RSS
Mila Kunis Says Husband Ashton Kutcher And Their Children Helped Her Embrace Judaism: ‘I Fell in Love With My Religion’
Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis at the 9th Annual Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, California, on April 16, 2023. Photo: Cover Media via Reuters Connect
Actress Mila Kunis began embracing and feeling proud of her Jewish heritage when she met her husband, actor Ashton Kutcher, and even more so after having children, she told Israeli activist and author Noa Tishby this week.
“For me, it happened when I met my husband,” the “Goodrich” star, 41, said of her former “That ’70s Show” costar, 46, who she has been married to since 2015.
Although Kutcher is not Jewish, he was a follower of Kabbalah and was frequently photographed visiting the Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles when he was married to actress Demi Moore from 2005-2013. Their wedding was also reportedly officiated by a Kabbalah Centre teacher. It remains unclear if he continues to follow Kabbalah. Nevertheless, Kunis joked that Kutcher is Jewish “by choice,” not by lineage, and that his interest in Judaism sparked Kunis to reconnect with her Jewish roots.
“I fell in love with my religion because he explained it to me,” said Kunis, who voices Meg Griffin on the Fox animated series “Family Guy.”
Kunis made the comments while joining Tishby to light candles on Thursday for the second night of Hanukkah. The two joined forces as part of Tishby’s “#BringOnTheLight campaign,” which is an eight-part video series on YouTube dedicated to spreading the message of Jewish resilience, pride and unity throughout the Jewish holiday.
Kunis and Kutcher together have two children — daughter Wyatt, 10, and son Dimitri, 8. The actress was born in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, and moved to the United States at the age of eight. She told Tishby that she did not adhere to any Jewish traditions while growing up. “I always knew I was Jewish but I was told to never talk about,” she said. “I think because I was in a country that didn’t allow for religion.” The “Bad Moms” star added that her children also helped her tap into the religious side of Judaism.
“I was raised culturally Jewish. So for me, it’s a culture,” she said. “And as I had kids, and my kids very much identity with the religion aspect of it, I was like, ‘Oh, I guess we’re doing Shabbat and the candles. And there are so many beautiful traditions.”
“I never lit Hanukkah candles until I had kids,” she further noted.
When Kunis lit the menorah with Tishby for the second night of Hanukkah, they called Kutcher for some help. Both women were unsure if they needed to light the candles from left to right or from right to left, and asked Kutcher for guidance.
Kunis also talked about being raised with a lot of Jewish guilt and superstition. Listing another things that are culturally Jewish about her, she shared, “I have a fear of not having enough food and my fear of somebody being hungry. The worst thing my kids can say to me is, ‘I’m hungry.’”
“Food fixes everything. You’re tired, eat some food. You’re cranky, eat some food,” she joked. “A health person would say, ‘This is unhealthy and you’re doing something wrong.’ And I understand. I’m working on it. But it’s just something that is embedded in me.”
The post Mila Kunis Says Husband Ashton Kutcher And Their Children Helped Her Embrace Judaism: ‘I Fell in Love With My Religion’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
US Issues New Round of Iran-Related Sanctions
USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, Sept. 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
The US has issued a new round of Iran–related sanctions targeting 10 individuals and 27 entities, including at least two companies it said were linked to Iran‘s national tanker company, the US Treasury Department said on Friday.
The sanctions, which target Iranian nationals and some entities in the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong, were announced as US President Donald Trump’s administration is working to get a new nuclear deal with Tehran.
Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control added Ace Petrochem FZE, and Moderate General Trading LLC, both registered in the UAE, to its Specially Designated Nationals List, freezing any of their US assets. OFAC said they are both linked to the state-owned National Iranian Tanker Company which is under US sanctions for exporting oil.
Talks between Iran and the US that aim to resolve a decades-long dispute over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions have been stuck over disagreements about uranium enrichment.
Iran‘s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The post US Issues New Round of Iran-Related Sanctions first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Suspect in Colorado Antisemitic Firebombing Faces 28 Attempted Murder Counts
A Boulder police officer patrols with a bomb smelling dog beside a makeshift memorial outside the Boulder Courthouse, days after an attack that injured multiple people in Boulder, Colorado, US, June 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mark Makela
The man accused of fire–bombing a Colorado march by people who wanted to raise awareness of Israeli hostages in Gaza was charged in state court on Thursday with attempted murder and other crimes, as those he targeted vowed to carry on their efforts.
If he is convicted, state prosecutors said Egyptian citizen Mohamed Soliman, 45, faces well over 600 years in prison for 28 attempted murder charges. There were 118 counts against him in total, including assault, use of incendiary devices, and animal cruelty for the injury of a dog.
Soliman also faces federal hate crimes charges that carry a life sentence if he is convicted. He is scheduled to appear in federal court on Friday.
Soliman wore orange prison clothing at Thursday’s state hearing in a courtroom inside the Boulder County jail. He appeared behind thick glass, and his hands and feet were shackled.
Judge Nancy Woodruff Salomone asked if he could hear her and if he agreed to his next court date, set for July 15. Soliman nodded affirmatively in response to both questions and made no other comments or gestures. He was not asked to enter a plea.
Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty said three victims from Sunday’s attack remained in the hospital. Prosecutors said there were 15 victims in total, ranging in age from 25 to 88, in the attack, of whom 10 had injuries.
The Boulder public defender’s office, listed in court documents as representing Soliman, did not respond to a request for comment.
Prosecutors say that Soliman tossed Molotov cocktails and yelled “Free Palestine” at people taking part in the walk organized by Run for Their Lives, an organization devoted to drawing attention to the hostages seized during Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Soliman entered the US on a tourist visa in 2022 and recently lived in Colorado Springs. Federal officials say he overstayed that tourist visa and his work permit had expired, so he was in the country illegally.
His family, including his wife, two teenagers and three younger children, was taken into custody on Tuesday and may be deported, though a federal judge on Wednesday blocked their immediate removal.
The attack was the latest act of violence aimed at Jewish Americans amid Israel’s escalating military offensive in Gaza. It followed the fatal shooting of two Israeli Embassy aides outside Washington’s Capital Jewish Museum last month.
WALK ON
Run for Their Lives global coordinator Shira Weiss said the Boulder attack had stunned her organization, which has 230 chapters around the globe and says it is apolitical.
“This is so sad that we were trying to do something positive and something good, and this horrible thing happened,” she said.
Following the attack, Weiss asked local chapters to pause their weekly walks, but overwhelmingly heard that people wanted to carry on.
About 80 percent of chapters will hold their scheduled walks this weekend including in Boulder on Sunday. That will coincide with the city’s 30th annual Jewish festival, which organizers said would go on with heightened security measures and a focus on Run for Their Lives.
Weiss has received 20 inquiries about starting new chapters since the attack in Boulder, and has also seen an increase in the number of people wanting to walk with existing groups.
Maya Bajayo, organizer for the Denver chapter of Run for Their Lives, said she expects all 50 members of her group to join the Boulder chapter on its Sunday walk.
The post Suspect in Colorado Antisemitic Firebombing Faces 28 Attempted Murder Counts first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
French Rabbi Tells of Two Attacks in One Week as Antisemitic Hate Crimes Rise
Tens of thousands of French people march in Paris to protest against antisemitism. Photo: Screenshot
A French rabbi was attacked on Friday for the second time in a week, reflecting a rise in antisemitic hate crimes across France including high-profile assaults.
Elie Lemmel told Reuters he was sitting at a cafe in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine on Friday when he was hit in the head by a chair.
“I found myself on the ground, I immediately felt blood flowing,” he said.
He was stunned and unsure what exactly had happened, he said, initially thinking something must have fallen from a window or roof, before it occurred to him he had been attacked.
“Unfortunately, given my beard and my kippah, I suspected that was probably why, and it’s such a shame,” he said.
Friday’s incident follows another in the town of Deauville in Normandy last week, when Lemmel said he was punched in the stomach by an unknown assailant.
Lemmel said he was used to “not-so-friendly looks, some unpleasant words, people passing by, spitting on the ground,” but had never been physically assaulted before the two attacks.
The prosecutor’s office in Nanterre said it had opened an investigation into the Neuilly attack for aggravated violence and that a person was being held for questioning. It said it could not provide further details.
“This act sickens us,” former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal wrote on X regarding Friday’s incident involving Lemmel. “Antisemitism, like all forms of hatred, is a deadly poison for our society.”
Last weekend, five Jewish institutions in Paris — the Holocaust Memorial, three synagogues, and a Jewish restaurant — were vandalized with green paint.
In a separate incident last Saturday, a 21-year-old man was arrested after climbing a synagogue in the town of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in north-central France, removing an Israeli flag from its façade, and attempting to set it on fire.
Then on Monday, an elementary school in Lyon, east-central France, was set on fire and defaced with antisemitic and pro-Palestinian slogans, as well as swastikas.
“I condemn in the strongest possible terms the antisemitic attack that targeted a rabbi in Neuilly today. Attacking a person because of their faith is a shame. The increase in anti-religious acts requires the mobilization of everyone,” Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said in a post on X on Friday.
Antisemitism skyrocketed in France following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
Antisemitic incidents targeting French Jews continued to surge to alarming levels across the country last year, with 1,570 incidents recorded, according to a report by the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) – the main representative body of French Jews.
The total number of antisemitic outrages in 2024 was a slight dip from 2023’s record total of 1,676, but it marked a striking increase from the 436 antisemitic acts recorded in 2022.
Anti-Jewish outrages have continued this year, with no sign of abating. In March, for example, Arie Engelberg, the rabbi of Orléans, was violently attacked while walking home with his nine-year-old son from the synagogue in the city, located south of Paris. There have also been multiple high-profile incidents of Jewish mean wearing kippahs and Stars of David being brutally attacked and called a “dirty Jew.”
The post French Rabbi Tells of Two Attacks in One Week as Antisemitic Hate Crimes Rise first appeared on Algemeiner.com.