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Jewish camp alums cheer ‘Theater Camp,’ Ben Platt movie shot at former Kutz Camp
(JTA) — In January, 25 alumni of the Union for Reform Judaism’s Kutz Camp gathered on their former campus. Although the historic summer camp known for fostering Reform leadership and leaving a mark on modern Jewish music had shuttered in 2019, the alumni were back for a preview screening of “Theater Camp,” a comedy film from Jewish co-creators Ben Platt, Molly Gordon and Noah Galvin filmed on Kutz Camp’s grounds in Warwick, New York.
The mockumentary centers on a fictional upstate musical arts camp, AdirondACTS, that is striving to fend off foreclosure after its founder Joan (Amy Sedaris) falls into a strobe-light-induced seizure at a middle school production of “Bye Bye Birdie.” (Joan is intended to be the subject of the documentary, but filming soon turns to a cast of zealous teachers and campers who forge ahead with an original musical about her legacy entitled “Joan, Still.”)
Platt and Gordon star as codependent best friends and self-serious instructors, alongside Galvin as an artistically repressed “third-generation stage manager” and Jimmy Tatro as Joan’s son, an earnest finance bro humorously trying to balance her accounts. Created by four former theater kids (Platt, Gordon and Galvin wrote the screenplay while Nick Lieberman co-directed with Gordon), “Theater Camp” hopes to resonate beyond its satirized social niche when it premieres on Friday.
Although AdirondACTS is a secular arts camp, the film is peppered with Jewish references — a previous summer’s musical production was called “A Hanukkah Divorce,” and one auditioning 11-year-old chooses camp over sitting shiva for her cousin. The closing performance of “Joan, Still” reveals that Joan was born to an Eastern European Jewish family and immigrated as a young girl.
An undated view of a Kutz Camp bunk. (Jeff Klepper)
Kutz Camp leader Andrew Keene, who rented the site for a weekend in January and organized the “Theater Camp” viewing for alums, said they were moved to watch the campgrounds come back to life. Keene was involved with Kutz for 10 years, first as a participant, then as a staffer and finally as vice chair by the time the camp closed, squeezed by competition from other programs and declining attendance. Kutz was bought by the Town of Warwick and repurposed as a public recreational center.
“It really hit home for us,” Keene told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Even though it wasn’t about a Jewish camp, the themes of inclusion and belonging really resonated.”
Platt and Gordon took inspiration from their own experiences in youth theater — their collaboration dates back to the Adderley School for the Performing Arts, where they met at 4 and 5 years old. But parts of the film also drew from Platt’s summers at a California branch of Camp Ramah, a prominent network of Conservative Jewish camps.
“Molly went to Stagedoor and Noah and Nick went to youth theater camp and we did a youth theater program together, but in terms of my sleepaway summer camp experience it was all at a Jewish summer camp,” Platt said in an interview with Letterboxd. “We have this whole conceit about teachers performing a night time performance for the kids that was ripped directly from my camp experience.”
Like the fictional AdirondACTS camp, Kutz was an incubator of artistic talent. The camp was founded in 1965 and became known as a birthplace of modern Jewish folk music after Debbie Friedman, whose songs revolutionized Jewish prayer and continue to be sung in synagogues nationwide, served as its song leader in 1969.
Debbie Friedman makes a peace sign at Kutz Camp. Her songs would go on to be sung in Reform congregations across the country. (Jeff Klepper)
“I would honestly be surprised if there was another movie written about summer camp, especially a theater summer camp, that did not come from Jewish writers and artists,” said Keene. “It is such an embedded narrative in the American Jewish experience.”
The Jewish summer camp has shaped American Jewish identities for over a century, said Sandra Fox, who teaches at New York University and wrote “The Jews of Summer: Summer Camp and Jewish Culture in Postwar America.” In the 1920s, when Jews were largely concentrated in cities, they started going to camp amid a broader social movement concerned with how industrialization was affecting children’s physical and mental health.
But it was after World War II that camp took on a vital significance for American Jewish leadership, said Fox. Jews were moving to the suburbs and assimilating into a white middle class, while the Holocaust had left them anxious about the future of their culture and religion.
A trio of counselors get musical at Kutz Camp. (Courtesy of Jeff Klepper)
“Most American Jewish kids went to public school, where they socialized with gentiles,” said Fox. “So Jewish camps were a place where ethnic cohesion could still continue.”
According to a 2020 Pew Research Center study, four in 10 Jewish Americans attended a summer camp with Jewish content. The camps became critical to educating future generations of Jewish leadership.
Rabbi Lisa Silverstein Tzur, the last chair of Kutz, credits the camp with the formation of her Jewish identity. Tzur grew up in a secular household and first attended Kutz in 1983, hoping to learn about crafting Jewish music.
“In actuality, I was able to not only explore my musicality, but to explore my Jewish identity in a way that was profound,” Tzur told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “My summer at Kutz in 1983 was the single most influential experience that led me to the career path that I chose. Had I not gone to Kutz, I would not have become a rabbi.”
Tzur was gratified that the makers of “Theater Camp” were former camp kids themselves.
“I hope that when they walked into that place — knowing even just a little bit about the history of the camp — I hope that they felt as at home there as they did in their summer camps when they grew up,” she said.
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The post Jewish camp alums cheer ‘Theater Camp,’ Ben Platt movie shot at former Kutz Camp appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran Executes Man Accused of Spying for Israel Amid Rising Crackdown, International Outcry
An Iranian protester waves an Iranian flag while participating in an anti-Israeli multinational rally at the holy mosque of Jamkaran near the holy city of Qom, 156 km (97 miles) south of Tehran, Iran, on April 15, 2025. Photo: Morteza Nikoubazl via Reuters Connect.
Iran has executed a man accused of spying for Israel despite international condemnation over what human rights groups called an “unfair trial,” marking the latest escalation in the regime’s crackdown on dissent.
On Wednesday, a 41-year-old man named Pedram Madani was hanged outside Tehran following his transfer earlier this week from a prison in the capital.
“After identification, arrest, and judicial proceedings against Pedram Madani, who was spying in favor of the Zionist regime, and following the complete process of criminal procedure and the final confirmation and upholding of the verdict by the Supreme Court, he was brought to justice and executed,” a report from the Iranian judiciary news outlet Mizan stated.
Arrested in 2020, Madani was accused of transmitting classified information on strategic Iranian sites to Israel and obtaining money through illicit means.
He is the second individual Iran has executed on espionage charges linked to Israel in just two months, with activists warning that the rising executions are part of a broader campaign to intimidate the population.
Human rights groups and Madani’s family have condemned the case against him as deeply flawed, emphasizing that he was even denied the right to appoint his own lawyer throughout the legal proceedings.
Madani “was sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court without access to a lawyer of his choice, through an unfair and non-transparent process orchestrated by security agencies,” Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of Iran Human Rights (IHR) — a Norway-based NGO which tracks the death penalty in the country — told AFP.
“The Islamic Republic’s goal in executing Pedram Madani and others who are hanged daily is solely to instill fear within society and to conceal the regime’s widespread corruption and systemic failures,” he continued.
According to IHR, there have been at least 478 executions in Iran this year, including more than 60 hangings in the past 10 days. Most of those executed were accused of collaborating with Mossad — Israel’s national intelligence agency — and aiding covert operations in Tehran, such as assassinations and sabotage targeting the country’s nuclear program.
Among other activists condemning Madani’s trial, Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, currently on temporary release from prison, also denounced the regime’s escalating repression.
“The Islamic republic uses the death penalty as a tool to instill fear and intensify repression against the people,” Mohammadi said in a video statement.
“There was not even a chosen lawyer on the case. Pedram’s cellmates testified he confessed falsely and under pressure. In Revolutionary Courts, these false confessions serve as the basis of death sentences,” she continued.
The regime’s growing crackdown unfolds amid rising tensions with Israel over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Iran — the chief international backer of Hamas and Hezbollah, providing the terrorist groups with weapons, funding, and training — has consistently pledged to destroy Israel.
For its part, Jerusalem has declared it will never allow the Islamist regime to acquire nuclear weapons, as the country views Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat.
The post Iran Executes Man Accused of Spying for Israel Amid Rising Crackdown, International Outcry first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Monroe Milsten, Founder of Burlington Coat Factory, Dies at 98
Burlington Coat Factory exterior. Photo: Flickr
Monroe Milstein, the enterprising businessman who transformed a modest New Jersey coat store into the national retail powerhouse Burlington Coat Factory, passed away earlier this month at the age of 98 from dementia.
Monroe Gerald Milstein was born on Jan. 14, 1927, in the Bronx, New York, to his mother, Ann Milstein, and father, Abe Milstein — founder of Amherst Fashions. When Monroe was 11, the family moved to Manhattan. He graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx and earned a bachelor’s degree in business from New York University in 1946.
In 1949, Milstein married Henrietta Haas, an elementary school teacher who had fled the Holocaust. Henrietta later played an integral role in shaping Burlington’s children wear division. She passed away in 2001.
In 1972, Milstein and his wife purchased a defunct factory in Burlington, New Jersey, for $675,000 with the goal of transforming it into a retail destination. The venture became Burlington Coat Factory, selling discounted designer and brand-name coats for women, men, and children. Eventually, the store’s offerings grew to include home linens, menswear, baby clothes, and shoes, laying the foundation for a nationwide retail empire.
Three years after the initial purchase, Burlington Coat Factory opened its second location in Copiague, Long Island. According to Family Business Magazine, Milstein’s eldest son, Lazar, was the store manager and, as an Orthodox Jew, would not open the store on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath.
In 1982, Milstein shut down Burlington’s wholesale operations and reoriented the company’s focus entirely to discount retail. Just a year later, in 1983, he took the company public when it operated only 32 stores — injecting the capital needed to fuel a rapid retail expansion.
In 2006, Bain Capital bought the company for $2.06 billion, with the Milstein family cashing out its stake for $1.3 billion. Milstein exited the business., and two of his sons, Andrew and Stephen, continued in executive positions for a period. The company returned to the public market in 2013.
“I’m a very average fella,” Milstein said on his 80th birthday regarding his business ventures. “I got lucky.”
During Milstein’s tenure, Burlington Coat Factory carved out a niche in the retail world by delivering brand-name goods at significant discounts. By the early 2000s, when he transitioned out of day-to-day management, the business had evolved into a national chain with hundreds of stores and a customer base numbering in the millions annually.
Burlington has grown to become the third-largest off-price retail chain in the US, following industry leaders TJX Companies (which operates TJ Maxx and Marshalls) and Ross Stores. Today, Burlington operates around 1,100 locations across the US, raking in roughly $10.6 billion in sales over the past 12 months.
He is survived by his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, many of whom continue to carry forward his values of hard work and integrity.
The post Monroe Milsten, Founder of Burlington Coat Factory, Dies at 98 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Says He Told Israel’s Netanyahu Not to Act Against Iran
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a joint press conference in the East Room at the White House in Washington, US, Feb/ 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week not to take actions that could disrupt nuclear talks with Iran.
“I told him this would be inappropriate to do right now because we’re very close to a solution now,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Oval Office. “That could change at any moment.”
Israel earlier rejected a report in the New York Times that Netanyahu has been threatening to disrupt talks on a nuclear deal between the United States and Iran by striking Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities.
Citing officials briefed on the situation, the newspaper said Israeli officials were concerned that Trump was so eager to reach a deal with Iran that he would allow Tehran to keep its nuclear enrichment facilities, a red line for Israel.
Israel was particularly concerned about the possibility of any interim deal that would allow Iran to maintain its nuclear facilities for months or even years while a final agreement was reached, the paper reported.
US officials were concerned Israel could decide to strike Iran with little warning and said US intelligence estimated that Israel could mount an attack on Iran in as little as seven hours, the paper reported.
Netanyahu’s office issued a statement in response to the article which said simply: “Fake news.”
The New York Times said it stood by the report.
“The New York Times reporting on this matter is thorough and based on discussions with people directly familiar with the matter. We remain confident in what we published,” a spokesperson said in an email.
The paper said Netanyahu’s minister of strategic affairs, Ron Dermer, and David Barnea, head of the foreign intelligence agency Mossad, met Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff in Rome on Friday.
The two then traveled to Washington for a meeting on Monday with CIA director John Ratcliffe, before Dermer met Witkoff again on Tuesday.
One of the main sticking points in the talks between US and Iranian officials has been US insistence that Iran give up its nuclear enrichment facilities, a demand Iran rejects.
On Monday, US Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem said she had a “very candid conversation” with Netanyahu on the negotiations with Iran.
She said she told the Israeli prime minister that Trump had asked her to convey “how important it is that we stay united and let this process play out.”
Trump bypassed Israel on his trip to the Middle East this month and has made policy announcements that have shaken Israel‘s assumptions about its relations with the US.
Netanyahu has dismissed speculation about a falling out with the US administration, while Trump has also brushed off any suggestion of a break.
The post Trump Says He Told Israel’s Netanyahu Not to Act Against Iran first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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