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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.  


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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Hamas Warns Against Cooperation with US Relief Efforts In Bid to Restore Grip on Gaza

Hamas terrorists carry grenade launchers at the funeral of Marwan Issa, a senior Hamas deputy military commander who was killed in an Israeli airstrike during the conflict between Israel and Hamas, in the central Gaza Strip, Feb. 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

The Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza has warned residents not to cooperate with the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, as the terror group seeks to reassert its grip on the enclave amid mounting international pressure to accept a US-brokered ceasefire.

“It is strictly forbidden to deal with, work for, or provide any form of assistance or cover to the American organization (GHF) or its local or foreign agents,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement Thursday.

“Legal action will be taken against anyone proven to be involved in cooperation with this organization, including the imposition of the maximum penalties stipulated in the applicable national laws,” the statement warns.

The GHF released a statement in response to Hamas’ warnings, saying the organization has delivered millions of meals “safely and without interference.”

“This statement from the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry confirms what we’ve known all along: Hamas is losing control,” the GHF said.

The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza in late May, implementing a new aid delivery model aimed at preventing the diversion of supplies by Hamas, as Israel continues its defensive military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group.

The initiative has drawn criticism from the UN and international organizations, some of which have claimed that Jerusalem is causing starvation in the war-torn enclave.

Israel has vehemently denied such accusations, noting that, until its recently imposed blockade, it had provided significant humanitarian aid in 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.

According to their reports, the organization has delivered over 56 million meals to Palestinians in just one month.

Hamas’s latest threat comes amid growing international pressure to accept a US-backed ceasefire plan proposed by President Donald Trump, which sets a 60-day timeline to finalize the details leading to a full resolution of the conflict.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump announced that Israel has agreed to the “necessary conditions” to finalize a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza, though Israel has not confirmed this claim.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to meet with Trump next week in Washington, DC — his third visit in less than six months — as they work to finalize the terms of the ceasefire agreement.

Even though Trump hasn’t provided details on the proposed truce, he said Washington would “work with all parties to end the war” during the 60-day period.

“I hope, for the good of the Middle East, that Hamas takes this Deal, because it will not get better — IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE,” he wrote in a social media post.

Since the start of the war, ceasefire talks between Jerusalem and Hamas have repeatedly failed to yield enduring results.

Israeli officials have previously said they will only agree to end the war if Hamas surrenders, disarms, and goes into exile — a demand the terror group has firmly rejected.

“I am telling you — there will be no Hamas,” Netanyahu said during a speech Wednesday.

For its part, Hamas has said it is willing to release the remaining 50 hostages — fewer than half of whom are believed to be alive — in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and an end to the war.

While the terrorist group said it is “ready and serious” to reach a deal that would end the war, it has yet to accept this latest proposal.

In a statement, the group said it aims to reach an agreement that “guarantees an end to the aggression, the withdrawal [of Israeli forces], and urgent relief for our people in the Gaza Strip.”

According to media reports, the proposed 60-day ceasefire would include a partial Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a surge in humanitarian aid, and the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas, with US and mediator assurances on advancing talks to end the war — though it remains unclear how many hostages would be freed.

For Israel, the key to any deal is the release of most, if not all, hostages still held in Gaza, as well as the disarmament of Hamas, while the terror group is seeking assurances to end the war as it tries to reassert control over the war-torn enclave.

The post Hamas Warns Against Cooperation with US Relief Efforts In Bid to Restore Grip on Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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UK Lawmakers Move to Designate Palestine Action as Terrorist Group Following RAF Vandalism Protest

Police block a street as pro-Palestinian demonstrators gather to protest British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s plans to proscribe the “Palestine Action” group in the coming weeks, in London, Britain, June 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy

British lawmakers voted Wednesday to designate Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, following the group’s recent vandalizing of two military aircraft at a Royal Air Force base in protest of the government’s support for Israel.

Last month, members of the UK-based anti-Israel group Palestine Action broke into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, a county west of London, and vandalized two Voyager aircraft used for military transport and refueling — the latest in a series of destructive acts carried out by the organization.

Palestine Action has regularly targeted British sites connected to Israeli defense firm Elbit Systems as well as other companies in Britain linked to Israel since the start of the conflict in Gaza in 2023.

Under British law, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has the authority to ban an organization if it is believed to commit, promote, or otherwise be involved in acts of terrorism.

Passed overwhelmingly by a vote of 385 to 26 in the lower chamber — the House of Commons — the measure is now set to be reviewed by the upper chamber, the House of Lords, on Thursday.

If approved, the ban would take effect within days, making it a crime to belong to or support Palestine Action and placing the group on the same legal footing as Al Qaeda, Hamas, and the Islamic State under UK law.

Palestine Action, which claims that Britain is an “active participant” in the Gaza conflict due to its military support for Israel, condemned the ban as “an unhinged reaction” and announced plans to challenge it in court — similar to the legal challenges currently being mounted by Hamas.

Under the Terrorism Act 2000, belonging to a proscribed group is a criminal offense punishable by up to 14 years in prison or a fine, while wearing clothing or displaying items supporting such a group can lead to up to six months in prison and/or a fine of up to £5,000.

Palestine Action claimed responsibility for the recent attack, in which two of its activists sprayed red paint into the turbine engines of two Airbus Voyager aircraft and used crowbars to inflict additional damage.

According to the group, the red paint — also sprayed across the runway — was meant to symbolize “Palestinian bloodshed.” A Palestine Liberation Organization flag was also left at the scene.

On Thursday, local authorities arrested four members of the group, aged between 22 and 35, who were charged with conspiracy to enter a prohibited place knowingly for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the UK, as well as conspiracy to commit criminal damage.

Palestine Action said this latest attack was carried out as a protest against the planes’ role in supporting what the group called Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.

At the time of the attack, Cooper condemned the group’s actions, stating that their behavior had grown increasingly aggressive and resulted in millions of pounds in damages.

“The disgraceful attack on Brize Norton … is the latest in a long history of unacceptable criminal damage committed by Palestine Action,” Cooper said in a written statement.

“The UK’s defense enterprise is vital to the nation’s national security and this government will not tolerate those that put that security at risk,” she continued.

The post UK Lawmakers Move to Designate Palestine Action as Terrorist Group Following RAF Vandalism Protest first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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US-backed Gaza Relief NGO Vows ‘Legal Action’ Against AP Claim Group Fired on Palestinian Civilians

Palestinians collect aid supplies from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US-backed nonprofit operating aid distribution centers in the Gaza Strip, is pushing back forcefully against an Associated Press report alleging that its contractors opened fire on Palestinian civilians.

The GHF is accusing the AP of withholding key evidence and relying on a “disgruntled former contractor” as a central source.

“In response, we are pursuing legal action,” the organization said in a statement released Wednesday.

GHF said it conducted an “immediate investigation” after being contacted by the AP, reviewing time-stamped video footage and sworn witness testimony. The group concluded that the allegations were “categorically false,” stating that no civilians were fired upon at any of their distribution sites and that the gunfire heard in the AP’s video came from Israeli forces operating outside the vicinity.

“What is most troubling is that the AP refused to share the full video with us prior to publication, despite the seriousness of the allegations,” the statement read. “If they believed their own reporting, they should have provided us with the footage so we could take immediate and appropriate action.”

The nonprofit’s public rebuttal raises sharp questions about the AP’s reporting process, suggesting the outlet declined to engage with the organization in good faith and instead leaned on a source GHF describes as having been terminated “for misconduct” weeks prior. The group also claimed the AP’s recent coverage of its activities had begun to “echo narratives advanced by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health.”

The AP has not yet responded publicly to the GHF’s accusations or provided clarification about its decision not to share the video footage before publication. The original report alleged that American contractors employed by GHF had fired weapons near or toward civilians.

The GHF statement confirmed that a contractor seen shouting in the AP’s video had been removed from operations, though the group insisted this was unrelated to any violence and did not constitute evidence of wrongdoing.

GHF, which describes its mission as delivering food to Gaza “safely, directly, and without interference,” said it remains committed to transparency but would not allow its operations to be “derailed by misinformation.”

The dispute highlights the fraught information environment in Gaza, where limited access and competing narratives frequently complicate the verification of on-the-ground events.

The post US-backed Gaza Relief NGO Vows ‘Legal Action’ Against AP Claim Group Fired on Palestinian Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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