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In episode of CBS’ ‘The Equalizer,’ Adam Goldberg tackles antisemitic hate crimes in Brooklyn
(JTA) — Throughout his career, actor Adam Goldberg has been associated with iconic Jewish roles, from the hero in the kitschy 2003 action comedy “The Hebrew Hammer” to a Jewish soldier in Steven Spielberg’s Oscar winner “Saving Private Ryan.”
But for his latest role, on CBS crime procedural “The Equalizer,” Goldberg didn’t know his character had Jewish ancestry until recently, even though the show is in its third season.
On Sunday night, “The Equalizer” will air an episode called “Never Again,” in which a wave of hate crimes strikes Midwood, a heavily Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn. These incidents hit close to home for Harry Keshegian, Goldberg’s character, a computer expert and Brooklyn native who is part of the show’s team of vigilante justice-seekers. (The series, which is set in New York and stars Queen Latifah, is a reboot of the show from the 1980s, which also spawned a series of films starring Denzel Washington.)
The Harry character has long been established as being of Armenian-American heritage. But for this episode, co-showrunner Adam Glass decided to add to Harry’s backstory, giving the character a Jewish mother as well as a complicated relationship with that side of his faith.
This comes to the forefront when the hate crimes, including vandalism and antisemitic threats, start to pile up. “Growing up with a Jewish mom and Armenian dad, I can’t say I knew where I stood in the community,” Harry says during the episode. “But I definitely know where I stand on hate crimes.”
Harry later describes himself as “someone who’s got a history of genocide on both sides of my family.” And like a lot of Jewish Americans, he was of the belief, at least until recently, that antisemitism in everyday life was mostly a problem of the past.
In dealing with a rabbi (played in the episode by veteran Jewish actor Richard Masur), who tries to react to the horrific events with humor, Harry gets some surprising answers about his family’s past and reconnects, to some degree, with his mother’s faith.
The episode was co-written by Glass and Ora Yashar, who are two of several Jewish writers on the show’s staff.
In working on the show, “we’re really lucky and fortunate that we not only get to entertain, but we get sort of tackle… subject matters that are in the news, and, unfortunately, are part of our society,” Glass told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “And obviously antisemitism is one of them.”
Goldberg, 52, whose extensive list of credits over the last 30 years also includes “Dazed and Confused” and a memorable guest arc on “Friends,” told JTA that, earlier in his career, he might not have been as comfortable with this sort of storyline, since it’s subject matter that he has explored before in other high-profile Jewish roles. In 2017, he attempted to put together a crowdfunding campaign to produce a “Hebrew Hammer” sequel inspired by the spike in online antisemitism at the time.
Adam Goldberg in character in a video promoting a crowdfunding effort for a planned sequel to “The Hebrew Hammer.” (Screenshot from YouTube)
“Given just the unbelievable horrific uptick in hate crimes at large, and antisemitism in particular, it just felt like certainly my duty to go there, and also just keep it as grounded as possible,” he said.
The episode was shot at a synagogue in Brooklyn — for security reasons, the team’s publicist would not identify which one — and the team consulted with a rabbi about getting the Jewish touches right.
“I think one of the things that we wanted to just be mindful of is when we’re actually in a synagogue that we were getting things correct,” Yashar said. At the same time, she added, they wanted to get right the way Harry would behave, as someone who hadn’t been inside a synagogue or the Jewish community for many years.
“I found myself being much more sort of moved [and] affected by it than maybe I thought I would,” Goldberg said. “Particularly having explored this terrain in the past.”
Goldberg, like his character, has one Jewish and one non-Jewish parent; he describes his mother as a “hardcore disavowed Catholic.” He went to Jewish day school in Los Angeles from first through sixth grades, and like his character Harry, he drifted away from Jewish education prior to having a bar mitzvah.
“I certainly thought of myself as a Jewish person,” Goldberg said. “I think this is the thing which I grappled with, and I think many Jewish people grappled with — which is how they see themselves, and where they fit in in a world where people have so many different ideas about what it is to be a Jewish person.”
“Grappling with all that as an actor has made that all the more confusing, how to balance all of that,” he added.
Goldberg said he has gotten mostly positive reactions over the years from people who recognize him from his Jewish roles. But he’s mindful of the idea of being typecast as a “neurotic Jew” or “nice Jewish boy,” both of which he sees as tropes. And the reactions he has gotten have not always been as positive.
“I think in many ways I’ve been sort of forced, and then sort of proudly have come to own my Jewish identity,” he said, “and in the last several years and I’ve been on the receiving end of just an incredible amount of hate on social media.” Goldberg added that he has a photo album on his phone titled “Nazis,” featuring “screenshots of just the most horrific shit you can imagine.”
In “Saving Private Ryan,” Goldberg’s Jewish soldier character taunted Nazi prisoners by waving his Jewish star at them. Around that time, his name was featured on a white supremacist website, which in the late 1990s was a single page.
“I had no idea how bad shit was until the internet,” Goldberg said. “And how bad it’s gotten [in real life] since the internet.”
The two Jewish writers of the episode come from very different backgrounds. While Glass is an Ashkenazi Jew from New York, Yashar comes from an Iranian Jewish family.
“When I was growing up, I was told, ‘They’re white until they know you’re Jewish, don’t wear your Star of David,’” Glass said, echoing a comment by Harry on the show. “Those were things my bubbe [grandmother in Yiddish] said to me. And now I’m telling my kids the same things my bubbe said to me, unfortunately.”
A comic book store also features in the episode’s plot and is a nod to Glass’ other career: In addition to his work in television, Glass is a prolific author of comic books and graphic novels, having authored more than 150. He takes credit for putting Harley Quinn in the Suicide Squad DC comic series.
“I’m in two Jewish businesses,” Glass joked. “The comic book business, and the Hollywood business. Being creative is something that we as a people have always done.”
Yashar, who previously worked on the Netflix series “Atypical,” describes herself in her Twitter bio as “Iranian/Persian/OY Veyish.”
“One of the big things for this episode was that we can’t fight hate alone,” she said. “All marginalized communities, we all need to come together. Being a woman, being Iranian, and being Jewish, you know just my whole life experience has just been teaching me that all along.”
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The post In episode of CBS’ ‘The Equalizer,’ Adam Goldberg tackles antisemitic hate crimes in Brooklyn appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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In a Mamdani-era primary, J Street backs pro-Israel incumbent — and, in a first, his challenger
Rep. Dan Goldman, a two-term Democrat facing a tough primary in New York’s 10th District, has been endorsed again by J Street, but in an unusual move, the pro-Israel advocacy group will also “approve” Goldman’s opponent, former City Comptroller Brad Lander, who has made Goldman’s centrist stance on Israel and ties to AIPAC central to his campaign.
J Street said it is “proud” to support Goldman for reelection for his “pro-Israel, pro-peace, and pro-democracy leadership” in Congress. “Goldman has worked toward a better future for the Middle East as Congressman, co-leading letters opposing demolition of Palestinian homes and calling for sanctions on some of the most violent extremist settlers in the West Bank,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street’s president, said in a statement shared with the Forward.
Goldman called J Street a “vital organization that squarely aligns with my support for Israel as a Jewish and democratic state” and one that “represents many of my Jewish and progressive values, like justice, equality, freedom, and the pursuit of peace.”
J Street first endorsed Goldman, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune who was elected in a competitive primary in 2022, in the 2024 election; as an incumbent, he was automatically included on J Street’s early endorsement list of 117 House members. The group is now reaffirming its backing of Goldman as he faces an uphill battle in a district that voted for Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist and strident critic of Israel, in the Democratic primary for Mayor — after Lander cross-endorsed him, and overwhelmingly backed him in the general election against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Mamdani is backing Lander’s bid, while Goldman has the support of Gov. Kathy Hochul, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal.
Palestinian rights and the Gaza war have increasingly become a litmus test for progressive candidates seeking to define themselves against establishment Democrats. The stakes are heightened by the makeup of the district’s electorate and the fact that both candidates are Jewish, making Israel a key issue in the race. Jewish voters are estimated to comprise more than 20% of the Democratic primary electorate in the 10th Congressional District, which encompasses the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Borough Park and Park Slope, along with a swath of lower Manhattan.
At his campaign launch in Chinatown last week, Goldman said that his Israel positions reflect where most voters in the district are: supportive of Israel’s security while finding a pathway for a two-state solution, sharply critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government, and opposed to settlement expansion and settler violence. Last November, Goldman co-led a letter to President Donald Trump urging for the re-imposition of the Biden era sanctions on West Bank settlers.
Goldman was also an early supporter of humanitarian pauses in the war against Hamas to allow the flow of humanitarian aid. Recently, he told The New York Times, he would “likely vote differently” on a resolution to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American House member, for her comments on Israel. More than 1,000 constituents protested outside his district office after his vote in favor of the Republican-led measure.
Goldman diverged from J Street on key Gaza-related efforts, including his opposition to Democratic-led measures to block or condition U.S. arms transfers to Israel or his refusal to sign onto a letter opposing Trump’s initial vision of the U.S. taking control of Gaza and turning it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Risa Levine, an advocate and an active member of J Street, said it’s a “no brainer” to reaffirm support for Goldman given that on Israel and issues related to the Jewish community, he is “100% where the J Street membership is” and “very amenable to everything that J Street says” even when there are disagreements about certain policies.
Levine, who as a constituent has attended private meetings with Goldman, said that describing Goldman as being owned or directed by AIPAC is “kind of silly,” given his personal wealth, estimated at up to $253 million. Goldman loaned his campaign $4 million in 2022; AIPAC’s super PAC later said it contributed $350,000 to a local super PAC opposing his chief rival at the time, Yuh-Line Niou, who supports the boycott Israel movement.
Lander’s J Street seal of approval
The endorsement of Goldman underscores the bind J Street now faces, placing itself squarely in the middle of a complex and contentious primary.
Lander is widely regarded inside the organization as a family figure. He is a regular speaker at its annual conferences, and activists and donors view Lander as a natural standard-bearer for the group in the post–Gaza war and Mamdani era.
J Street is expected to break with past practice and list Lander as one of seven “primary-approved” House candidates, but the only challenger to an incumbent it supports. That designation would allow donors to contribute to his campaign through the J Street PAC portal but stops short of organizing events or offering active campaign support.
In an interview on Monday, Lander called the group’s decision to approve his candidacy “significant.”
Lander also insisted that he is “better aligned” with the views of this district on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an issue, he said, which will be important for voters in the race.
Though Lander opposes the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, he supported Ben & Jerry’s decision to end sales in the occupied West Bank in 2021. Since Oct. 7, Lander has regularly attended a weekly rally against the Israeli government’s handling of the war in Gaza, has backed calls for a permanent ceasefire and has met with families of Israeli hostages.
In September, he expressed regret for not doing enough “to speak out against Israel’s war crimes, against ethnic cleansing, against forced starvation of Palestinians.” More recently, he described the war as “genocide,” inspired by the writings of Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term, which his daughter had given him. J Street’s head said he was “persuaded” by arguments that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
As comptroller, Lander also ended New York City’s half-century practice of investing millions in Israeli government debt securities in 2023.
Ruth Messinger, the trailblazing Jewish political leader who in 1997 became the first and only woman to win the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor, praised J Street for having “flexibility” in maintaining their relationship with Goldman, but also designating Lander as an approved candidate.
Lander, she said, “speaks really directly to the perspective of the people in this district on these issues, and J Street is correct in recognizing that.” Messinger, who endorsed Mamdani after the primary and said his views on Israel were not central to the job he was seeking, added that Lander would be a strong fit to succeed retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler — the longtime dean of the Congressional Jewish Caucus — and to “play this critical role” in shaping the thinking of both Jewish and non-Jewish members of Congress.
Levine said the endorsement of Goldman “speaks for itself” and that she would prefer J Street not feature Lander’s name as a primary challenger, so as not to create divisiveness within the party. She added that the endorsement could help Goldman appeal to voters who may have supported Lander’s mayoral candidacy.J Street’s Ben-Ami told the Forward, “At the end of the day, it is a win for the district and the nation to have two J Street-aligned voices in this race.”
The post In a Mamdani-era primary, J Street backs pro-Israel incumbent — and, in a first, his challenger appeared first on The Forward.
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A hypnotic new album inspired by a unique Yiddish recording
Folklore scholar Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett doesn’t remember interviewing and recording the Yiddish folksinger Rose Cohen in 1968 in Toronto. But this recording may turn out to be one of the most significant ones that made it into the storied archives at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
In it, Cohen sings ten songs from her childhood in the Kyiv region of Ukraine, in Yiddish, Hebrew, Ukrainian and Russian. A handful of these songs have never been found anywhere else.
Cohen, who came to Toronto after World War II, was from a dynasty of what she called khazonishe, or singing rabbis, and learned many of these songs listening to them singing in her home.
This recording became the inspiration for a new album, The Rose Cohen Experience, released last month on Borscht Beat Records. Her songs are performed here by Cantor Sarah Myerson and Ilya Shneyveys, a married couple of talented multi-instrumentalists. The duo, called Electric Rose, took nine of the ten songs Kirshenblatt-Gimblett recorded and created their own elaborate, imaginative versions of them.
In the recording, Myerson — who serves as spiritual leader and cantor at Roosevelt Island Jewish Congregation in New York City — sang them as she and Shneyveys played an array of instruments over loops, creating a surreal, hypnotic sound. Shneyveys was no stranger to this, having once been part of the Yiddish “psychedelic” rock group Forshpil.
One of the songs, Berosh Hashone (On Rosh Hashone) begins with a segment from the solemn High Holidays prayer Unetaneh Tokef, about how our destiny is determined by God, depending on what deeds we’ve done. But then there are other Yiddish verses about an unhappy woman asking her children if she should divorce their father. “We don’t have that as a Yiddish song elsewhere in the repertoire,” Myerson said in an interview. “We don’t know of that song existing in other languages either.”
The album is structured, at least at first, as an imagined narrative of Cohen’s own life. “Ikh heyb mikh on tsu dermonen” (I’m beginning to remember) possesses a driving rhythm and a powerful recollection of an immigrant in North America dreaming of going back to his wife in Europe. Even though it’s a folk song, it’s possibly autobiographical when she sings it, as Cohen’s father immigrated to Toronto before the rest of his family. Myerson and Shneyveys aimed to draw out the autobiographical aspect of this song by playing selections of the Cohen interview where she recalls where she is from and how old she is.
The song transitions to Bay mashin (At the machine), a folk song about a woman slaving over a sewing machine, looking forward to getting married after having assembled her dowry. In an interesting twist, Myerson actually uses the sound of a sewing machine throughout the track, both in recorded and live performances. It’s a small hand-crank sewing machine from the early 20th century, “possibly developed for child labor,” Myerson said.
Myerson contributed a special track, Kale Tfile (Bride’s prayer), to supplement the nine Cohen songs. Kale Tfile is taken from an excerpt of a tkhine (a Yiddish-language women’s prayer) that a woman would recite on the night before the wedding. She found the prayer in an 1897 prayerbook known as the Siddur Korban Minchah.
Myerson said she decided to include this text after trying to imagine how Cohen may have felt singing Bay mashin, where the ending indicates that the female narrator is about to marry. The words are plaintive (“O God, please hear my youthful prayer, receive my hot tears that I now spill before You”), raising the possibility that she is unhappy about the match. Myerson’s performance delivers the song in that spirit, utilizing a vocoder, a keyboard that allows her to harmonize with herself.
From here, the album drops its autobiographical train of thought and moves into a more experiential mode. Mayim Rabim (mighty waters), also known as Psalm 93 — a psalm recited during the Shabbat evening prayer service — is remarkable because, as Myerson said, “we just don’t have many recordings of women of her generation singing liturgy.” Here, we see how Electric Rose made use of ambient recordings; in this case — ocean waves from Miami Beach.
You can catch Electric Rose on their upcoming tours throughout the East Coast, California and Germany.
The post A hypnotic new album inspired by a unique Yiddish recording appeared first on The Forward.
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China Warns Against Foreign ‘Interference’ in Iran as Trump Mulls Response to Regime Crackdown
A demonstrator lights a cigarette with fire from a burning picture of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei outside the Iranian embassy during a rally in support of nationwide protests in Iran, in London, Britain, Jan. 12, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Toby Melville
China on Monday expressed hope that the Iranian regime would “overcome” the current anti-government protests sweeping the country, warning against foreign “interference” as US President Donald Trump considered how to respond to Iran’s deadly crackdown on nationwide protests.
“China hopes the Iranian government and people will overcome the current difficulties and uphold stability in the country,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters during a press conference.
“China always opposes interference in other countries’ internal affairs, advocates that all countries’ sovereignty and security should be fully protected by international law, and opposes the use or threat of force in international relations,” she continued. “We call on parties to act in ways conducive to peace and stability in the Middle East.”
The comments came as Iran continued to face fierce demonstrations, which began on Dec. 28 over economic hardships but escalated into large-scale protests calling for the downfall of the country’s Islamist regime.
If the regime in Tehran was seriously weakened or potentially collapsed, it would present a problem for a strategic partner of Beijing.
China, a key diplomatic and economic backer of Tehran, has moved to deepen ties with the regime in recent years, signing a 25-year cooperation agreement, holding joint naval drills, and continuing to purchase Iranian oil despite US sanctions.
China is the largest importer of Iranian oil, with nearly 90 percent of Iran’s crude and condensate exports going to Beijing. Traders and analysts have said that Chinese reliance on Iranian oil will likely increase and replace Venezuelan oil after US forces captured Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro earlier this month.
Iran’s growing ties with China come at a time when Tehran faces mounting economic sanctions from Western powers, while Beijing itself is also under US sanctions.
According to some media reports, China may be even helping Iran rebuild its decimated air defenses following the 12-day war with Israel in June.
The extent of China’s partnership with Iran may be tested as the latter comes under increased international scrutiny over its violent crackdown on anti-regime protests.
US-based rights group HRANA said by late Monday it had verified the deaths of 646 people, including 505 protesters, 113 military and security personnel, and seven bystanders. The group added that it was investigating 579 more reported deaths and that, since the demonstrations began,10,721 people have been arrested.
Other reports gave indicated the number of protesters killed by the regime numbers well into the thousands, but with the regime imposing an internet blackout since Thursday, verification has been difficult.
Trump has said he will intervene against the regime if security forces continue killing protesters. Adding to threats of military action, Trump late on Monday announced that any country doing business with Iran will face a new tariff of 25 percent on its exports to the U.S.
“This order is final and conclusive,” he said in a social media post.
According to reports, Trump was to meet with senior advisers on Tuesday to discuss options for Iran, including military strikes, using cyber weapons, widening sanctions, and providing online help to anti-government sources.
Iran has warned that any military action would be met with force in response.
“Let us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories [Israel] as well as all US bases and ships will be our legitimate target,” Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf told a crowd in Tehran’s Enqelab Square on Monday, adding that Iranians were fighting a four-front war: “economic war, psychological warfare, military war against the US and Israel, and today a war against terrorism.”
However, the White House stressed that Trump hopes to find a diplomatic resolution.
“Diplomacy is always the first option for the president,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday.
“What you’re hearing publicly from the Iranian regime is quite different from the messages the administration is receiving privately, and I think the president has an interest in exploring those messages,” she said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Al Jazeera that he and US envoy Steve Witkoff have been in contact.
Trump said on Sunday the US could meet Iranian officials and he was in contact with Iran’s opposition.