza, shattered by two years of war.
Nearly all of Gaza‘s two million people live in Hamas-held areas, where the group has been reestablishing its grip and where four Hamas sources said it continues to command thousands of men despite suffering heavy blows during the war.
But Israel still holds well over half of Gaza – areas where Hamas‘s foes operate beyond its reach. With US President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza moving slowly, there is no immediate prospect of further Israeli withdrawals.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged Israeli backing for anti-Hamas groups in June, saying Israel had “activated” clans. Israel has given little detail since then.
The Popular Forces deny receiving support from Israel.