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How a 3-hour play about antisemitism in France became Broadway’s must-see show
(New York Jewish Week) — I’ll be honest: At the outset, a three-hour play about antisemitism did not sound like my idea of a good time. After all, as the editor of a Jewish publication, I spend much of my workdays writing about and thinking about the world’s hatred of Jews.
But my trepidation evaporated within minutes of the first scene of “Prayer for the French Republic,” Josh Harmon’s Broadway play about generations of a French Jewish family grappling with their Jewish identity, their French identity and the ways in which these identities invariably clash and overlap with one another.
From the opening scenes — in which we are introduced to the Benhamou family, including a somewhat brittle but loving matriarch, Marcelle Salomon Benhamou (Betsy Aidem); a brilliant but sarcastic daughter Elodie (Francis Benhamou); father Charles (Nael Nacer) and a religiously curious son Daniel (Aria Shahghasemi) — “Prayer for the French Republic” felt like I was looking in a mirror. Or, perhaps a more accurate description would be watching a home movie — a term that has fallen out of favor but uniquely describes that experience of observing a family’s everyday interactions as seen through the lens of someone who is apart of, rather than separate from, the family depicted on screen.
The play opens in Paris in 2016, with the family in turmoil after Daniel, who wears a kippah, gets attacked on the street just before sundown on Shabbat. It’s a time of heightened antisemitism in France, most notably with the 2015 attack by an Islamist on a kosher supermarket, which killed four and terrified Paris’ Jewish community to the core. Amid fears for their safety, over the course of three hour-long acts (punctuated by two 10-minute intermissions), the Benhamous debate joining the record number of French Jews who are moving to Israel.
The nearly present-day family’s story is punctuated by flashbacks to 1944-1946, spotlighting Marcelle’s great-grandparents, Irma and Adolphe Salomon, who miraculously survived World War II by secreting themselves in their Paris apartment — unlike their other family members who had fled to the U.S. or Cuba, or endured or succumbed to the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps.
“Prayer for the French Republic” was first mounted off-Broadway in 2022, garnering awards and rave reviews. And when it moved to Broadway earlier this month, many of its key players, including director David Cromer and stars Aidem and Francis Benahmou, came along for the ride.
I had the chance to speak with Aidem, who most recently played Grandma Emilia in another recent Broadway play about antisemitism, Tom Stoppard’s Tony Award-winning “Leopoldstadt.” The 66-year-old Upper West Sider shared with me her thoughts on the play’s relevance in 2024, her personal experiences with Judaism and why live theater is an “alchemical” experience.
This interview has been condensed and lightly edited.
Molly (Molly Ranson) and Elodie (Francis Benhamou) debate Israel in a scene from “Prayer for the French Republic.” (Jeremy Daniel)
Watching “Prayer for the French Republic,” I felt like I actually knew the Benhamou family, and that I knew your character personally. Did you feel this way when you first “met” Marcelle? What was your reaction when you read the script the first time?
I got the script at the very beginning of 2020. I was set to go to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to direct a bunch of actors for the Arts in the Armed Forces at the army base and the army prison there. I read the script before I left. They wanted to do a startup workshop — I was like, I’ve got to get out of Kansas. I literally flew back a day early to do the workshop. That’s because when I read the play, and I read the part of Marcelle, I was blown away by how I understood who she was, and I couldn’t believe the breadth of what the writer Josh Harmon was able to give to one character in a story as beautiful as this.
The world is a very different place now than it was when the play premiered off-Broadway in January 2022. After the massacre in Israel on Oct. 7 and the turmoil over the war in Gaza, how do you think the play hits differently with audiences today?
I think the play, because it is a closeup, people see themselves in this circumstance. It becomes incredibly relatable, it’s personal. It’s not a sweeping epic. I think being able to recognize people going through something that you feel you’re going through privately — when you watch it in public it expands your sense of belonging to a greater community.
How does that happen? Because I agree — watching the play was somehow uplifting, despite the difficult subject matter. The audience was laughing and engaged. Is that the magic of theater? What is it about this play that makes it feel comforting in a really fraught time?
I think there’s something that alchemically happens in live performance. [Plus, director] David Cromer is incredibly insistent on true behavior — not doing what he calls “theatrical behavior” but really letting things get uncomfortable, showing their smudges, showing where people lose their footing. When audiences see that, they instantly enter into the center of the character’s anguish, because they’re not perfect. They’re imperfect. I think it helps them relax and go, “Oh, I do that too. I know what that feels like.” I think that’s a tribute to Josh’s writing and tribute to David’s directing, and the actors he’s assembled, who are willing to be foolish and willing to be lost. And I think that’s what makes the experience universal.
You’ve had a couple of heavy years, coming off “Leopoldstadt,” where you play Emilia, another Jewish matriarch, this time in a family epic set before and during the Holocaust. What similarities do you see between these two characters?
Emilia supposedly walked from Kyiv to Lviv on foot, which is something like over 500 miles, during one of the pogroms — she’s a survivor. She was very tough. I mean, the line that I said at the end of the 1899 [scene] was, “They used to hate us for killing Christ, now they hate us for being Jews. God, give my grandchildren the desert.” So Theodor Herzl was, at that moment, coming up with this plan [for a Jewish state in Palestine] that a lot of the Viennese thought, “Oh, who wants to give up high society and the culture that we live in, which is the best of Europe, and go live in some terrible desert?” That has a very similar theme to a family in Paris [in “Prayer for the French Republic”] thinking they live in the best, most cultured city in the world, and thinking the only safe place to go is Israel. That similarity is interesting to me.
The Benhamou family of Paris conducts a Passover seder in a scene from Broadway’s “Prayer for the French Republic.” (Jeremy Daniel)
How would you describe your own Jewish identity?
I was raised in Phoenix, Arizona, which didn’t have a large Jewish community. But I noticed in like fifth or sixth grade that all the boys were going to this thing called Hebrew school. So I asked my mom if I could also go to Hebrew school. I was a year younger than my brother and she’s like, “I’m not doing two carpools a week. You can go to your brother’s class.” So I was the only girl in my Hebrew school class, and I was the first girl at my temple to be bat mitzvahed. This was the ’60s. The only reason I kept at it was because I figured out, early on, I had a good ear and photographic memory. So they [the teachers] thought I was extremely proficient, but it was just that I figured out I had a gift.
Was this the start of your acting career?
It was a skill I didn’t know I had; it just came out at that time. Also my father, who had been raised more religiously than I, I could feel his pride that I would take an interest in this. And then I raised my son — he went to Hebrew school, he was also bar mitzvahed, even though I was a single mom and his father was Catholic. I just was like, “Yeah, we’re gonna carry this on.”
“Prayer for the French Republic” is such a deeply Jewish play. How would you describe its audience? Do you think it resonates with non-Jews?
Oh, absolutely. I have a lot of friends that aren’t Jewish, who said, “I really, really loved the play. I learned a lot.” I think Elodie’s monologue is very helpful, in a certain way, for people to say, “Gee, I didn’t think about the size of Indonesia and Pakistan and Nigeria and India being so vastly larger [than Israel]. But why is our news cycle so fixated on that?” I think people learn a lot; I think they say, “It doesn’t matter that this family is Jewish — the interaction between the siblings and the parents and the children is universal.” The actual crisis of the play has to do with something else, but their internal family dynamic is universal.
“Prayer for the French Republic,” a production of the Manhattan Theatre Club, is at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater (261 West 47th St.) through March 3. Click here for tickets and information.
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The post How a 3-hour play about antisemitism in France became Broadway’s must-see show appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US House Education Committee Chair Denounces Biden Admin’s ‘Toothless’ Campus Antisemitism Settlements
Demonstrators take part in an “Emergency Rally: Stand With Palestinians Under Siege in Gaza,” amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, Oct. 14, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
The new chairman of the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce has excoriated several recent civil rights settlements that, he says, allow colleges to evade accountability for being derelict in their handling of campus antisemitism after Hamas’s attack on Israel last Oct. 7.
“It’s disgraceful that in the final days of the Biden-Harris administration, the Department of Education is letting universities, including Rutgers, five University of California system campuses including UCLA, and John Hopkins, off the hook for their failures to address campus antisemitism. The toothless agreements shield schools from real accountability,” Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) said in a statement issued on Thursday. “The Trump administration should closely examine these agreements and explore options to impose real consequences on schools, which could include giving complainants the opportunity to appeal these weak settlements. And certainly, no more complaints should be settled before President Trump takes office.”
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR), a division within the US Department of Education, has spent the past year and a half investigating universities accused of allowing an open season of hate on Jewish students. Such inquiries, if they are not closed due to insufficient evidence, may result in settlements in which higher education institutions admit to having violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and commit to enacting policies which remedy their noncompliance.
For example, Rutgers University recently agreed, as part of an OCR settlement, to train employees to handle complaints of antisemitism, issue a non-discrimination statement, and conduct a “climate survey” in which students report their opinions on discrimination at the school and the administration’s handling of it. In that case, OCR identified “compliance concerns” regarding the university’s handling of violent threats against Jewish students, the desecration of Jewish religious symbols, and discrimination targeting a predominantly Jewish fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi).
Additionally, Temple University agreed last month to implement “remedial” policies for past, inadequately managed investigations of discrimination and to apprise OCR of every discrimination complaint it receives until the conclusion of the 2025-2026 academic year. It also agreed to conduct a “climate” survey to measure students’ opinions on the severity of discrimination on campus, the results of which will be used to “create an action plan” which OCR did not define but insisted on its being “subject to OCR approval.”
In Thursday’s statement, Walberg denounced these and other similar settlements, which were spearheaded by a US presidential administration that refused to recognize anti-Zionism as a form of antisemitism, as little more than a pantomime.
“These so-called resolutions utterly fail to resolve the civil rights complaints they purport to address. The department is shamefully abandoning its obligation to protect Jewish students, faculty, and staff, and undermining the incoming administration,” he said.
Nothing short of a revolution of the current habits and ideas which constitute the current higher education regime can prevent antisemitism and extreme anti-Zionism on college campuses, the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce has previously argued. An overturning of the current order, it wrote in a report published before the winter holidays, would involve reforming aspects of the campus culture which do not appear immediately connected to the issue of antisemitism. Fostering “viewpoint diversity,” for example, would prevent echo chambers of ideological zeal which justify hatred and violence as a means of overcoming one’s political opponents, the report said. It also argued that restoring “academic rigor,” undermined by years of dissolving educational standards for political purposes, would guard against the reduction of complex social issues into the sloganeering of “scholar activism,” in which faculty turn the classroom into a soapbox.
In lieu of so momentous a change, the report encouraged the executive branch of the US government, which is awaiting the arrival of a new administration headed by President-elect Donald Trump, to enforce colleges’ applying Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to incidents of antisemitism and punish those that do not by, for example, freezing their access to federal funds.
Nearly two years of an epidemic of campus antisemitism unlike any ever seen in the US is what has caused Walberg and his committee colleagues to be suspicious of resolutions which maintain the status quo in American higher education. Since Oct. 7, 2023, anti-Zionist activity on college campuses has increased by 477 percent, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) — a trend which has resulted in Jewish students being spit on, assaulted, and pelted with hate speech not uttered openly in the US since the 1950s at America’s most prestigious universities. Holding them accountable, the committee has said, has been difficult due to their ability to mobilize their immense legal and social capital against any action which threatens their power.
“Rather than treat the antisemitic hate plaguing their campuses as a serious problem, they handled it as a public relations issue,” the committee said in its report, citing one example of the corruption it identified. “Penn [University of Pennsylvania] administrators [tried] to orchestrate media coverage depicting members of Congress as ‘bullying and grandstanding’ and Columbia Board of Trustees leaders dismissing congressional oversight on campus antisemitism as ‘capital hill [sic] nonsense.’”
Moreover, it added, university leaders have heaped opprobrium on those who investigate campus antisemitism and openly wished that the Democratic Party would win a majority in the US Congress, an outcome they believed would quell any further inquiries into the matter.
“The findings expose a disturbing pattern of defensiveness and denial among institutions,” the report concluded. “Rather than confronting the severity of the problem, many institutions have dismissed congressional and public criticism and abdicated responsibility for the hostile environments they have enabled. This refusal to acknowledge or address the issue has allowed antisemitism to root and thrive in spaces that contravene the values of this great nation.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post US House Education Committee Chair Denounces Biden Admin’s ‘Toothless’ Campus Antisemitism Settlements first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israeli Defense Chief Orders IDF to Plan for Hamas Defeat if Hostage Talks Fail
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
JNS.org — Defense Minister Israel Katz has instructed the Israel Defense Forces to urgently develop a plan for a decisive victory over Hamas in Gaza if a hostage deal is not finalized before US President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated for a second term on Jan. 20.
“If the hostage deal does not materialize by the time President Trump takes office, Hamas in Gaza must face complete defeat,” Katz stated in a release issued by his office on Friday.
The statement emphasized that Israel must avoid being drawn into a prolonged war of attrition, which would be costly and fail to deliver a strategic victory or end the conflict in Gaza. Katz called for a plan ensuring Hamas’s total defeat, which the IDF is expected to present during upcoming security assessments.
During a meeting on Thursday night attended by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and other senior officials, Katz reiterated that securing the release of the hostages remains the top priority of the defense establishment. “Everything must be done to bring them home,” he said.
Katz also instructed the IDF to identify potential challenges to implementing the plan, such as humanitarian concerns, and to leave those decisions to the political leadership. He emphasized that discussions on Gaza’s political future are irrelevant to the current military strategy, saying that no Arab or other party would assume responsibility for Gaza’s civilian affairs while Hamas remains intact.
Israeli forces target Hamas leadership, kill key terrorists
The IDF and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) announced on Thursday the elimination of key Hamas figures involved in attacks on Israeli forces.
In a series of airstrikes, Osama Abu Namos, the commander of the “Sabra” Battalion in Hamas’s Gaza City Brigade, and his deputy Mahmoud Al Tarq were killed. Both men were responsible for directing attacks on Israeli troops and civilians.
Additionally, Mahmoud Shaheen and Hamada Diri, company commanders in the battalion, were eliminated for their roles in coordinating attacks and supplying weapons.
The IDF and Shin Bet affirmed their commitment to continuing operations against Hamas terrorists.
The post Israeli Defense Chief Orders IDF to Plan for Hamas Defeat if Hostage Talks Fail first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Wildfires are impacting the Jewish community in Los Angeles—with one synagogue completely destroyed
Philissa Cramer reports for JTA.
Daniel Sher’s voice broke as he related the latest to members of his Pacific Palisades synagogue. Kehillat Israel had just sent a message saying that its building had so far survived the devastating Palisades Fire, but, the associate rabbi noted, so much had been lost.
“I cannot begin to describe the feeling that I am currently holding as I hear from so many beloved community members who’ve lost their home—while my family has found out that we’ve lost our home,” Sher said in a video he posted to Instagram on Wednesday afternoon. “Our community that we love so dearly is in disarray.”
Sher later shared a picture taken by his wife of what remained of the home they lived in with their three young children and pets. Only a fireplace and chimney could be distinguished from a sea of ashes—one of thousands of structures that have burned in the last two days as fires rage across the Los Angeles area.
At least one historic synagogue, the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, was completely destroyed by fire, but not before community members battled challenging conditions to remove the Conservative congregation’s 13 Torah scrolls.
#BREAKING Chabad of the Pacific Palisades has safely evacuated all the Torahs from their building.#PalisadesFire pic.twitter.com/A5ngbIbigH
— Frum TikTok (@FrumTikTok) January 8, 2025
Los Angeles’ Jewish community—the second largest in the United States—has swung into action, attempting to provide relief and reassurance at a volatile time. Synagogues and Jewish community centers in safe areas are opening their doors to those who have fled their homes. A Jewish loan society is doling out funds to people who must start from scratch. And local Jewish eateries are fanning out to distribute free food to firefighters who have been battling blazes for days, with no end in sight.
“We have bagels. We have food trucks. We want to pull up to any safe zones to feed firefighters or anyone displaced from their homes,” Yeastie Boys Bagels posted on Instagram on Wednesday. Soon after, it announced that it would be distributing bagels at several evacuation centers. On Thursday, the pop-up shop announced, it would partner with Jose Andres’ World Central Kitchen, known for its work in disaster zones, to do even more.
At least five people have died and more than 100,000 have been ordered to evacuate the fires, the worst in L.A. history, burning mostly uncontained in multiple locations across the region. Many others, lacking power and reliable water, have preemptively left their homes for areas with clean air and less risk.
Among those who have lost their homes are the Jewish celebrities Billy Crystal, Adam Brody and Eugene Levy. Meanwhile, a local newscaster encountered Steve Guttenberg, a Jewish actor who belongs to Kehillat Israel, as he sought to help people who had to abandon their cars in gridlock while evacuating the Palisades Fire.
Some of the new fires have cropped up in densely populated areas closer to the city’s core, including Hollywood. The city continues to experience high winds and low humidity, creating conditions for continued spread. Firefighters have reported a shortage of water in hydrants, leaving their hoses less than full.
While the region has always been prone to wildfires, the risk has historically been low in the winter. But this year, little rain has fallen, drying out vegetation fueled by last year’s historic rainfall, creating optimal conditions for a winter blaze that watchdogs say is a perfect example of the kind of “compound climate disaster” that is becoming more common.
“Now is the time to rally support for the communities being ravaged by these ferocious fires,” Rabbi Jennie Rosenn of Dayenu, a group that aims to mobilize Jews on climate issues, said in a statement. “It is also the time to use our radical imagination to envision and build a different future—one that is just, livable, and sustainable—free of this kind of rampant and devastating destruction.”
For now, many in the region are focused on immediate, practical concerns. The Jewish Free Loan Association announced $2,000 no-interest loans that do not require guarantors for all Angelenos with emergency needs, such as replacement clothing and hotel stays. The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles compiled a list of more than a dozen Jewish institutions providing refuge and emergency assistance to people from across the region, while also looking ahead toward the long recovery process the region will require. And community members are taking stock of what has been lost, even as the risk remains for more devastation to come.
“I do know that we will continue to care for one another, to reach out to one another, and we will rebuild,” Sher said in his video. “So many of us are experiencing heartbreak. But when a community experiences heartbreak together, it means we can mend our hearts together as community as well.”
The post Wildfires are impacting the Jewish community in Los Angeles—with one synagogue completely destroyed appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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