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New Jewish-Themed Movie with Jason Schwartzman Is a Giant Miss
Films that feel fake right out of the gate, don’t usually find their footing. That’s the case with the new movie Between the Temples, which slips and slides all over the place. Not even Jason Schwartzman can save this disaster. He stars as Ben Gottlieb, a cantor at Temple Sinai in upstate New York.
I wondered how Schwartzman would play a cantor, considering. that he doesn’t have a good singing voice. That problem is solved with an absurd plot device in which he can’t chant the prayers and says “Yadid” instead of “Yedid Nefesh.” He’s been on sabbatical due to emotional trauma from the loss of his wife, an author who we don’t care about because we never see her.
A synagogue is often called a shul if one is Orthodox and might be called a temple if one is Conservative or Reform. Caroline Aaron of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel plays Meira Gottlieb, Ben’s mother, and in one sentence she used both the word temple and shul — which nobody ever does. Like the rest of the film, it’s simply not authentic.
When Ben goes to eat with Carla, who wants to have an adult bat mitzvah, he notices the hamburger tastes really great. Carla (Carol Kane) explains that it is so tasty because it’s a cheeseburger, but the cheese is on the inside. Ben spits it out, saying that he is kosher and doesn’t eat milk and meat. If someone is kosher, the person would check to make sure the restaurant is kosher before sitting down.
I’m not even sure if that’s the dumbest moment of the film. It might be second to when the cantor has the rabbi’s daughter (maybe in her 20’s) perform a sexual act on him in his car near the gravestone of his deceased wife.
There’s also the notion that Carla could somehow go from not knowing Hebrew at all to chanting a Torah portion in a lonely three weeks. That’s not plausible.
In addition, in order to get her bat mitzvah bumped up a year, despite a girl already having a bat mitzvah scheduled for that date, he tells Rabbi Bruce (Robert Smigel) that she will give a donation, because you know how those Jews work! Any rule can be broken if you give a big enough donation! It’s a good thing this movie doesn’t arrive at a time when there is a rising amount of antisemitism!
Smigel is a great comedic talent, yet he gets nothing humorous to say. Like a man left in the cold waiting for a bus that never arrives, I was waiting for a zinger from Smigel — but we are left with nothing.
Rabbi Bruce’s daughter, Gabby, is a strange character, but actress Maddie Weinstein deserves some kind of award for making her plausible, despite having to do things no real person would do or say. Weinstein shows some star-power and should have gotten way more screen time, as she is the one bright spot in this film and has a magnetic persona.
The one good joke in the entire film is when Schwartzman says that Judaism doesn’t believe in heaven or Hell but there is upstate New York. Inexplicably, he says this to a priest — because you know how those cantors are! They don’t really believe in Judaism and when something goes wrong, they run into a church for answers!
Directed by Nathan Silver and written by Silver and C. Mason Wells, it is hard to fathom how they made such a boring and lazy film. There is one scene in which Ben meets an attractive woman via JDate, but she is not Jewish. Great, finally some tension. But of course, after about 40 seconds, that’s it and we don’t see the woman again.
Ben has two mothers, Meira and Judy, but their relationship gets very little screen time. We see Judy, who converted and is from the Philippines, try to push Ben and Gabby together. At one point, Ben calls gabby “Gah-Bay” which makes no sense, though it could be a reference to the name given to the person who stands on the bima in a synagogue and assigns the aliyah, but more likely it’s simply one of the many things here that are absurd.
I won’t give away the twist of the film, but you won’t see it coming because it’s totally implausible and you feel bad for the actors who are in a movie they know makes no sense. Schwartzman and Kane are superb actors, but a great chef can’t do much with rotting fish, and great actors can’t do much with a rotten script.
I’m all for anyone getting a bar or bat mitzvah at any age — but a film still needs to be entertaining and thoughtful. There were areas of great comedy and meaning that could have been explored in this film, but weren’t.
I saw the film in a theater last week, and a Jewish couple said it was terrible and asked if they had missed something. I told them they had not.
I’m sure Schwartzman and Kane will be terrific in their next film; Weinstein was excellent in this one. Sadly, Between the Temples is easily one of the worst Jewish films I’ve ever seen.
The author is a writer based in New York.
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Elise Stefanik Blasts UN for ‘Antisemitic’ Report Accusing Israel of Sexual Violence in Gaza
United Nations Ambassador-designate Elise Stefanik spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Feb. 22, 2025. Photo: Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
US President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as the next American ambassador to the United Nations has repudiated a new UN-backed report accusing the Israel Defense Force (IDF) of perpetrating sexual violence against Palestinians in Gaza, lambasting its claims as “antisemitic” and baseless.
“The corrupt UN Human Rights Council’s new baseless report is antisemitic and anti-Israel slander,” US Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) posted on social media on Thursday, when the report was published. “The so-called ‘Human Rights Council’ [UNHRC] has failed to condemn the barbaric atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists against Israel including the brutal slaughter, torture, kidnapping of thousands of innocent civilians, and Hamas’s horrific use of rape and sexual violence against Israeli women and girls, yet disgracefully attacks Israel with unfounded smears.”
Stefanik continued, “This report exposes the disgraceful and obsessive antisemitism of UNHRC and reaffirms why President Trump took the strong, correct decisive executive action to withdraw from it.”
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Thursday published a report, commissioned by the Human Rights Council, that accused Israel of committing “genocidal acts” and employing sexual violence in Gaza. The report alleged that Israeli military forces have used sexual abuse and forcible stripping as weapons of war against Palestinian civilians.
“Israeli authorities have destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, including by imposing measures intended to prevent births, one of the categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention,” the report said.
Upon the report’s release, Israel’s permanent mission to the UN released a statement rejecting the allegations, arguing that they lacked substantiation and were based on uncorroborated sources.
“In a shameless attempt to incriminate the IDF and manufacture the illusion of ‘systematic’ use of [sexual and gender-based violence], the [Commission of Inquiry] deliberately adopts a lower level of corroboration in its report, which allowed it to include information from second-hand single uncorroborated sources,” the mission said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also repudiated the UNHRC, arguing that the “antisemitic” council has launched unsubstantiated allegations against the Jewish state with the goal of tarnishing its reputation.
“Instead of focusing on the crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the Hamas terrorist organization in the worst massacre committed against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, the UN is once again choosing to attack Israel with false accusations, including unfounded accusations of sexual violence,” Netanyahu wrote.
In contrast, Hamas, the terrorist group that runs Gaza, said that the report confirmed Israel’s “genocidal” actions within the enclave.
“The UN’s investigation report on Israel’s genocidal acts against the Palestinian people confirms what has happened on the ground: genocide and violations of all humanitarian and legal standards,” Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem told AFP.
Several investigations have revealed that Hamas-led Palestinians perpetrated widespread sexual violence against Israeli women and girls not only during their Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel but also later against Israeli hostages kidnapped during the onslaught.
Anne Herzberg, legal adviser and UN representative for NGO Monitor, told The Algemeiner that the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice will likely use the report to bolster their genocide cases against Israel. Other anti-Israel initiatives such as the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement (BDS) will also likely reference the report in future activities.
Stefanik was tapped by Trump to serve as the ambassador to the United Nations for the current administration. However, Stefanik has not yet been confirmed by the US Senate to serve in the post. Senate Republicans are reportedly slowing her confirmation process due to concerns over the narrow Republican majority in the House of Representatives, where her vote is seen as necessary to pass key legislation.
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Left-Wing US Lawmakers Present New Bill to Implement Arms Embargo on Israel
US Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA). Photo by Bryan Olin Dozier/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
A coalition of 13 progressive US lawmakers has submitted a joint resolution to halt current and future arms sales to Israel, citing what they described as excessive casualties incurred during the war in Gaza.
House Joint Resolution 68 (HJ Res. 68), sponsored by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), was introduced to the House of Representatives on March 3. The legislation represents the latest attempt by lawmakers critical of Israel’s war effort against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza to prevent the Jewish state from receiving American arms.
Several of the other lawmakers, all Democrats, who signed onto the bill — Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Gregorio Casar (D-TX), Hank Johnson (D-GA), Summer Lee (D-PA), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Marc Pocan (D-WI), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Delia Ramirez (D-IL), Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) — possess an extensive history of lambasting Israel, falsely accusing the Jewish state of enacting a “genocide” in Gaza against Palestinians and maintaining “apartheid” in the West Bank.
The legislation calls for the US government to ban the sale of high explosive projectiles and artillery shells to Israel. In addition, the bill would bar the US from providing Israel with technical and logistics support services.
In the 17 months following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, Democratic lawmakers in Washington, DC have grown increasingly critical of the Jewish state. Democrats in Congress have oftentimes lambasted Israel for alleged indiscriminate bombing within Gaza, arguing such military tactics have resulted in excessive civilian deaths.
In December, 17 Democratic senators voted to implement a partial arms embargo against Israel. One of the bills, SJ Res. 111, was spearheaded by prominent Israel critic Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT), and would have banned the sale of tank cartridges to Israel. The Senate ultimately rejected the measure by a margin of 79-18. In addition, Sanders presented two other anti-Israel resolutions SJ Res. 113 and SJ Res. 115, which targeted sales of mortar rounds and precision-guided bombs. The Senate declined to advance these bills by a similar margin.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties in Hamas-ruled Gaza, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication. However, Hamas has in many cases prevented people from leaving, according to the Israeli military.
Another challenge for Israel is Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations, direct attacks, and store weapons.
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Trump Admin Demands on Columbia University Mount as Agents Search Dorm Rooms
Pro-Hamas demonstrators at Columbia University in New York City, US, April 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
The Trump administration has told Columbia University that it must make a series of policy changes as a precondition for talks on restoring $400 million in canceled federal contracts and grants, ratcheting up its crackdown on the school and others where anti-Israel protests flourished last year.
The demands, made in a letter dated on Thursday, coincided with a search of two student dormitory rooms by federal agents at the New York City campus, its interim president said. The searches came a week after immigration agents detained Mahmoud Khalil, the leader of last year’s protests at Columbia, in a bid to deport him that so far has been blocked in court.
The developments are the latest signals that the Trump administration has no plans to ease up on efforts to reshape the policies on how US college campuses deal with disruptive protests.
Earlier this week, the Department of Education said it was investigating 60 colleges and universities for allegedly tolerating antisemitic harassment and a hostile environment for Jews. In a related move, it on Friday said it was investigating 45 universities after complaints that the schools engaged with a program designed to increase diversity that set eligibility based on race. It said such activities violated a 1964 civil rights law.
Columbia has emerged as a prime target of the administration, which has accused it of an inadequate response to alleged antisemitism on campus during last year’s weeks-long encampment by activists and a brief occupation of a campus building.
The university has said it has worked to combat antisemitism and other prejudice. At the same time, it has fended off accusations by civil rights groups that it is letting the government erode academia’s free speech protections.
Columbia’s interim president Katrina Armstrong said in a statement on Thursday that agents from the Department of Homeland Security served the university with two warrants signed by a federal magistrate, allowing them to enter and search the student residences. No one was arrested or detained, no items were removed, and no further action was taken, she said.
Even before Khalil’s arrest, students say federal immigration agents had been repeatedly spotted at dorms and student housing around Columbia’s Manhattan campus.
Over the last week, Columbia staff and law students have sent emails and group messages to alert people on campus to the sightings, saying the agents are in plainclothes, and reminding students of their rights.
The campus demonstrations began after an October 2023 attack by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas on Israel, and the subsequent US-supported Israeli military campaign in Gaza, the Palestinian enclave that Hamas controls. Protesters demanded that university endowments divest from Israeli interests and that the US end military assistance to Israel.
In Thursday’s letter, the Trump administration ordered Columbia to formally define antisemitism, ban the wearing of masks “intended to conceal identity or intimidate,” and to place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies departments under “academic receivership,” which would take control out of the hands of their faculties.
A Columbia spokeswoman told the New York Times that the school was reviewing the letter. Reuters could not immediately reach a Columbia representative for comment.
Earlier on Thursday, the school announced that it had meted out a range of punishments – including suspensions, expulsions, and the revocation of degrees – to students who occupied a campus building last spring during the anti-Israel protests. It did not name the students or say how many were disciplined.
The discipline, which followed a months-long investigation, was announced ahead of a Thursday night court filing in which Khalil’s lawyers said the Trump administration’s stated policy of deporting foreign nationals who participate in pro-Hamas protests is unconstitutional. It urged US District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan to immediately release him from immigration detention.
Khalil’s deportation was temporarily blocked by a federal judge, and the student leader, who has not been charged with any crime, is being held in a federal facility in Louisiana.
Earlier this week, Justice Department lawyers representing the government said Khalil, 30, was subject to deportation because Secretary of State Marco Rubio had determined that his presence or activities in the country could have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
The government did not elaborate in court papers on how Khalil could harm US foreign policy. Trump, without evidence, has accused him of supporting Hamas, and Rubio told reporters earlier this week that noncitizen protesters who disrupt campus life should have their visas revoked.
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