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Michael Douglas, Lena Dunham Make Shocking Discoveries About Their Jewish Ancestry

Michael Douglas and Lena Dunham in the latest episode of “Finding Your Roots.” Photo: Screenshot

Actor Michael Douglas and writer-director Lena Dunham made shocking revelations about their Jewish ancestors and family roots stemming from Eastern Europe in Thursday’s episode of the PBS series Finding Your Roots.

In the latest episode of the popular series, in which celebrities learn more about their ancestral histories, host Henry Louis Gates Jr. presented Douglas with new information about his Jewish paternal side of the family. The Wall Street actor and his father, the late Kirk Douglas, are both household names in the Hollywood film industry, but Michael discovered on Finding Your Roots that his Jewish paternal grandfather who sold rags from a cart in America hailed from the town of Chausy, which was part of the Russian Empire but is now in eastern Belarus.

Back in Chausy, Douglas’ family lived in the town’s Jewish ghetto and faced discrimination for their Jewish heritage. The Oscar winner also learned that his grandfather was imprisoned and charged with robbery and his great-uncle, named Moshe, was a wanted man in Chausy accused of armed robbery in 1906.

Douglas made more revelations about his father’s Jewish family during the course of the episode and was even presented with a photo of a Jewish cemetery in Eastern Europe where some of his ancestors were buried. Upon learning more about his Jewish roots, the Fatal Attraction actor said, “I feel more of a spiritual religious connection to Judaism than I ever had before.”

During Thursday’s episode, meanwhile, Dunham for the first time ever learned that she had a family connection to the Holocaust. The creator of the HBO hit series Girls uncovered information about her Eastern European roots in Poland and Hungary. She learned of an ancestor, named Ilona, who was killed by Nazi SS police in Hungary in 1941 during World War II, along with thousands of Jews during a Nazi roundup.

“It’s an incredibly painful thing to think about people with whom I share probably not just a DNA but the features and emotional responses and an approach to life,” she said after learning about her genetic ties to the Holocaust. “Those people being placed in this situation and having their lives extinguished this way. There’s not a way to reckon with it. It’s too big … but to see a personal connection to it literalizes it in a way that is very, very powerful.”

The final bits of information presented to Douglas about his family revealed that his maternal fourth great-grandfather, named John Neilson, was a colonel of a battalion of a militia in colonial New Jersey during the American Revolution and an informant who provided military intelligence to George Washington. There is even a statue of Neilson in downtown New Brunswick, New Jersey. However, Neilson was also a slave owner. Reflecting on that unsavory part of his family history, Douglas said it made him think of the Hebrew expression tikkun olam, which means to repair a broken world and make it a better place.

“You feel the obligation [of tikkun olam] and that sense much more when you see something like that,” he said. “It makes you want to be a better person.”

Watch the full episode of Finding Your Roots featuring Douglas and Dunham in the video below.

The post Michael Douglas, Lena Dunham Make Shocking Discoveries About Their Jewish Ancestry first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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‘Settlers Go Back Home’: Pro-Hamas Protesters Agitate in Jewish New York Neighborhood, Leading to Clashes

Pro-Hamas demonstrators gather in the heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Borough Park in New York City on Feb. 18, 2o25. Photo: Screenshot

The pro-Hamas group Pal-Awda staged a protest in the heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Borough Park in New York City on Tuesday night, leading to clashes.

Pal-Awda, which says it supports the “complete end to the settler-colonial project of Israel” and supported the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Israelis, announced its “Flood Boro Park” protest “to stop the sale of Palestinian land.”

The demonstration targeted an Israeli real estate event in Brooklyn, although the website for the event reportedly did not offer holdings in disputed territories such as the West Bank. According to the Jerusalem Post, however, the organizer of the real estate gathering, the Getter Group, could inquire into property in settlements on behalf of its clients.

The use of the term “flood” in the title of the protest was seemingly designed to pay homage to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack against Israel, in which the terrorist group killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. The onslaught was termed the “Al-Aqsa Flood” by Hamas.

Approximately 200 anti-Israel protesters showed up on Tuesday, with at least an equal number of pro-Israel protesters and local Jews countering them.

The anti-Israel protesters chanted slogans such as “settlers, settlers, go back home, Palestine is ours alone,” “Zionists go to hell,” and “We don’t want no Zionists here,” according to press reports and video circulated on social media.

Videos of violence at the protests quickly went viral. One video showed an anti-Israel protester, who was promptly arrested, punching a pro-Israel man in his face unprovoked. Other videos showed clashes between the two sides, with it being unclear exactly who started the violence.

One Zionist organization, Beter USA, posted on X prior to the clashes that it would be confronting the anti-Israel demonstrators, who had announced their planned protest in advance.

“Our synagogues will not be touched in Brooklyn tomorrow. You will not come near our streets or stores jihadis,” the group wrote, adding that it will “fight back” against anti-Israel demonstrators “by any means necessary.”

Borough Park is known as one of the most heavily populated Orthodox Jewish communities in the US, leading many Jewish groups and political leaders to argue the anti-Israel demonstration was antisemitic and really meant to intimidate the local Jewish community.

“Last night we saw protesters in Boro Park targeting Jewish New Yorkers with hateful rhetoric and antisemitic chants. This is unacceptable,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul posted on X. “We are grateful to [the New York City Police Department] for their diligent work keeping all New Yorkers safe.”

Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller, noted that “calling Orthodox Jews in Boro Park ‘filthy Zionist a–holes,’ shouting ‘you’re so gross, you’re disgusting,’ and chanting ‘settlers go back home’ to people whose parents & grandparents were killed in the Holocaust is antisemitism, plain and simple.”

He continued, “We cannot tolerate it. I condemn it in the strongest terms.”

The group #EndJewHatred said in a statement that what happened in Borough Park “is the consequence of the complete systemic failure of local officials, most notably Mayor [Eric] Adams and Police Commissioner [Jessica] Tisch, to meaningfully stand up to Jew-hatred and support what has, especially since Oct. 7, 2023, become New York City’s most vulnerable and attacked minority community.”

It added, “We did not see Mayor Adams arrive on scene to order the crowd of Hamas supporters to disperse. He did not arrive, bullhorn in hand, to call them out as unwelcome in his city.”

Members of the US Congress also condemned the scenes on Tuesday night.

The vile and antisemitic rhetoric directed at Jewish residents in Borough Park is unacceptable and unconscionable. We will not tolerate the egregious behavior on display that was clearly designed to intimidate and harass Jews in the Borough Park neighborhood,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the minority leader of the House of Representatives, said in a statement. “People of goodwill across our city and throughout the nation must continue to do everything possible to protect our Jewish brothers and sisters who are under assault and fight the cancer of antisemitism with the fierce urgency of now.”

Rep. Ritchie Torres posted on X a video of the clashes, writing that “it should come as a shock to no one that the pro-Hamas mob targeting Jews and promising to ‘flood’ Boro Park has descended into violence.”

“Violence is not a bug but a feature of the so-called ‘Free Palestine’ movement,” he argued, adding that the movement has “no desire to free Palestinians from Hamas.”

The post ‘Settlers Go Back Home’: Pro-Hamas Protesters Agitate in Jewish New York Neighborhood, Leading to Clashes first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Australia’s Spy Chief Warns Surge in Antisemitism Across Country Has ‘Not Yet Plateaued’

Southern Sydney Synagogue in the suburb of Allawah, Australia, was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti on Jan. 10, 2024. Photo: Screenshot

The head of Australia’s domestic intelligence agency has revealed that five major terrorist plots were prevented over the past year, amid a wave of antisemitic incidents in recent months that has alarmed the country’s Jewish community.

Mike Burgess, director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), delivered his annual threat assessment on Wednesday, warning that Australia has never faced so many serious national security threats at once. The agency declassified its security outlook for the next five years, raising concerns about the increasing threat of state-sanctioned murder.

Burgess disclosed that his organization had identified “at least three” countries plotting to “physically harm people” living in Australia over the past 12 months.

“It goes without saying that plots like these are repugnant,” he said. “They not only involve plans to hurt people — obviously bad enough — they are shocking assaults on Australian sovereignty and the freedoms we hold dear.”

Based on the agency’s predictions, the coming years will be more volatile and dangerous as countries like Russia and Iran become increasingly aggressive, the spy chief asserted.

“Over the next five years, a complex, challenging, and changing security environment will become more dynamic, more diverse, and more degraded,” Burgess said during his speech at ASIO headquarters in Canberra on Wednesday night.

“If the spy game has a rule book, it is being rewritten. If there are red lines, they are being blurred — or deliberately rubbed out.”

When speaking about the shocking surge in antisemitic attacks that have been spreading across Australia since the beginning of the war in Gaza in October 2023, Burgess warned these incidents might only get worse as extremists are increasingly self-radicalizing and “choosing their own adventure” toward potential terrorist activity.

“Threats transitioned from harassment and intimidation to specific targeting of Jewish communities, places of worship, and prominent figures,” he said. “I am concerned these attacks have not yet plateaued.”

Several Jewish sites in Australia have been targeted with vandalism and even arson in recent months, continuing a rise in antisemitism that began with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza. A recent report from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) found that antisemitism in Australia quadrupled to record levels following the outbreak of the Gaza war, with Australian Jews experiencing more than 2,000 antisemitic incidents between October 2023 and September 2024.

Burgess described how narratives originally centered on “freeing Palestine” have expanded to include incitements to “kill the Jews.”

Last week, Australia experienced its latest scandal in which two nurses were caught on video vowing to kill Israeli patients, prompting outrage from authorities.

At Bankstown Hospital in Sydney, two nurses, Ahmad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh, were seen making inflammatory statements in a video that surfaced online, during a night-shift discussion with Israeli social media personality Max Veifer.

The footage featured Lebdeh stating she would refuse to treat an Israeli patient and would instead kill them, while Nadir used a throat-slitting gesture when he confessed to having already killed many.

“It’s Palestine’s country, not your country, you piece of s—t,” Lebdeh told Veifer. “One day your time will come, and you will die the most disgusting death.”

After the video went viral, both nurses were suspended and permanently barred from employment within the New South Wales state health system.

Following the incident, the health minister of the state of Victoria, Mary-Anne Thomas, directed health-care facilities across the state to remove anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian badges and markings, declaring that political displays in hospitals are “unacceptable” and “will not be tolerated.”

Jews in Australia have questioned their safety at hospitals across the country amid a flurry of anti-Israel and even anti-Jewish animus coming from health-care facilities.

Last year, ASIO raised the national terror threat level from possible to probable and warned Australian defense personnel about being targeted by foreign spies.

“Australia has entered a period of strategic surprise and security fragility,” Burgess said on Wednesday.

As the country’s federal elections approach in the coming months, the federal government warned foreign embassies about attempts to interfere, including planting news stories about candidates or instructing people on how to protest.

Burgess warned that “high-impact sabotage,” such as attacks on nuclear-powered submarines or major cyberattacks, is becoming more likely, along with “state-sponsored or state-supported terrorism.” He singled out Russia, which could target Australia due to its support for Ukraine, and Iran as potential threats to Australia and its allies.

“A small number of authoritarian regimes are behaving more aggressively, more recklessly, more dangerously,” he said. “More willing to engage in what we call ‘high-harm’ activities.”

Burgess’s comments came after law enforcement in Australia last month started an investigation into the origins behind the spree of recent antisemitic crimes, announcing they suspect individuals outside the country have coordinated the campaign of hate.

Burgess also revealed that cyber units from at least one nation-state “routinely try to explore and exploit Australia’s critical infrastructure networks, almost certainly mapping systems so they can lay down malware or maintain access in the future.”

The post Australia’s Spy Chief Warns Surge in Antisemitism Across Country Has ‘Not Yet Plateaued’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Israeli Singer Noa Kirel Leads New Rom-Com Series With Argentine Pop Star Agustin Bernasconi

Agustín Bernasconi and Noa Kirel co-star in the new series “NOA.” Photo: Provided

Israeli singer Noa Kirel is starring alongside Argentine actor and fellow pop singer Agustín Bernasconi in a new music-centered romantic comedy series that will begin filming in March, The Algemeiner has learned.

The 25-episode series “NOA,” which will be filmed entirely in Argentina, is a global co-production from Argentina’s FAM Contenidos and Israel’s entertainment studio Sipur.

In the series, Noa (Kirel) travels to Argentina to meet her boyfriend, after months of having a long-distance relationship, but things don’t turn out the way she thought they would. She then meets Tomy (Bernasconi), “a young man who tries to reconcile with his past and forge a new life away from music, all while Noa begins a journey of discovery in search of her musical identity, while dealing with pressure from her parents and her new reality in Buenos Aires,” according to a provided synopsis.

Kirel is a singer, rapper, songwriter, dancer, and actress. She competed on behalf of Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2023 and finished third with her song “Unicorn.” She was also formerly a judge on “Israel’s Got Talent.”

Bernasconi is an Argentine actor, singer, composer, and musician, with over 100 million views on YouTube.

“It will be a great experience to star in the series with Noa,” said Bernasconi. “She is an exceptional artist, and we complement each other very well.”

“NOA” producer and Dori Media Group founder Yair Dori, who originated the series, said: “I am very proud to be part of this great project, which I believe will have a very solid performance worldwide.”

Sipur CEO Emilio Schenker added: “NOA marks the beginning of our co-financing and co-producing major IP franchises globally. I can’t think of a better team or first project to invest in outside of Israel. It fits perfectly with our mandate to bring high-quality fiction, documentary, and unscripted projects to the world through high-level strategic partnerships and the support of powerful investors.”

Sipur’s latest projects include the Hebrew-language scripted drama series “Bad Boy,” from original “Euphoria” creator and Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Ron Leshem and Hagar Ben-Asher. Netflix acquired streaming rights for “Bad Boy” in November 2024. Sipur’s recent works also include the medical thriller series “Heart of a Killer,” starring “Tehran” lead actress Niv Sultan, the documentary “We Will Dance Again,” “The Devil’s Confession: The Lost Eichmann Tapes,” and the documentary series “Munich ’72” about the Palestinian terrorist attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany.

The showrunners for “NOA” are Alejandro Cacetta and Mili Roque Pitt, and the director is Mauro Scandolari.

The post Israeli Singer Noa Kirel Leads New Rom-Com Series With Argentine Pop Star Agustin Bernasconi first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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