RSS
Paul Reubens, Pee-wee Herman creator and son of a pilot in Israel’s war of independence, is dead at 70
(JTA) — I was just out of college when I got a freelance assignment from a small entertainment magazine to interview a rising comic named Pee-wee Herman.
Of course that wasn’t his real name, but the man-child persona — one part Howdy Doody, one part third-grade nerd, who spoke as if he just took a hit off a helium balloon — created by a comic and actor named Paul Reubens.
The publicist warned me that Reubens would be only talking to me as Pee-wee, but the voice at the other end of the call spoke in a flat, polite baritone. It was Reubens as Reubens, who had decided to drop the Pee-wee character, at least for our conversation.
I don’t remember what we talked about, but the conversation was disorienting: a peek behind the curtain at the real Wizard of Oz. And Pee-wee was sort of a wizard: In his brilliant Saturday morning “children’s” show, “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” and in riotous films like “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” and “Big Top Pee-wee,” the adult Reubens fully inhabited a child’s sensibility, simultaneously making his audience relive the innocence of being a kid and undermining it from an edgy adult distance.
Thirty years later I had another disorienting Pee-wee moment. I attended a screening of Nancy Spielberg’s 2014 documentary on American airmen who fought in Israel’s war of independence, “Above and Beyond.” Suddenly, there was Paul Reubens again, seated beside his mother and explaining how his father, Milton Rubenfeld, was an American pilot who volunteered in the fight for Israel. The film recounts how his father flew in a critical mission against the Iraqi army and was shot down over the Mediterranean (he survived).
“He was swaggering and macho, like Indiana Jones,” Reubens says. “He felt like it was his destiny.”
I hadn’t even considered until then that Reubens was Jewish. In “Why Harry Met Sally: Subversive Jewishness, Anglo-Christian Power, and the Rhetoric of Modern Love” (2017), one of the few books about Jewish comedy in which Reubens appears, Joshua Louis Moss groups him with a cohort of Jewish comics whose acts were “nearly completely devoid of references to either their Jewish background or Jewish culture more generally.”
Paul Reubens died Monday at age 70; a publicist said he “privately fought cancer for years.” And even though his career was derailed by scandal — he was arrested for “exposing” himself at a porn theater in his hometown of Sarasota, Florida, in 1991 — it’s not a stretch to remember him as an heir to the masterful comics who mined Jewish comedy’s more anarchic vein. Like the Marx Brothers, Pee-wee — with a crewcut, a too-tight suit, a red bow tie and a hint of lipstick and rouge — was a costumed agent of chaos whenever he bumped against straight (in all senses of the word) characters. Like Jerry Lewis, his character seemed stuck in pre-adolescence, but with an adult libido. He could be as sexually ambiguous as Milton Berle in one of his cross-dressing bits. And you could even connect him to Baby Snooks, the little-girl character created by Fanny Brice of “Funny Girl” fame.
Paul Rubenfeld was born Aug. 27, 1952, in Peekskill, New York, and grew up in Sarasota. Milton and his wife Judy (Rosen) owned a lamp store. Milton Rubenfeld had been a top fighter pilot who served in the Royal Air Force, and then the U.S. Army Air Force, during World War II. He became one of five Jewish pilots who flew in smuggled fighter planes and helped establish the Israeli Air Force.
“When I was a youngster, they seemed like fish stories to me,” Reubens recalled in the Spielberg documentary. “I didn’t have any real perspective on it until Ezer Weizman [an Israeli Air Force general and seventh president of Israel], I believe was the first book that actually mentioned my dad by name. And all of a sudden all these stories I’d heard my whole life growing up were in this book. Once I actually knew he really did all those things, and then they weren’t things everyone else did, I just had a completely different view of [my father].”
After studying at Boston University and the California Institute for the Arts, Paul created the Pee-wee character in the late 1970s as a member of the Los Angeles improv troupe The Groundlings. HBO produced a successful special starring the character, and Pee-wee became a cult figure, appearing on talk shows and often confusing the hosts with his child-like delivery and pansexual (or perhaps pre-sexual) persona. (David Letterman had him on his show regularly but never seemed completely comfortable in his presence.)
Paul Reubens and his father, Milton Rubenfeld, in a scene from “Above and Beyond,” a 2014 film about pilots like Rubenfeld who served in Israel’s War of Independence. (Playmount Productions)
His first feature film, “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” (1985) was directed by Tim Burton (who would go on to direct “Beetlejuice” and one of the best of the “Batman” reboots) and was a financial and critical hit. A sequel, “Big Top Pee-wee” (1988), was less successful but had its moments.
From 1986 through 1990, Reubens starred in 45 episodes of the CBS Saturday-morning children’s program “Pee-wee’s Playhouse.” It was both a children’s show and a send-up of a children’s show, featuring a recurring cast of characters that included a sea captain (Phil Hartman), a cowboy (Laurence Fishburne), a “mail lady” (S. Epatha Merkerson) and a talking chair. More than one critic noted Reubens’ debt to Soupy Sales, another Jewish comedian whose 1960s kids show also managed to appeal to children as well as adults who were in on the joke.
The indecent exposure arrest led to a media frenzy that made it impossible for Reubens to continue playing a children’s entertainer. He eventually emerged in a series of cameos and small roles in film and television shows – including a memorable term as a grotesquely inbred Hapsburg prince on “30 Rock,” and as a drunken Pee-wee opposite Andy Samberg in a 2011 “Saturday Night Live” video.
In 2010, he revived the character that made him famous on Broadway in “The Pee-wee Herman Show,” and in 2016, he co-wrote and starred in the Netflix original film “Pee-wee’s Big Holiday.”
Reubens kept his health issues private. ““Please accept my apology for not going public with what I’ve been facing the last six years,” he said in a statement distributed by his publicist after his death. “I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you.”
In a 1987 Rolling Stone interview, Reubens acknowledged those who said his act built on the Jewish comedians who came before him, including Eddie Cantor, the former vaudevillian who played a frenetic, wide-eyed innocent in a series of popular movie comedies of the 1930s.
“Jerry Lewis I saw when I was little,” he said. “Soupy Sales I probably saw when I was younger. I never knew who Eddie Cantor was until years later, when a lot of older people used to go [in an old Russian-Jewish furrier’s accent], ‘You’re like a young Eddie Cantor.’ I started to watch Eddie Cantor, and I could definitely see the resemblance. His movies are just incredible, very fantasy oriented and comedy oriented.”
—
The post Paul Reubens, Pee-wee Herman creator and son of a pilot in Israel’s war of independence, is dead at 70 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
US Supreme Court to Weigh Landmark Terrorism Case Targeting Palestinian Authority’s ‘Pay-for-Slay’ Program
PA President Mahmoud Abbas at the UN General Assembly in New York. Photo: Reuters/Caitlin Ochs
In a case that could redefine the legal landscape for victims of terrorism seeking justice, the US Supreme Court is set to hear arguments against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) over their role in incentivizing violence against Americans abroad.
The high-profile brief — filed this week by a legal coalition and more than a dozen organizations in response to the 2018 murder of Israeli-American Ari Fuld by a Palestinian terrorist — calls on justices to hold Palestinian leadership accountable for its controversial “pay-for-slay” program.
The amicus brief, submitted on Tuesday by the International Legal Forum (ILF) and 16 other Jewish and pro-Israel organizations, argues that the PA and PLO have long been complicit in orchestrating and financially rewarding acts of terror.
“Since their founding, the PLO and the Palestinian Authority have been an instrumental element in inciting, funding, and rewarding terrorism, especially through the pay-for-slay program,” ILF CEO Arsen Ostrovsky told The Algemeiner. “They are not a powerless bystander but a leading driver of modern-day terrorism. Enough is enough.”
The so-called “pay-for-slay” scheme has been widely condemned by US lawmakers, with reports estimating that approximately 8 percent of the PA’s budget is allocated to paying stipends to convicted terrorists and their families. As outlined in the ILF’s legal filing, “the more deadly the attack and the longer the terrorist spends in prison, the greater the stipends they receive.”
The legal brief contends that the US Congress has clear constitutional authority to permit American victims of Palestinian terrorism to sue the PA and PLO in US courts, since these entities have maintained a presence on American soil and were previously warned that their activities could expose them to legal action. Palestinian leaders “had been on notice that their activities would subject them to jurisdiction, yet have continued to reward and sponsor terrorism regardless,” Ostrovsky said.
The lawsuit was initially filed under the US Anti-Terrorism Act by Fuld’s widow and other American victims of Palestinian terror, seeking damages from the PA and PLO. However, the case faced a major setback in 2023 when the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that US federal courts lack jurisdiction over the Palestinian entities, citing concerns over the due process rights of foreign organizations.
Congress attempted to address this legal gap in 2019 with the passage of the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act (PSJVTA), which sought to ensure that the PA and PLO could be held accountable in American courts if they funded attacks against US citizens or conducted activities within the United States. The brief argues that the PA and PLO have done both, and therefore must face legal consequences.
“It is imperative to hold not only Hamas accountable, but the Palestinian leadership as well,” Ostrovsky said. “Acts of terror, such as the one that claimed the life of Ari Fuld, do not occur in a vacuum. They are the direct result of a pervasive Palestinian infrastructure that indoctrinates hate and incentivizes violence.”
The development coincides with an ongoing ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas, which included the release last month of Ari Fuld’s killer, Khalil Jabarin. Ari Fuld’s brother, Hillel Fuld, said the family’s “personal grievance and loss was currently amplified” by Jabarin’s release from prison.
Reflecting on the hostage deal that saw Jabarin walk free — financially secure by Palestinian standards due to the pay-for-slay stipends he received while in prison — Fuld acknowledged that the situation was “not black and white.”
“On the one hand this is a terrible, terrible deal from a strategic perspective, and there’s no sugarcoating the fact that letting go of thousands of monsters is just horrible,” he told The Algemeiner. “The flip side is that it’s the most beautiful thing there is to see those families reunited, and it’s a fundamental pillar of Judaism to free our prisoners, our people, and our soldiers need to know that we will do whatever it takes to bring them back if such a thing happens to them.”
Ostrovsky expressed his hope that the Supreme Court would hold Palestinian leaders accountable and prevent them from “rewarding and underwriting murderers of American nationals abroad, like Ari Fuld.”
The court’s decision to take up the case marks a pivotal moment in US counterterrorism law. If the justices rule in favor of the plaintiffs, it could set a precedent allowing American victims of international terrorism to pursue legal claims against foreign entities that support or enable such attacks. The brief was filed on behalf of ILF by the Holtzman Vogel law firm as well as the National Jewish Advocacy Center, with oral arguments expected later in the year.
The post US Supreme Court to Weigh Landmark Terrorism Case Targeting Palestinian Authority’s ‘Pay-for-Slay’ Program first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
US Lawmakers Reintroduce Antisemitism Awareness Act
US Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) at a press conference in Bergenfield, New Jersey, US on June 5, 2023. Photo: Kyle Mazza/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
A bipartisan group of US lawmakers on Wednesday reintroduced the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would mandate the Department of Education to apply the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism when enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws.
The lawmakers — Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Mike Lawler (R-NY), Max Miller (R-OH), and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) — reintroduced the legislation after it passed the US House during the last Congress by a vote of 320-91. However, the Senate ultimately opted not to consider the bill in December.
Observers speculated that Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the Senate leader, feared exposing potential fractures within the Democratic coalition regarding antisemitism and Israel. Following the onset of the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023, Democrats have shown inconsistent support for the Jewish state, with some high-profile liberal lawmakers suggesting that Israel’s war against Hamas could be considered a “genocide.” Last November, 17 Democrats voted to implement a partial arms embargo against Israel.
IHRA — an intergovernmental organization comprising dozens of countries including the US — adopted the definition of antisemitism in 2016. Since then, the definition has been widely accepted by Jewish groups and lawmakers across the political spectrum, and it is now used by hundreds of governing institutions, including the US State Department, European Union, and United Nations. Dozens of US states have also formally adopted it through law or executive action.
According to the definition, antisemitism “is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” It provides 11 specific, contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere. Beyond classic antisemitic behavior associated with the likes of the medieval period and Nazi Germany, the examples include denial of the Holocaust and newer forms of antisemitism targeting Israel such as demonizing the Jewish state, denying its right to exist, and holding it to standards not expected of any other democratic state.
In a statement, Gottenheimer said on Thursday that the “explosion of antisemitic violence” after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 massacre of 1,200 people in southern Israel inspired him to reintroduce the Antisemitism Awareness Act. He added that the legislation would provide state officials and law enforcement a “clear framework” on how to properly address antisemitic violence.
“Since the heinous Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, we have seen an explosion of antisemitic violence and intimidation on college campuses and in communities across New Jersey and the nation. Far too many in our community no longer feel safe in their own homes or classrooms,” Gottheimer said.
Lawler, a Jewish lawmaker and one of the most strident supporters of Israel in Congress, explained his decision to reintroduce the legislation, writing that “no person should feel unsafe, targeted, or ostracized because of their faith — and the Antisemitism Awareness Act will stop it from happening.”
The post US Lawmakers Reintroduce Antisemitism Awareness Act first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
‘Hypocrisy Will Be Exposed’: Israeli Defense Chief Calls Out Spain, Ireland, Others Over Trump’s Gaza Plan
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares (center), Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide (right), and Ireland’s Foreign Minister Micheal Martin (left) gesture after a press conference in Brussels, Belgium, May 27, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Johanna Geron
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Thursday warned that the “hypocrisy” of Spain, Ireland, and other European countries hostile to the Jewish state will be exposed if they do not take in Palestinians who choose to leave Gaza, the war-torn enclave that US President Donald Trump has said he intends to rebuild after the population resettles elsewhere for a unknown period of time.
Katz called out several countries in Europe while announcing he had ordered the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to prepare a plan to allow Gaza residents who wish to leave to exit the enclave voluntarily.
“The people of Gaza should have the right to freedom of movement and migration, as is customary everywhere in the world,” Katz posted on X/Twitter. I welcome President Trump’s bold initiative, which can create extensive opportunities for those in Gaza who wish to leave, assist them in resettling in host countries, and support long-term reconstruction efforts in a demilitarized, threat-free Gaza after Hamas — an effort that will take many years.”
He said his plan would include exit options via land crossings, as well as special arrangements for departure by sea and air, noting that the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which controlled Gaza before the current war and remains the strongest faction there absent the Israeli army, has used residents as “human shields” and and now “holds them hostage.”
Katz’s order came two days after Trump said that the US would take over Gaza and develop it economically after Palestinians are safely resettled elsewhere.
I have instructed the IDF to prepare a plan that will allow any resident of Gaza who wishes to leave to do so, to any country willing to receive them.
Hamas has used the residents of Gaza as human shields, built its terror infrastructure in the heart of the civilian population,…
— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) February 6, 2025
Global reaction to Trump’s plan was largely negative, with many countries expressing both incredulity and indignation.
Spain, for example, said that Palestinians must stay in Gaza.
“I want to be very clear on this: Gaza is the land of Gazan Palestinians and they must stay in Gaza,” Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told reporters on Wednesday. “Gaza is part of the future Palestinian state Spain supports and has to coexist guaranteeing the Israeli state’s prosperity and safety.”
Katz took issue with countries that have been vocal critics of Israel and portrayed themselves as staunch defenders of the Palestinians taking such a stance.
“Countries such as Spain, Ireland, Norway, and others, which have falsely accused Israel over its actions in Gaza, are legally obligated to allow Gazans to enter their territory,” Katz said in his social media post. “Their hypocrisy will be exposed if they refuse. Meanwhile, countries like Canada, which has a structured immigration program, have previously expressed willingness to take in residents from Gaza.”
Albares rejected Katz’s suggestion that Spain should accept displaced Palestinians.
“Gazans’ land is Gaza and Gaza must be part of the future Palestinian state,” Albares said in an interview with Spanish radio station RNE.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Irish Foreign Ministry told the Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency on Thursday that Katz’s post was “unhelpful and a source of distraction,” adding, “The objective must be that the people of Palestine return safely to their home.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said during a press conference on Wednesday that Gaza under Hamas rule has been a “failed experiment, adding, “As long as immigration is voluntary and there is a country willing to accept them, can anyone really say it’s immoral or inhumane?”
“עזה זה ניסוי שנכשל” – שר החוץ גדעון סער נואם במליאה: “כל עוד הגירה מתבצעת מרצונו החופשי של אדם, וכל עוד יש מדינה שמוכנה לקלוט את אותו אדם, מישהו יכול להגיד שזה לא מוסרי ולא אנושי?” @gidonsaar pic.twitter.com/VxNy7jSdZC
— ערוץ כנסת (@KnessetT) February 5, 2025
Since Hamas started the Gaza war with its invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, both Spain and Ireland have been fierce critics of the Jewish state.
In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 atrocities, Spain launched a diplomatic campaign to curb Israel’s military response. At the same time, several Spanish ministers in the country’s left-wing coalition government issued pro-Hamas statements and called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, with some falsely accusing Israel of “genocide.”
More recently, Spanish officials said they would not allow ships carrying arms for Israel to stop at its ports. The US Federal Maritime Commission recently opened an investigation into whether Spain, a NATO ally, has been denying port entry to cargo vessels reportedly transporting US weapons to Israel.
Spain stopped its own defense companies from shipping arms to Israel in October 2023.
One year later, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez urged other members of the EU to suspend the bloc’s free trade agreement with Israel over its military campaigns against Hamas in Gaza and the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Sanchez’s demand came three days after the Spanish premier urged other countries to stop supplying weapons to the Jewish state.
In Ireland, meanwhile, President Michael D. Higgins used his platform speaking at a Holocaust commemoration last month to launch a tirade against Israel’s military campaign targeting Hamas terrorists, appearing to draw parallels between Israel’s war in Gaza and the Nazi genocide of Jews during the Holocaust.
The speech came against a backdrop of strained Irish-Israeli relations, exacerbated by Ireland’s decision to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and its support for redefining genocide in order to secure a conviction against Jerusalem.
In December, Israel announced it was shuttering its embassy in Dublin, accusing the Irish government of undermining Israel at international forums and promoting “extreme anti-Israel policies.”
Last month, Israel announced it was shuttering its embassy in Dublin, accusing the Irish government of undermining Israel at international forums and promoting “extreme anti-Israel policies.”
In October, Irish leaders called on the EU to “review its trade relations” with Israel after the Israeli parliament passed legislation banning the activities in the country of UNRWA, the United Nations agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, because of its ties to Hamas.
Spain and Ireland, along with Norway, officially recognized a Palestinian state in May, claiming the move was accelerated by the Israel-Hamas war and would help foster a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli officials described the decision as a “reward for terrorism.”
The post ‘Hypocrisy Will Be Exposed’: Israeli Defense Chief Calls Out Spain, Ireland, Others Over Trump’s Gaza Plan first appeared on Algemeiner.com.