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Jonathan Safran Foer’s online flirtation with Natalie Portman inspires a new play
(New York Jewish Week) — When Jewish literary power couple Jonathan Safran Foer and Nicole Krauss divorced in 2014 — amid rumors that he was in love with his longtime friend Natalie Portman — it captivated the nation.
Well, maybe not the nation, but certainly the literary and media worlds, as well as the hipster set in brownstone Brooklyn. Safran Foer and Krauss were rare literary megastars, whose “extremely loud and incredibly expensive” Park Slope brownstone was the subject of numerous articles (and a hefty dose of envy) when it hit the market for $14.5 million in 2013.
Portman, of course, was an actual megastar, and when the confessional correspondence between the celebrated actress and the “Everything Is Illuminated” writer was later published in 2016 in the New York Times, it elicited a fresh round of jealousy, speculation and eye-rolls from the masses, as well as numerous journalistic “takes” on the topic.
I was a teenager at the time, and had only a vague idea of why any of this mattered. But apparently it stayed with me for nearly a decade, because when I saw “The Wanderers,” a new Off-Broadway play running at the Roundabout Theatre Company, it didn’t take long for me to make the connection between this fictional production and the very real but mysterious drama that occurred between these famous Jewish writers.
“The Wanderers,” directed by Barry Edelstein, follows two couples in two different timelines. In the present day are Abe and Sophie, secular Jews and writers who live in Brooklyn and have been together since they were teenagers. The other storyline, set in the 1970s, centers around Esther and Schmuli, a Hasidic couple living in Satmar Williamsburg. The latter are introduced to the audience on the eve of their wedding, one of the first times they’ve ever been alone together.
Throughout the play, the couples, seemingly from different worlds, try to balance their careers, personal lives, internal desires and family obligations.
Abe (Eddie Kaye Thomas) is a writer who boasts a Pulitzer Prize and several other literary awards. But he struggles with certain aspects of his life — his frayed relationships, mostly — and is hamstrung by an immense ego that is tempered only by a hefty dose of insecurity. As I watched the play, I began to feel like I knew the man, but I couldn’t quite place him. Was he just a stand-in for every genuinely talented, semi-pretentious, self-important male writer living in Brooklyn?
Abe eventually finds an outlet for his woes by striking up an email correspondence with fictional Hollywood actress Julia Cheever (Katie Holmes, the real Hollywood actress), whom he met when she came to a reading of one of his novels. Eventually, he declares his love for her — a pronouncement that essentially goes ignored by the actress. (In the play, Holmes sports a chic brunette bob not unlike a Jewish actress near and dear to our hearts.)
It became pretty clear who served as the inspiration for this play — and when I asked playwright Anna Ziegler about it, she said I was one of the few she had spoken with who had made the connection.
“In the summer of 2016, when I was writing, Natalie Portman and Jonathan Safran Foer were writing to each other in a correspondence they published in the New York Times,” she said. “She was promoting a new movie of hers, and I guess they had a previous relationship — that sparked the idea for one of the storylines in the play.”
What’s funny, Ziegler said, was that most audience members haven’t made the connection. “We haven’t really been talking about [Safran Foer and Portman] as one of the inspirations, and not many people have raised it,” she said. “I assumed that that resonance would be there for a certain percentage of the audience but, to be honest, I don’t think it’s there for the vast majority of people.”
At one point in the play, after learning his father died, Abe even says the line “Hineni, here I am,” to ground himself and calm his emotions. It’s a phrase in the Torah that usually translates to “I am ready,” which Abraham says to God before being asked to sacrifice his son, Isaac, as well as a prayer of humility chanted on Rosh Hashanah. But it’s also, possibly, a nod to Safran Foer’s 2016 novel “Here I Am.”
Neither Krauss nor Safran Foer responded to requests for comment on the play. “For people in my generation and younger, the recognition might be there, but it was also so many years ago now,” said Zielger, 44. “So I guess the only people who remember it are the people on whom it made an impact.”
Which is fine — “The Wanderers” stands on its own even if you don’t know the backstory. Plus, the themes of the play stretch far beyond infidelity: It also explores loneliness, free will and inherited family trauma.
Originally, Ziegler set out to write something about arranged marriages, specifically within the Jewish community. “I had always been kind of fascinated and beguiled by the idea of arranged marriage — thinking about what it would be like spending that first night together, that notion always kind of haunted me,” she said.
“I had these two different plays [one about Portman and Safran Foer and the other about arranged marriages], and they seemed thematically related,” she added. “At some point, I concluded that they really were two strands at the same play and so I started weaving them together.”
Ziegler chose to write about the Hasidic Jewish community in particular because she was “somewhat familiar with that culture and community,” she told me.
Still, as a secular Jew, it’s a topic she approached delicately. She hired a cultural consultant and an accent coach for the actors who were both from the community. Ziegler herself, who lives in Brooklyn, spent time in Williamsburg, and read memoirs and watched documentaries.
In the play, the Hasidic wife Esther (Lucy Freyer) struggles to be seen by her community and to feel in control of her life. She doesn’t know where to turn and wonders if she’s fulfilled her potential — as a parent, wife, human and Jew. “One of the great joys of being an actor is being able to learn and dive head first into a community that you ordinarily wouldn’t get to know,” Freyer said.
As the story unfolds, it’s revealed that Esther left the community with her infant son, who grows up to be the renowned Jewish author Abe, who marries his childhood friend Sophie (Sarah Cooper, the comic and actress who broke big with videos mocking Donald Trump). The younger couple is almost entirely secular, yet they grapple with the same search for meaning and belonging, the same doubt as to whether they’ve chosen the right path for themselves — or if it had been chosen for them.
“All five characters, not just Schmuli and Esther, are trying to figure out how can you be happy with what you have, with where you stand in your own skin,” said Dave Klasko, who plays Schmuli.
“We say in the play the Hebrew phrase, ‘Ein ba’al hanes makir b’niso,’ which [Ziegler] poetically translates to ‘We are never aware of the miracles, especially when we are inside them,’” Klasko added. “How can I, in my own life, realize the miracle that I’m living in before I’m on the other side of it?”
For Ziegler, these are very Jewish questions — and the questions of the “Xillennial” generation. “We’re left [with] the complex heritage of feeling chosen, but also self-hating,” said Ziegler, whose previous plays include “Photograph 51,” about Rosalind Franklin, the Jewish X-ray crystallographer who helped Watson and Crick crack the DNA model. “I think this is the most Jewish of my plays, and it’s funny because I’m not that religious, but I have found in my career that there seems to be a hunger for plays about Judaism.”
“At some point in my career, I began to be thought of as a ‘Jewish writer’ — for better or for worse,” she added.
Safran Foer, 46, and Krauss, 48, have also wrestled with the “Jewish writer” term, as well as the play’s big questions of identity, self-doubt and complicated family relationships. In fact, as Ziegler and the actors point out, issues of the play are universal, and have nothing to do with how famous you are, how expensive your home may be, or how strictly you adhere to religious law. The celebrity allusion — plus the chance to see an actual celebrity, Holmes — may be a reason to buy a ticket to see “The Wanderers,” but the timeless message is what will keep you in your seat.
“The Wanderers” is playing at the Roundabout Theatre Company (111 West 46th Street) through April 2. Find tickets and more information here.
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The post Jonathan Safran Foer’s online flirtation with Natalie Portman inspires a new play appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US urges Americans to ‘DEPART NOW’ from Israel and a dozen other Middle Eastern countries
(JTA) — The U.S. State Department urged American citizens on Monday afternoon to urgently depart from over a dozen Middle Eastern countries amid the escalating conflict in Iran.
The list includes Israel, which halted all commercial air travel when U.S. and Israeli forces jointly attacked Iran on Saturday.
“The @SecRubio @StateDept urges Americans to DEPART NOW from the countries below using available commercial transportation, due to serious safety risks,” wrote Mora Namdar, the State Department’s assistant secretary for consular affairs, in a post on X.
In addition to Israel, the countries listed in the advisory were Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Several of the countries have been targets of Iranian fire as the regime there has sought to widen the conflict in the Middle East.
While Namdar’s advisory urged Americans to “depart via commercial means,” there is currently no commercial air travel in or out of Israel. Israeli airlines El Al, Air Haifa and Israir announced plans to launch rescue flights to bring stranded Israelis abroad back home once authorities reopen Ben Gurion Airport, but it is not clear when that could happen. Some Israelis are making their way to Taba, Egypt, for passage into and out of Israel, but flights there are limited. Taba is about a 20-minute drive from Eilat, in southern Israel.
President Donald Trump warned on Monday that the largest U.S. strikes on Iran are yet to come.
The post US urges Americans to ‘DEPART NOW’ from Israel and a dozen other Middle Eastern countries appeared first on The Forward.
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Purim gets creative in Israel, with festivities driven underground
TEL AVIV, Israel — On the corner of a sun-bleached side street in Tel Aviv’s Shuk Levinsky, costumed mannequins stand guard over a half-dark shop, their painted eyes fixed on a street gone strangely still. Cardboard boxes of sequined capes and feathered wings spill onto the sidewalk, untouched. The neighboring businesses are shuttered, heavy padlocks fastened across their metal doors.
On any weekday, the quiet would feel unusual in this bustling pocket of south Tel Aviv. But this is Purim week — normally the market’s most frenetic stretch of the year. In ordinary times, the sidewalks would be clogged with parents and teenagers clamoring for last-minute costume details, with vendors shouting prices over the din.
That was precisely the scene just 48 hours earlier, on the Friday before the Purim madness was set to begin. Despite weeks of speculation about a looming confrontation with Iran, most Israelis pressed ahead with their plans. Hamentaschen were baked, school carnivals assembled, parties confirmed. A meme circulated in school group chats: “Can someone let us know if we are supposed to be buying costumes or canned goods?”
Early Saturday morning, an answer came via the piercing trill of the emergency alert system. The United States and Israel had begun what officials described as “preemptive strikes” against Iran. Within hours, thousands of reservists were called up. Citizens scrambled for shelter plans. WhatsApp groups filled with instructions and anxieties. And as Iran launched retaliatory rockets, Israelis absorbed a different blow: Purim was officially canceled.
Hence, the shuk’s current ghost town atmosphere. Inside the darkened shop, Rotem Avidan sat at the register, scrolling on his phone.
“There’s no real reason to be open,” he said. “Mostly I was just bored at home. I’ll probably close up in a couple of hours.”
Avidan has been selling costumes in the shuk for more than 15 years and relies heavily on Purim sales. The day before the holiday is typically his busiest of the year. Instead, he estimates he’ll make about 80% of his usual income.
“It’s not terrible,” he said with a shrug. “But it’s just one more irregular year. We had corona. We had two years of war. This was supposed to be the year things finally went back to normal.”
The past two Purims were indeed subdued, shadowed by the war in Gaza and the fight to bring hostages home. Even celebrations that went ahead felt muted. With the last living hostages returned in October, many had hoped this would finally be an uncomplicated holiday.
To fully grasp why the cancellation hit so hard, one must understand Purim in Israel. This is not a single-event celebration. It is a multi-day spectacle that spills from nursery school classrooms into city streets. Municipal adloyadas — elaborate parades with floats and marching bands — draw families by the thousands. Teenagers roam in coordinated group costumes. It is not uncommon to find yourself seated on a bus beside an elderly woman in full clown makeup, or handed paperwork at the bank by a teller wearing butterfly wings.
None of which would be happening this year.
Children feel the loss most acutely. For many, Purim is the highlight of the school calendar: themed dress-up days, costume parades, parent-run carnivals, and the exchange of mishloach manot before a three-day vacation. On Sunday morning, children across the country woke to the bad news.
Teachers scrambled to salvage what they could. Virtual parades were arranged over Zoom. Students were asked to send photos in costume. Mishloach manot became neighborhood drop-offs.
In some cases, the children made their own Purim joy. In one Tel Aviv apartment building, the kids organized a costume party, complete with printed invitations for guests. Playgrounds around the country — at least those equipped with shelters — were filled with rambunctious children dressed as superheroes and princesses, their bleary-eyed parents dragging slightly behind them.
If children are Purim’s most visible protagonists, they are hardly its only devotees. For young adults, the holiday is the high point of Israel’s nightlife calendar — a sanctioned blur of themed raves and packed bars. This year, the bomb shelter became a stand-in for the nightclub.
Within hours of the first rocket fire, twentysomethings in Tel Aviv’s Florentin neighborhood had organized an impromptu party in a public shelter, complete with makeshift costumes and an amateur DJ. When video of the event went viral, social media flooded with young people asking about the nearest mesibat miklat — a “shelter party.”
Not everyone approved.
“Wow. How disconnected can you be?” one commenter wrote. “People have been killed and you can’t give up your Purim party for one year?”
By nightfall, hundreds had gathered — some in small, shared building shelters for private parties, others in larger municipal bunkers — determined to carve out a pocket of joy, even as Iranian missiles soared overhead.
Shahar Rubin, 24, hadn’t planned on going to a party when he and his friends noticed a stream of people heading into the Dizengoff Center parking garage. “We figured, why not?” he said.
Four stories underground, in one of the city’s largest public shelters, a DJ blasted music as costumed revelers danced beneath the fluorescent lights and exposed concrete.
“This is exactly why we come to Tel Aviv,” said Rubin, who is originally from the north. “There’s nothing like the Purim atmosphere here.”
After more than 400 days of wartime reserve duty in the Israel Defense Forces, the celebration felt like a rare exhale — and perhaps a brief one, before he is called up again. “It was a last hurrah of sorts,” he added, as he and his friends headed off in search of their next mesibat miklat.
Beyond the costumes and parties, Purim is anchored in four religious obligations: a festive meal, the exchange of food gifts, donations to the poor and — most famously — the public reading of Megillat Esther.
“According to Jewish law, men and women are required to hear the reading of the entire Megillah from a kosher scroll,” said Rabbi Nadav Berger, head of Hadar’s Beit Midrash in Jerusalem. “Because the obligation is about publicizing the miracle of Purim, there is a strong preference to do it in public, in a group of at least ten people.”
That preference became complicated as soon as Home Front Command restricted public gatherings.
By the time Shabbat ended, observant Jews were organizing small readings in private homes and shelters. Hadar put out a call for community members who owned kosher megillot.
“Owning a personal megillah isn’t as rare as owning a Torah scroll,” Berger explained. “Many people inherit one or receive one for a bar mitzvah or wedding. Hearing the Megillah in person is still our first recommendation, so we wanted to help facilitate that safely.”
For those unable to attend, Hadar is also offering Zoom options, drawing on halachic guidance developed during the pandemic. “The rulings get into the technical question of how to understand electronically transmitted sound,” Berger said. “But it goes without saying: no one is required to risk their life to hear the Megillah — or to fulfill any other Torah commandment. Safety overrides everything.”
He added: “Typically, one would perform a mitzvah all in one sequence, from beginning to end. But if a siren goes off while you are reading the megillah, it is perfectly acceptable to pause the reading, even for a few hours, until it is safe to return.”
For Berger, the tension between caution and celebration may be truer to Purim than one might expect for a holiday typically associated with pure, unadulterated joy. When he sent out Hadar’s revised Purim plans, he opened with Mordechai’s words to Esther: “Who knows. Perhaps it was for just such a moment that you attained royalty?”
“Meaning, you have to be responsible right now,” Berger explained. “You have to think about your situation and respond accordingly. That’s what we’re trying to do in light of all that’s happening.”
He went on, “If you read the Megillah, most of it is actually anxiety-provoking. It is a very tense story. The joy comes only at the end.”
“The hope,” he said, “is that this, too, is only the middle — and that Israel will once again return to celebrating Purim happily, joyously, as we do every year.”
The post Purim gets creative in Israel, with festivities driven underground appeared first on The Forward.
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Fears of Iranian Sleeper Cell Retaliation Grow in the West as Middle East War Escalates
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei listens to the national anthem as Air Force officers salute during their meeting in Tehran, Iran, Feb. 7, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Fears of Iranian-backed terrorism are intensifying across Western countries, with officials warning Iran could mobilize terrorist sleeper cells and proxy networks in revenge for the unprecedented US-Israeli strikes on Saturday that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — prompting governments to raise threat levels and bolster security for Jewish and Israeli communities abroad.
Sleeper cells are covert operatives or terrorists embedded in rival countries who remain dormant until they receive orders to act and carry out attacks.
As the war in the Middle East continues to spread and escalate, officials in Germany have warned of potential Iranian retaliation targeting Jewish and Israeli institutions nationwide, prompting several federal states to step up protections and issue alerts as threat concerns mount.
“Retaliatory measures — including the possible activation of Iranian sleeper cells in Europe — cannot be ruled out,” Marc Henrichmann, who chairs the parliamentary oversight committee of the intelligence services in Germany, told the local newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.
“The Iranian regime has repeatedly shown that it extends its use of terror beyond its own borders,” Henrichmann said. “Federal and state security authorities remain on the highest alert level and will adjust protective measures whenever necessary.”
Roman Poseck, the interior minister of the German state of Hesse, added to German outlet Die Welt that it should “be assumed that there will be an increase in the abstract threat situation, especially for Jewish, Israeli, and American institutions.”
Meanwhile, Felix Klein, the German government’s commissioner for combating antisemitism, warned to the Funke media group that, following the outbreak of conflict with Iran, “we must assume an increased threat to Jewish life in Germany.”
In France, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez also issued a heightened alert, warning of potential threats and urging regional authorities to reinforce security around Jewish places of worship.
“In light of the current international situation in the Middle East, I reiterate my instructions to remain vigilant and ask you to immediately implement enhanced security measures for Jewish places of worship and religious gatherings,” Nuñez told French newspaper Le Figaro.
The United States and Israel carried out a series of strikes on military and leadership targets across Iran — including senior officials and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders — after negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear and missile programs failed to yield results.
Shortly after reports emerged that the US–Israeli joint operation may have killed Khamenei, US President Donald Trump released a message urging Iranians to consider a future beyond the current regime and expressing guarded hope that the moment could lead to meaningful change.
The escalation came weeks after the Iranian regime killed tens of thousands of civilians in a sweeping crackdown on last month’s anti-government protests. The outbreak of fighting also followed last June’s 12-day war between Iran and Israel, which concluded after the US joined and bombed Iranian nuclear sites.
Beyond Europe, fears of Iranian retaliation are rising in the US, as counterterrorism agencies warn that additional resources are being rushed into efforts to detect and disrupt potential revenge attacks on American soil.
Although no specific credible threats have been publicly disclosed, FBI Director Kash Patel said Saturday that US counterterrorism and intelligence agencies were operating under heightened alert, with personnel “working 24/7 … to address and disrupt any potential threats” on US soil.
“While the military handles force protection overseas, the FBI remains at the forefront of deterring attacks here at home – and will continue to have our team work around the clock to protect Americans,” Patel wrote in a post on X.
Amid growing fears of possible retaliation, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem also said authorities are “in direct coordination with our federal intelligence and law enforcement partners as we continue to closely monitor and thwart any potential threats to the homeland.”
Concerns over the activation of Iran’s sleeper cells have surged even further after a deadly mass shooting in Austin, Texas involving a suspect with alleged support for the Islamist regime and a separate gun attack on the gym of an Iranian dissident in Richmond Hill, Ontario. Both incidents stoked fears of politically motivated violence linked to the broader regional crisis in the Middle East.
On Sunday, a gunman opened fire at a bar in Austin’s West Sixth Street district, killing two people and injuring 14 others before being shot and killed by police.
Authorities later reported finding a flag of the Islamic Republic and photographs of Iranian leaders inside the suspect’s apartment, deepening concerns about potential links between the attack and broader political or ideological influences.
According to the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force, there were indicators that could suggest a possible terrorism link.
In Canada, hours after the announced death of Khamenei, a boxing gym run by Iranian-Canadian dissident activist Salar Gholami was struck by gunfire overnight.
Tehran’s ability to coordinate or inspire attacks on American soil has long been a concern for US law enforcement and intelligence officials — a fear that only deepened after Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in 2020.
Amid the 12-day war in June, NBC News reported that Iran had privately warned the United States that it could activate sleeper cells on American soil in response to military action. While no specific plots were publicly disclosed, US authorities increased domestic security measures and intelligence monitoring in anticipation of possible attacks. Vice President JD Vance said the Trump administration was examining the possibility of an Iran-backed homeland attack “very closely.”