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For theatergoers at Broadway’s recent spate of Jewish shows, attendance is a form of witness
(JTA) — Jewish stories have had top billing on Broadway this season — and Jewish audiences have been flocking to the theater.
Audiences have lined up to see Tom Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt,” the multigenerational saga of a Jewish family in Vienna, and the devastating consequences of the Holocaust upon its ranks. They have packed the house for “Parade,” a musical retelling of the infamous antisemitic show trial and subsequent lynching of Leo Frank in Marietta, Georgia, in 1915. And just off Broadway, “The Wanderers” (which closed April 2) invited us into the slowly disintegrating marriage of two secular Jews born to mothers who dramatically left the Satmar sect of ultra-Orthodox Judaism, a show replete with intergenerational trauma and a pervasive sense of ennui.
None of these shows offers a particularly lighthearted evening at the theater. So why have they proven so popular? Critics have penned countless reviews of the three plays, analyzing the quality of the productions, the scripts, scores, performances of principal actors, set and design. But for our new book exploring what audiences learn about Judaism from Jewish cultural arts, my colleague Sharon Avni and I have been interviewing audience members after seeing “Leopoldstadt,” “Parade” and “The Wanderers.” We are interested in turning the spotlight away from the stage and onto the seats: What do audiences make of all this? What do they learn?
Take “Leopoldstadt,” for example, a drama so full of characters that when it left London for its Broadway run the production team added a family tree to the Playbill so that theatergoers could follow along. “Leopoldstadt” offers its audience a whistle-stop introduction to modern European Jewish history. In somewhat pedantic fashion, the family debates issues of the day that include Zionism, art, philosophy, intermarriage and, in a searing final scene, the memory of the Holocaust.
For some of the theatergoers that we interviewed, “Leopoldstadt” was powerful precisely because it packed so much Jewish history into its two-hour run time. It offered a basic literacy course in European Judaism, one they thought everyone needed to learn. Others, however, thought that this primer of Jewish history was really written for novice audiences — perhaps non-Jews, or assimilated Jews with half-remembered Jewish heritage, like Stoppard himself. “I don’t know who this play is for,” one interviewee told us. “But it’s not me. I know all this already.”
Brandon Uranowitz, left, who plays a Holocaust survivor, confronts Arty Froushan as a young writer discovering his Jewish roots, in the Broadway production of Tom Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt.” (Joan Marcus)
Other interviewees thought the power of “Leopoldstadt” lay not in its history lessons, but in its ability to use the past to illuminate contemporary realities. I spoke at length with a woman who had been struggling with antisemitism at work. Some of her colleagues had been sharing social media posts filled with lazy caricatures of Jews as avaricious capitalists. Upon seeing “Leopoldstadt,” she realized that these vile messages mirrored Nazi rhetoric in the 1930s, convincing her that antisemitism in contemporary America had reached just as dangerous a threshold as beheld European Jews on the eve of the Shoah.
We heard similar sentiments about the prescience of history to alert us to the specter of antisemitism today from audiences who saw “Parade.” Recalling a scene where the cast members wave Confederate flags during the titular parade celebrating Confederate Memorial Day, Jewish audiences recalled feeling especially attuned to Jewish precarity when the theater burst into applause at the end of the musical number. “Why were we clapping Confederate flags?” one of our interviewees said. “I’ve lived in the South, and as a Jew I know that when you see Confederate flags it is not a safe space for us.”
“Parade” dramatizes the popular frenzy that surrounded the trial of Leo Frank, a Yankee as well as a Jew, who was scapegoated for the murder of a young Southern girl. Jewish audience members that we interviewed told us that the play powerfully illustrated how crowds could be manipulated into demonizing minorities, comparing the situation in early 20th century Marietta to the alt-right of today, and the rise of antisemitism in contemporary America.
What we ultimately discovered, however, was that audience perceptions of the Jewish themes and characters in these productions were as varied as audiences themselves. Inevitably, they tell us more about the individual than the performance. Yet the fact that American Jews have flocked to these three shows — a secular pilgrimage of sorts — also illustrates the power and the peril of public Jewish storytelling. For audience members at “Leopoldstadt” and “Parade,” especially, attending these performances was not merely an entertaining evening at the theater. It was a form of witnessing. There was very little to be surprised by in these plays, after all. The inevitable happens: The Holocaust destroys Jewish life in Europe, Leo Frank is convicted and lynched. Jewish audiences know to expect this. They know there will be no happy ending. In the secular cultural equivalent to saying Kaddish for the dead, Jewish audiences perform their respect to Jewish memory by showing up, and by paying hundreds of dollars for the good seats.
The peril of these performances, however, is that audiences learn little about antisemitism in reality. The victims of the Nazis and the Southern Jews of Marietta would tell us that they could never have predicted what was to happen. Yet in “Parade” and “Leopoldstadt” audiences are asked to grapple with the naivete of characters who believe that everything will be all right, even as audiences themselves know that it will not. By learning Jewish history on Broadway, audiences are paradoxically able to distance themselves from it, simply by knowing too much.
In the final scene of “Leopoldstadt,” Leo, the character loosely based on Stoppard himself, is berated by a long-lost relative for his ignorance of his family’s story. “You live as if without history,” the relative tells Leo. “As if you throw no shadow behind you.” Audiences, at that moment, are invited to pat themselves on the back for coming to see the show, and for choosing to acknowledge the shadows of their own Jewish histories. The cold hard reality, however, is that a shadow can only ever be a fuzzy outline of the truth.
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The post For theatergoers at Broadway’s recent spate of Jewish shows, attendance is a form of witness appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Tidbits: For the first time, a kosher restaurant has won a Michelin star
Tidbits is a Forverts feature of easy news briefs in Yiddish that you can listen to or read, or both! If you read the article and don’t know a word, just click on it and the translation appears. Listen to the report here:
צום ערשטן מאָל געווינט אַ כּשרער רעסטאָראַן אַ „מישעלין־שטערן“
ייִט״אַ. — ווען מע האָט באַשאָטן דעם ישׂראלדיקן קוכער רז שבתי (ראַז שאַבטײַ) מיט קאָנפֿעטי האָט ער זיך ממש צעוויינט — און זײַנע מיטאַרבעטער האָבן אים וואַרעם אַרומגענומען.
מיט עטלעכע מינוט פֿריִער האָט מען געמאָלדן, אַז זײַן רעסטאָראַן אין מיאַמי, וואָס הייסט „מוטראַ“, איז געוואָרן דער ערשטער כּשרער רעסטאָראַן צו באַקומען אַ „מישעלין־שטערן“ — דעם גרעסטן כּבֿוד אין דער רעסטאָראַן־אינדוסטריע.
„דאָס איז אַ מאָמענט פֿון שׂימחה און פֿון שטאָלץ,“ האָט שאַבטײַ געזאָגט דער ייִדישער טעלעגראַפֿישער אַגענטור. „דעם שטערן באַקומט נישט בלויז ׳מוטראַ׳, נאָר דאָס גאַנצע ייִדישע פֿאָלק.“
שבתי, וואָס האָט שוין געאַרבעט אין אַ צאָל קיכן איבער ניו־יאָרק און ישׂראל, האָט געעפֿנט „מוטראַ“ אין פֿעברואַר 2025, געבנדיק דעם רעסטאָראַן אַ נאָמען נאָך זײַן ירושלים־געבוירענער באָבען, וועמעס קאָכן האָט אינספּירירט זײַן מעניו.
„איך האָב ליב צו באַצייכענען דאָס עסן אין דעם רעסטאָראַן ווי ׳ירושלימער מאכלים׳ אַנטקעגן ׳מיטל־מיזרחדיקע אָדער ישׂראלדיקע מאכלים׳ ווײַל די טעמען וואָס איך פּרוּוו ברענגען צום טיש זענען די טעמען וואָס זענען פֿאַרבונדן מיט מײַנע זכרונות און מיט מײַנע עקסקורסיעס אין מאַרק מיט דער באָבען,” האָט שבתי געזאָגט. „איך דאַרף זײַן געטרײַ די פּאָטראַוועס וואָס די באָבע האָט מיך געהאָדעוועט.“
אַ באַשרײַבונג פֿונעם רעסטאָראַן אויף דער „מישעלין“־וועבזײַט לויבט זײַנע „פּרעכטיקע בוריקעס אין ‘אַהאָ בלאַנקאָ’ (אַ קאַלטע זופּ געמאַכט פֿון מאַנדלען, קנאָבל און עסיק)“ און „שאָפֿנפֿלייש־קאָבאַב מיט גערייכערטן פּאַטלעזשאַן־קרעם און פּאָמידאָרן־בוימל“.
אַ דאַנק דער אָנערקענונג איז „מוטראַ“ געוואָרן איינער פֿון די אָנגעזעענסטע רעסטאָראַנען און באַטרעפֿט אַן אמתן ווענדפּונקט פֿאַר דער כּשרער קיך. פֿאַר שבתי, וואָס האָט אָנגעהויבן היטן כּשרות מיט מער ווי 10 יאָר צוריק, איז די פּרעמיע אַ קלאָרער באַווײַז, אַז קולינאַרע אויסגעצייכנטקייט קען בליִען אין די ראַמען פֿון דער כּשרער קיך.
„איך האָף אַז די דערגרייכונג וועט אינספּירירן אַנדערע כּשרע קוכערס,“ האָט ער געזאָגט.
צו זען דעם אַרטיקל אויף ענגליש, גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
To see the article in English, click here.
The post Tidbits: For the first time, a kosher restaurant has won a Michelin star appeared first on The Forward.
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Jewish witchcraft isn’t as weird as it sounds
Madonna, incongruously, may be largely responsible for introducing the public to a mystical, magical image of Judaism — one that went beyond old men bent over books, studying laws for keeping kosher or Shabbat. Her red string bracelet and her studies of kabbalah gave the religion a new air of mystery and occultism.
But Judaism has always been full of mystical, magical traditions. Jews made amulets to protect against the evil eye, or for luck and prosperity. They beseeched and pacified the dead. Rabbis wrote protective charms for their flock. Psychics and palm readers told the fortunes of Jews and non-Jews alike.
A new exhibit, “Jews are Magic: Occult Practices from Palmistry to Psychics” from YIVO and the Center for Jewish History, delves into the history of the occult in Ashkenazi Judaism. The display, which pulls from YIVO’s archives, has examples of occultism drawing from two Jewish communities: the shtetl and the city.
One side of the exhibit showcases letters to great rabbis asking for blessings and remedies, as well as written spells and amulets protecting against demons like Lilith. The other features photos and biographies of professional Jewish clairvoyants and fortune tellers, who worked mostly in urban areas serving both Jews and gentiles with seances, palmistry and the like, advertising in newspapers and performing on stages.
It’s a lot to cover, and it’s complicated not only by the history but by a quote from Deuteronomy, highlighted in the exhibit. It explicitly forbids those who “useth divination” as well as those who are an “enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard or a necromancer.” It is a comprehensive list, and doesn’t mince words, calling all of these magicians “an abomination.” Yet even great rabbis and Talmudists wrote charms. How could magic be so pervasive in Judaism when it is so expressly prohibited?
This is the fundamental question of the exhibit, but the show is small and has limited space to fully examine the contradictions. Its artifacts span so much time that it is difficult to intuit the connections between, say, Terfren Laila — a traveling psychic born Else Terese Frenkel who wore a ruby-adorned turban and pretended to be from Singapore by way of India (despite her Yiddish accent) — and letters asking a Talmud scholar to heal a loved one.
Thankfully, to open the exhibition, YIVO held a panel discussion between two scholars, Rokhl Kafrissen, an expert in Ashkenazi women’s folk magic, and Samuel Glauber, whose expertise is Jewish occultism in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Moderated by YIVO’s Eddy Portnoy, the panelists discussed the ways that superstitions arose in shtetls and were mined by those looking to make a few shekels.
Kafrissen explained that magic was a normal part of Jewish life for centuries, largely practiced by women; their domain was the home, encompassing everything from health to wealth, including charms and remedies. And just because these women’s rituals weren’t a “normative” part of Judaism — which is to say, institutional or recorded by official religious texts — they were certainly a normal part of life. Women led rituals such as cemetery measuring, a practice in which string was used to encircle the graveyard while praying and later used to make “soul candles” for Yom Kippur, and removed the evil eye from anyone concerned they had been cursed — what Kafrissen called “everyday Ashkenazi magic.”
But over time, these rituals — long central to Ashkenazi life — were pushed out as some Jewish leaders hoped to modernize their religion. Science rose to take the place of folk magic, and people began to dismiss these practices, which were rarely written down, as mere superstition.
This sense that Judaism was full of magic, however, fed easily into Christian suspicions about Jewish witchcraft, and perhaps encouraged some of the urban psychics and spiritualists to lean on Judaism to increase their mystery.
Glauber’s research focuses on this latter, urban category, a far cry from the shtetl folk magic. These Jewish men and women took part in a craze that enraptured far more than just Jews — seances and fortune-telling were trendy throughout the Victorian era and beyond, and its Jewish performers did not only serve Jews. (Though those suspected to be Jewish were covered hungrily by the Jewish press.) They worked magic on stage and sold their services to eager consumers hoping to speak to the dead or know the future.
Some of these performers tried to hide their Judaism, like the turban-wearing Laila, who managed to become famous enough to tell the fortunes of celebrity clients in Los Angeles and London. Another was trusted by Stalin.
Others, such as Abraham Hochman, were open about their Judaism; Hochman helped the Jewish immigrant community in New York by using his supposed psychic abilities to help women who had arrived in the city find runaway husbands. (The problem was so pervasive that the Forverts had a “Gallery of Missing Husbands” column to do the same.) One branded himself a mystical rabbi, leaning into Judaism’s mystique, which led to an audience, Glauber said, made up mostly of Christian barmaids.
Much of this information discussed by Glauber and Kafrissen is not included in the exhibit, which largely consists of fragments of papers from YIVO’s archives. The end of their discussion touched briefly on yet another rich source of magic: modern Hasidism. But neither the discussion nor exhibit had space to expand on this topic, making it hard to find the throughline between demon-warding amulets and today’s Judaism.
Still, no exhibit or discussion can capture the subject in its entirety. What “Jews are Magic” does best is spark curiosity, and a desire to learn more. That, in itself, is a kind of Jewish magic.
The exhibit ‘Jews are Magic’ is on display from May 26 to Dec. 31 2026 at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in the Center for Jewish History in New York City.
The post Jewish witchcraft isn’t as weird as it sounds appeared first on The Forward.
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Staunch Israel critic and Gaza trauma surgeon Adam Hamawy wins NJ-12 primary
(JTA) — Adam Hamawy, the staunch Israel critic who served as a trauma surgeon in Gaza, is expected to join Congress after winning the Democratic primary in New Jersey’s 12th district on Tuesday.
The political novice held a 12-point margin ahead of second-place candidate Brad Cohen with 86% of the vote in, even as he faced questions over his past ties to Omar Abdel-Rahman, the “Blind Sheikh” convicted on terrorism charges in 1995. Hamawy’s camp had called the questions “gross and bigoted” and said the attacks against him were “getting more desperate than ever.”
At a time when Israel is becoming increasingly unpopular among Democratic voters, Hamawy’s victory makes him the latest in a string of vocally pro-Palestinian progressives to win Democratic elections in blue districts in this year’s midterms, following fellow New Jersey candidate Analilia Mejia and Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania.
“The Democratic establishment just got a wake-up call!” wrote PAL PAC, a pro-Palestinian group that had endorsed Hamawy, on X. “This victory proves what we have known all along: Standing firmly and unapologetically for Palestinian freedom is a WINNING platform.”
Hamawy, who is credited with having saved Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s life during the Iraq War, was also boosted by $2 million in spending by American Priorities, a super PAC that aims to counterweight the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC by installing pro-Palestinian progressives in Congress. He was endorsed by a slew of left-wing politicians and campaigned alongside the streamer Hasan Piker, who’s been accused of antisemitic rhetoric. He is set to succeed Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, who is retiring at the end of her term.
As an opponent of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system and a supporter of a complete arms embargo and the right of return for Palestinian refugees, Hamawy will become one of Congress’ sharpest Israel critics if he wins November’s general election, which he is expected to do in the deep-blue district.
Hamawy said that he finds antisemitism “abhorrent” and that he is “deeply worried about its continued rise” in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last week.
“As a Muslim, I understand what it feels like to face bigotry, to feel unsafe in your community and to have your loyalty to this country questioned,” Hamawy said. “In this country, we have seen recent attacks at both synagogues and mosques. I see our safety as intertwined.”
Asked about Jewish constituents who disagree with his stance on Israel, Hamawy told JTA, “I hope we can still connect on shared values and goals, including peace, justice, safety and dignity.” He added that his door “will always be open.”
Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, did not mention Hamawy’s pro-Palestinian advocacy in a statement congratulating him on his win.
“As a veteran, combat surgeon, and small business owner, Adam Hamawy has continually served his community and our country. He is a proven fighter for working families,” Martin said. “We look forward to welcoming him to Congress, where he will continue the fight to lower costs, expand access to healthcare, and make life more affordable for New Jersey families.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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