RSS
‘Funny Girl’ national tour casts non-Jewish actor as Fanny Brice, reigniting ‘Jewface’ criticism
(JTA) — The announcement this week that Katerina McCrimmon would star as Fanny Brice in the national tour of “Funny Girl,” the Broadway musical about a trailblazing Jewish comedian, has ignited criticism from some Jewish actors who say the role should be played only by someone who identifies as Jewish.
The casting, announced on Tuesday, is a breakout role for McCrimmon, who previously appeared briefly on Broadway in Tennessee Williams’ “The Rose Tattoo” but has mostly done smaller productions.
But it has disappointed some Jewish performers and their allies in the theater community who knew that the production had advertised itself as “specifically seeking actors of Jewish heritage.”
Jennifer Apple, one of the first actors to discuss the decision on social media, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that because Jewishness was central to Brice, a pioneering early 20th-century vaudevillian, it should be for anyone playing her as well.
“Fanny Brice was a real human being,” said Apple, who also auditioned for the role of Brice and appeared in the national tour of “The Band’s Visit,” about an Egyptian police band’s accidental stay in an Israeli town. “She was a Jewish icon. She was a heroine. She in and of herself paved the way for performers like myself to be able to have a career. If it wasn’t for her, and her chutzpah, many of us Jewish women specifically wouldn’t be able to be performers. So it’s integral to this role, specifically.”
Someone can have Jewish heritage without embracing a Jewish identity — just ask the actor Lea Michele, who replaced Jewish actor Beanie Feldstein as Brice in the recent Broadway revival of “Funny Girl.” Michele’s father is a Sephardic Jew, but she was raised as a Catholic and said she does not identify as Jewish. (For six seasons on the hit television show “Glee,” Michele played a Jewish character, Rachel Berry, who was set on one day portraying Fanny Brice.)
But none of the coverage of McCrimmon’s casting in arts outlets has suggested any personal connection to the Brice character’s Jewish identity, and in the show’s materials, she identifies as “a proud Cuban-American from Miami.” She did not respond to a request for comment.
“I have no doubt that Katerina is freaking terrific and … that she is more than capable of leading a nat’l tour,” Samantha Massell, an actor who appeared in the revival of “Fiddler on the Roof” on Broadway, posted on Instagram after the casting announcement. “But if you consider yourself an advocate for representation in casting and you’re AOK with this (or celebrating it), you need to check yourself.”
The casting adds to an ongoing debate over identity and performance. Some argue that actors should be able to play any role, regardless of their background. But the idea that at least some roles should be reserved for actors whose identities overlap with their characters’ has gained steam in recent years — opening the door for criticism when people who are not Jewish are cast as Jewish characters. (Helen Mirren, who is not Jewish but is playing the Israeli stateswoman Golda Meir in the upcoming film “Golda,” is among those who say they “adhere to both camps.”)
Some have criticized the casting of non-Jewish actors in Jewish roles as “Jewface.” The Jewish comedian Sarah Silverman, for example, lambasted the casting of Kathryn Hahn as Joan Rivers in a biopic that was ultimately scrapped; another frequent subject of criticism has been Rachel Brosnahan as the fictional Jewish comedian Midge Maisel on “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
The real-life Brice got her start in the 1910s headlining Florenz Ziegfeld’s revue, the “Ziegfeld Follies.” The 1964 musical and subsequent film “Funny Girl,” both starring Barbra Streisand, chronicle Brice’s rise to fame while she grapples with her own identity as a Jewish woman — including the shape of her nose, the cadence of her voice and the pacing of her humor.
“If there is something in the piece that when portrayed by somebody of a different identity could potentially be viewed as perpetuating a stereotype or veer into the land of cultural appropriation, you’ve made the wrong casting decision,” said Ari Axelrod, an actor and producer who organized a Broadway gathering in response to a neo-Nazi protest outside the first preview of “Parade,” the show about a 1915 antisemitic lynching, in which the main character is played by the Jewish actor Ben Platt.
Critics of the casting choice say specific lyrics and visual gags just don’t work as well when they are performed by people who do not have specific Jewish lived experiences because they are or can be offensive.
The song, “If a Girl isn’t Pretty,” for example, contains the lyric, “Is a nose with deviation such a crime against the nation?” referring to Brice’s own body image issues, which she partially resolved with one of the earliest rhinoplasties in the United States.
And in the song “Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat,” Brice’s character plays the Jewish caricature “Private Schwartz from Rockaway,” who wears a harness outfitted with two suggestively placed bagels and sings in an exaggerated Eastern European accent about how his “bagels gave a spin, oy, oy.”
“The content of this show is specifically about how she was not considered a pretty Jewish woman, that she had to change her name and change her looks to ‘fit in,’ that she had to assimilate because of her Jewish identity,” Apple said. “To have somebody not be Jewish and do that could perpetuate stereotypes.”
Axelrod and Apple both pointed to the casting of actor Bradley Cooper as American Jewish composer Leonard Bernstein in the upcoming Netflix film “Maestro” as another example of a “Jewface” gaffe. (Early stills of Cooper wearing a prosthetic nose for the role reignited the debate; Silverman is set to appear in the film.)
The casting decision for the tour follows a 15-month Broadway run for “Funny Girl.” Beginning in April 2022, Feldstein starred as Fanny Brice in the revival, bringing a childhood dream of hers to life. (Feldstein’s 3rd birthday party was “Funny Girl”-themed.)
Beanie Feldstein, center, stars as Fanny Brice in the Broadway revival of “Funny Girl.” (Matthew Murphy)
“I truly believe that any Jewish woman who wants to be funny and perform and sing owes something to Fanny Brice,” she told the New York Jewish Week last year.
But after three months, the production announced that Michele would replace Feldstein — after a one-month performance by Jewish actor Julie Benko.
Under the laws of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, it is illegal for a workplace to discriminate against an applicant or employee’s race, religion, sex or gender identity, national origin, age or disability. But the law allows employers to select for aspects of personal appearance if they are essential for fulfilling the requirements of the job — a leniency that opens the door to casting Black actors as Black characters, for example.
There are legal ways to stack the deck in favor of filling roles with actors of certain backgrounds, such as by encouraging people who hold specific identities to audition, or by encouraging others to choose not to.
Massell revealed in an Instagram story Thursday that when the casting directors of the musical “Double Helix,” which tells the story of the discovery of the structure of DNA, were auditioning for the other two Jewish roles (Massell plays the lead role of Rosalind Franklin), they asked people who do not identify as Jewish to “please pass” on auditioning.
“This feels like such a great actionable step for all of these types of roles that are specifically tied to an ethnic identity,” she said.
Those who are challenging the Brice casting on the national tour say there is room for actors to play characters unlike themselves. Apple — who said she has twice been one of just two Jews cast in professional productions of “Fiddler” — says it’s a “slippery slope” to argue that actors must only play their own identity.
“I don’t like that. I don’t subscribe to that. That’s not why I’m an actor,” she said. “It really just comes down to the integrity of the role and the story. And this one is literally about her Jewish identity. She was a Jewish icon.”
Who made the decision to depart from the character breakdown suggestion is not clear. Sonia Friedman Productions and NETworks Presentations, which are producing the tour that is set to launch in Providence, Rhode Island, this fall, did not respond to requests for comment..
“I do know that for this to have happened, a lot of people had to say yes,” said Axelrod.
He said that even though he disagrees with the casting decision, he believes it could have positive dividends for storytelling about Jews.
“Katerina has an incredible opportunity to use this moment to educate herself and empathize with Fanny’s story, but also the story of Jews today,” he said. “If we can’t change the casting decision — and I don’t necessarily think we should, it’s not up to me — we can leverage the moment as an opportunity for empathy and education.”
—
The post ‘Funny Girl’ national tour casts non-Jewish actor as Fanny Brice, reigniting ‘Jewface’ criticism appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Antisemitism Skyrockets in 7 Countries With Largest Jewish Populations, Global Report Finds
Norwegian student Marie Andersen carries an antisemitic sign at an Oct. 21, 2023, pro-Hamas demonstration in Warsaw, Poland. Photo: Screenshot
The seven largest Jewish communities outside Israel have reported record spikes in antisemitic activity in recent years, largely driven by a wave of anti-Jewish hatred in the aftermath of Hamas launching its war against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to a new report released to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and the Holocaust.
On Wednesday, the J7 Large Communities’ Task Force Against Antisemitism — a coalition of Jewish organizations in Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States — released its first J7 Annual Report on Antisemitism on the eve of Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, when Nazi Germany formally surrendered to Allied forces on May 8.
Affirming the findings of other recent research, the report described how from 2021 through 2023, antisemitic incidents increased 11 percent in Australia, 23 percent in Argentina, 75 percent in Germany, 82 percent in the UK, 83 percent in Canada, 185 percent in France, and 227 percent in the US. The data also showed a jump on a per-capita basis, noting that Germany saw more than 38 incidents per 1,000 Jews while the UK saw 13 per 1,000.
Common trends the seven communities identified included jumps in violent incidents, repeated targeting of Jewish institutions, rising online hate speech, and increasing fear among Jews, often prompting them to hide their Jewish identity.
The number of antisemitic outrages in all seven countries spiked to record levels following Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
Different organizations from each of the seven countries authored the various sections of the report highlighting the surge in anti-Jewish animus.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews wrote the section on the UK, outlining the findings of the Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters. CST recorded 3,528 antisemitic incidents for 2024, the country’s second worst year for antisemitism and an 18 percent drop from 2023’s record of 4,296. These incidents included 201 physical assaults, 157 instances of damage to Jewish property, and 250 direct threats.
The report also noted that polling suggested that “approximately 6.7 million people in the UK ‘harbor elevated levels of antisemitic attitudes,’ roughly the population of London, the UK’s capital and most populated city.” The group also expressed concern for “an increase in AI-generated deepfakes depicting Jewish individuals using harmful stereotypes and embedding hate symbols in otherwise innocuous images.”
“We must insist on zero tolerance of antisemitism and ensure that this message gets through to lawmakers wherever we live,” said Phil Rosenberg, president of the Board of Deputies.”
For Canada’s section, the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) provided the information and analysis. The group reported that the Jewish community “was easily the most targeted religious minority, accounting for some 70 percent of religiously motivated hate crimes (with 900 total hate crimes against Jews recorded). Hate crimes against Jews increased by 71 percent from 2022 to 2023, and 172 percent in total since 2020.”
Toronto’s police also counted 164 hate crimes targeting Jews as of October 2024, a 74.5 percent jump from 2023’s statistics.
CIJA also pointed to the increase in antisemitic attitudes among some groups, notably college students (with 26 percent holding some antisemitic views) and Muslims (52 percent). Additional polling showed these numbers reflected in the feelings of Canadian Jews, 98 percent of whom say that antisemitism is a serious or somewhat serious problem and 82 percent who say the country has grown less safe for Jews following the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terror attacks on Israel.
“Since Oct. 7, Canada has experienced a wave of antisemitic attacks — with Jewish schools shot at, synagogues firebombed, Jewish-owned businesses vandalized, and neighborhoods targeted,” CIJA Interim President Noah Shack said in a statement. “In the wake of last week’s federal election, we have a clear expectation that the next Parliament will move urgently to advance serious and impactful solutions to combat hate and protect Jewish Canadians. What is at stake is not only the safety and well-being of our community, but the future of a Canada where everyone can live free from fear and discrimination.”
The report’s section on France, contributed by the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), said that “Palestine” appeared in 30 percent of last year’s antisemitic acts in the country. Schools also saw a surge of incidents, jumping to 1,670 in the 2023-2024 school year, compared to 400 the previous year. Specific hate crimes spotlighted in the report included the assault and rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl, whose attackers cited her “bad words on Palestine” to justify their cruelty.
A November 2024 CRIF study examining the antisemitic attitudes of the public found that 46 percent of the French people believed at least six antisemitic stereotypes. CRIF stated in the report that “in France, the extreme left instrumentalizes antisemitism as a political tool, while the extreme right instrumentalizes the fight against antisemitism as a political tool.”
“What we are witnessing is not just a statistical increase, it is a societal warning sign,” said CRIF president Yonathan Arfi. “This is not a crisis for the Jewish community, it is a test for our democracies. The escalation in hate speech, threats, and physical assaults against Jews around the world reminds us why international cooperation, like that of the J7, is more vital than ever.”
The Central Council of Jews in Germany provided the facts and analysis for their nation. While the government had not yet released 2024 hate crime statistics, the group said that “there were also more than 5,000 crimes reported by the German police in connection with the Israel-Hamas war that were not labeled as motivated by antisemitism.” The group pointed to a January 2025 study which showed that approximately 40 percent of 18-to-29-year-old Germans did not know that the Nazis exterminated 6 million Jews.
“Oct. 7, 2023, has massively accelerated a development that was already looming. Jews in Germany are under threat. A front has formed, cutting across the left and right, from Islamists to the very center of society,” Dr. Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said in a statement. “This coalition questions the self-evidence of today’s Jewish life as well as Germany’s culture of remembrance. These developments are overlapping and mutually influencing online and offline. We are seeing similar developments in all the J7 countries, and I am glad that this strong task force exists.”
The Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA) explained the situation for Jews in Argentina, where the 2024 hate crime figures had also not yet appeared. The group pointed to the Anti-Defamation League’s 2024 Global 100: Index of Antisemitism, which showed that 39 percent of Argentinians (12.8 million) embraced six or more stereotypes about Jews and that 60 percent believed a small group controlled the world.
DAIA also described how “the political landscape in Argentina shifted significantly with the election of President Javier Milei at the end of 2023. His administration’s alignment with the United States and support for Israel has resulted in an increase in antisemitic and other conspiratorial rhetoric, which has become intertwined with broader geopolitical narratives.”
DAIA’s president, Mauro Berenstein, said in a statement that “in Argentina, we see with concern the exponential rise of antisemitism, in educational, academic, and professional settings, where many people, under the guise of critical thinking or a just cause, reproduce age-old prejudices. Social media has amplified these narratives. What was once whispered now goes viral in seconds. Therefore, more than ever, memory and education are not just tools of the past: they are a duty of the present and a hope for the future.”
In Australia, 64 percent of Jews called antisemitism “very much” a big problem in the country, a tenfold increase since 2017.
“This report presents the most comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon of antisemitism in the western world since Oct. 7,” saidm Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. “All of our communities have been afflicted by this, but the situation in Australia presents a particularly staggering depiction of how healthy multicultural societies can be captured by networks of extremists who succeed in fundamentally altering relations between Jews and non-Jews and causing the Jewish community to question its future in a country where its roots are deep and its contributions have been profound.”
Ryvchin said that his country’s recent experience showed that “when antisemitism is not met with sufficient force of policing, law, and political leadership, it can escalate into devastating violence and can attract the most vicious elements of society ranging from religious and ideological fanatics to organized crime. The importance and value of this report is a testament to the work of the ADL [Anti-Defamation League] in convening the J7 and the outstanding cooperation between its member communities.”
As for the US, the ADL and Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations wrote the section, which noted an “alarming rise” in antisemitic incidents. Last month, the ADL released its own report revealing antisemitism in the US surged to break “all previous annual records” in 2024, recording 9,354 antisemitic incidents.
“Eighty years after the end of World War II, Jewish leaders from across the world have come together to reaffirm a simple truth: that we will never allow hatred to define our future,” said Betsy Berns-Korn, chair-elect of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “Rooted in memory, guided by justice, and strengthened by unity, we reaffirm our commitment to securing a safer and more inclusive world for generations to come. This inaugural report reflects the strength of our collective voice and unwavering resolve.”
The post Antisemitism Skyrockets in 7 Countries With Largest Jewish Populations, Global Report Finds first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Eurovision Director Dismisses Pressure by Former Contestants to Ban Israel From Song Contest
Logos of the Eurovision Song Contest are seen in front of the St. Jakobshalle in Basel, Switzerland, May 1, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The director of the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest is ignoring pressure by dozens of former contestants to have the international competition ban Israel because of its military actions in the Gaza Strip during the Israel-Hamas war.
Martin Green said in a statement to the British publication Metro on Tuesday that the Eurovision Song Contest “promotes connections, diversity, and inclusion through music.”
“We all aspire to keep the Eurovision Song Contest positive and inclusive and aspire to show the world as it could be, rather than how it necessarily is,” he added. “The EBU remains aligned with other international organizations that have similarly maintained their inclusive stance towards Israeli participants in major competitions at this time.”
Israel’s national broadcaster, Kan, is a member of the Eurovision Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the song contest. Yuval Raphael will represent Israel in this year’s competition with the heartfelt ballad “New Day Will Rise.” The contest will take place this year in Basel, Switzerland, and Raphael – a survivor of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led terrorist attack in Israel – will perform in the second semi-final on May 15. If she advances, she will compete in the grand final on May 17. Switzerland will host the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time since 1989.
More than 70 former contestants of the Eurovision Song Contest demanded in an open letter on Monday that Kan be banned from the competition this year, claiming that the broadcaster is “complicit in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza and the decades-long regime of apartheid and military occupation against the entire Palestinian people.” The open letter was signed by singers, songwriters, musicians, lyricists, and others from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Finland, France, Iceland, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Turkey. The national broadcasters in Iceland, Slovenia, and Spain have also criticized the EBU’s decision to allow Israel to participate in the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest.
Green’s comments defending Israel’s participation in this year’s competition echo similar sentiments recently expressed by an EBU spokesperson. Speaking to HuffPost UK, the EBU representative said the independent media organization makes decisions about the Eurovision based on rules of the song contest, and Kan’s application to join “met all the competition rules.” The spokesperson further noted that the EBU “remains aligned with other international organizations that have similarly maintained their inclusive stance towards Israeli participants in major competitions at this time.”
“The EBU is an association of public service broadcasters who are all eligible to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest every year,” the spokesperson added. “We are not immune to global events but, together, it is our role to ensure the contest remains – at its heart – a universal event that promotes connections, diversity and inclusion through music.”
Israel’s participation in the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest in Malmo, Sweden, was also highly criticized because of the Israel-Hamas war. Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators took to the streets of Malmo to protest Israel’s involvement and Israel’s representative, Eden Golan, experienced intense backlash during the competition, including death threats and boos from audience members. One Eurovision jury member even admitted that he refused to give Golan a single point merely because of his own anti-Israel views. Singers who participated in the contest last year also faced pressure to pull out of the event because of Israel’s involvement.
At the time, Jean Philip de Tender — the deputy director-general of the EBU – said the Eurovision contest is “a music event, which is organized and co-produced by 37 public broadcasters, so it’s not a competition between nations or governments.” He noted that Eurovision does not make decisions based on politics and if the EBU would ban Kan because of something other than competition rules, “that would have been a political decision.”
The post Eurovision Director Dismisses Pressure by Former Contestants to Ban Israel From Song Contest first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Netherlands to Oppose Extension of EU-Israel Cooperation Deal Over Gaza Concerns
Netherlands Foreign Affairs Minister Caspar Veldkamp addresses a press conference, in New Delhi on April 1, 2025. Photo: ANI Photo/Sanjay Sharma via Reuters Connect
Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp revealed on Wednesday that the Netherlands would oppose any extension of the EU-Israel Action Plan, which aims to implement an agreement that provides the basis for political and economic cooperation between the two sides, without a formal review first, citing concerns over the Israeli military campaign in Gaza.
In a letter to the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, the Dutch top diplomat accused Israel of breaching the 2000 EU-Israel Association Agreement, which stipulates that ties between the Jewish state and the 27-member bloc must be “based on respect for human rights and democratic principles.”
“The situation in the Gaza Strip is rapidly deteriorating — it is dramatic, catastrophic,” Veldkamp told the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad. “Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid is in violation of the laws of war.”
Israel has vehemently denied such claims and accusations, noting that, until its recently imposed blockade, it had provided significant humanitarian aid into the enclave throughout the war. Israeli officials have also said much of the aid that flows into Gaza is stolen by Hamas, which uses it for terrorist operations and sells the rest at high prices to Gazan civilians.
“Meanwhile, the [Israeli] War Cabinet is announcing a reoccupation of Gaza. Taken together, this is reason to draw a line in the sand,” the top Dutch diplomat continued, referring to Israel’s expanded offensive against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which may involve seizing control of the Gaza Strip and overseeing aid distribution.
In his letter, Veldkamp also argued that Israel’s newly proposed system for aid distribution, designed to bypass Hamas, seemed inconsistent with the “principles of neutrality, impartiality, and independence.”
Veldkamp, a former ambassador to Israel, informed Kallas that the Netherlands would block European cooperation with Jerusalem until these alleged human rights abuses are thoroughly investigated. He also mentioned that he would bring up these issues during the upcoming two-day EU meeting in Poland.
Israeli officials argue they have gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, despite Hamas’s widely acknowledged military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.
The EU-Israel Action Plan, which requires unanimous approval from all EU foreign ministers, underpins cooperation in areas such as climate policy, policing, scientific research, and global poverty relief.
On Wednesday, far-right politician Geert Wilders — whose Party for Freedom is part of the Dutch government — criticized Veldkamp, calling him a “weak minister who sides with anti-Israel protesters” in a post on X.
Earlier this week, Wilders announced he met with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and Defense Minister Israel Katz, assuring them of “the support of millions of our people” for the war against “Islamic terror, whether from Hamas, Iran, or the Houthis.”
I spoke today by
with my friends the Israeli minister of Defence @Israel_katz and the minister of Foreign Affairs @gidonsaar and assured them of the support of millions of our people for #Israel fighting Islamic terror, whether from Hamas, Iran or the Houthis. #AmIsraelChai pic.twitter.com/6jjuN0ex6b
— Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv) May 6, 2025
Last month, Veldkamp requested a meeting with Israeli Ambassador Modi Ephraim to raise concerns over Israel’s expanding ground operations in the war-torn enclave.
“At my request, the Israeli ambassador was summoned this morning to provide clarification on the worrying developments in the Gaza Strip, including the attack on the aid convoy,” the top Dutch diplomat said at the time, referring to a March incident in which several aid workers were reportedly killed along with six Hamas terrorist traveling in a convoy of Palestinian ambulances.
During the meeting, Ephraim “emphasized the expectation that the Netherlands, as a friend of Israel, will support our efforts to dismantle the Hamas threat in Gaza — a terrorist organization that uses civilians as human shields,” the Israeli Embassy said in a statement.
The post Netherlands to Oppose Extension of EU-Israel Cooperation Deal Over Gaza Concerns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login