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In ‘Oppenheimer’ trailer, the atomic bomb is born – and Einstein weeps
(JTA) – “Oppenheimer,” the hotly-anticipated Christopher Nolan biopic about the Jewish nuclear physicist who developed the atomic bomb, will include another familiar Jewish face when it opens this summer: Albert Einstein.
A new trailer for the drama, released this week, includes a brief glimpse of the scientist’s unmistakeable visage, as rendered by the Oscar-nominated Scottish character actor Tom Conti. Underscoring the gravity of the bomb’s development, this Einstein has foregone his usual cheery demeanor and is instead wearing a grave frown.
It seems appropriate for the film, which tracks J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) as he and the other members of the Manhattan Project race to develop the bomb by constructing the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico in the mid-1940s. Oppenheimer and his team of scientists tested the weapon there before it was eventually dropped on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the waning days of World War II, killing more than 110,000 people.
As the legend goes, the scientist initially heralded the bomb’s successful test run by quoting from the Hindu text Bhagavad Gita: “I am become Death, destroyer of worlds.” He would eventually come to regret his creation, telling President Harry Truman he had blood on his hands.
Einstein’s role in the bomb’s development is often overstated, yet still notable. According to the American Museum of Natural History, when the physicist and Jewish refugee of Nazi Germany learned that German scientists had succeeded in splitting the uranium atom in 1938, he urged then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to speed up development of nuclear weapons in the United States. His fear was that the Nazis might develop the bomb first, in part building on his own scientific equations. Einstein was later barred from participating in the actual Manhattan Project as his left-leaning politics were enough to deem him a security risk.
As soon as the bomb was dropped on Japan, Einstein reportedly was devastated and came to regret even his small role in pushing Roosevelt to develop it.
Several other Jewish figures from the atomic age will make appearances in the historical drama, including onetime U.S. Atomic Energy Commission chair Lewis Strauss (played by Robert Downey Jr.), Manhattan Project physicist Richard Feynman (Jack Quaid), hydrogen bomb developer Edward Teller (Benny Safdie) and nuclear physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi (David Krumholtz).
“Oppenheimer” will open in theaters on July 21. Nolan, a filmmaker known for his grandiose style in blockbusters like “The Dark Knight” and “Inception,” shot the entire film in large-format IMAX cameras to add to its epic scale. It will be his second WWII history, after 2017’s “Dunkirk.”
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Israel’s Netanyahu Hopes to ‘Taper’ Israel Off US Military Aid in Next Decade
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published on Friday that he hopes to “taper off” Israeli dependence on US military aid in the next decade.
Netanyahu has said Israel should not be reliant on foreign military aid but has stopped short of declaring a firm timeline for when Israel would be fully independent from Washington.
“I want to taper off the military within the next 10 years,” Netanyahu told The Economist. Asked if that meant a tapering “down to zero,” he said: “Yes.”
Netanyahu said he told President Donald Trump during a recent visit that Israel “very deeply” appreciates “the military aid that America has given us over the years, but here too we’ve come of age and we’ve developed incredible capacities.”
In December, Netanyahu said Israel would spend 350 billion shekels ($110 billion) on developing an independent arms industry to reduce dependency on other countries.
In 2016, the US and Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems.
Israeli defense exports rose 13 percent last year, with major contracts signed for Israeli defense technology including its advanced multi-layered aerial defense systems.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Israel supporter and close ally of Trump, said on X that “we need not wait ten years” to begin scaling back military aid to Israel.
“The billions in taxpayer dollars that would be saved by expediting the termination of military aid to Israel will and should be plowed back into the US military,” Graham said. “I will be presenting a proposal to Israel and the Trump administration to dramatically expedite the timetable.”
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In Rare Messages from Iran, Protesters ask West for Help, Speak of ‘Very High’ Death Toll
Protests in Tehran. Photo: Iran Photo from social media used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law, via i24 News
i24 News – Speaking to Western media from beyond the nationwide internet blackout imposed by the Islamic regime, Iranian protesters said they needed support amid a brutal crackdown.
“We’re standing up for a revolution, but we need help. Snipers have been stationed behind the Tajrish Arg area [a neighborhood in Tehran],” said a protester in Tehran speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. He added that “We saw hundreds of bodies.”
Another activist in Tehran spoke of witnessing security forces firing live ammunition at protesters resulting in a “very high” number killed.
On Friday, TIME magazine cited a Tehran doctor speaking on condition of anonymity that just six hospitals in the capital recorded at least 217 killed protesters, “most by live ammunition.”
Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, Setare Ghorbani, a French-Iranian national living in the suburbs of Paris, said that she became ill from worry for her friends inside Iran. She read out one of her friends’ last messages before losing contact: “I saw two government agents and they grabbed people, they fought so much, and I don’t know if they died or not.”
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Report: US Increasingly Regards Iran Protests as Having Potential to Overthrow Regime
United States President Donald J Trump in White House in Washington, DC, USA, on Thursday, December 18, 2025. Photo: Aaron Schwartz via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – The assessment in Washington of the strength and scope of the Iran protests has shifted after Thursday’s turnout, with US officials now inclined to grant the possibility that this could be a game changer, Axios reported on Friday.
“The protests are serious, and we will continue to monitor them,” an unnamed senior US official was quoted as saying in the report.
Iran was largely cut off from the outside world on Friday after the Islamic regime blacked out the internet to curb growing unrest, as videos circulating on social media showed buildings ablaze in anti-government protests raging across the country.
US President Donald Trump warned the Ayatollahs of a strong response if security forces escalate violence against protesters.
“We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” Trump told reporters when asked about the unrest in Iran.
The latest reported death toll is at 51 protesters, including nine children.