RSS
Rabbi Turned Filmmaker Makes Riveting Holocaust Movie: ‘Jewish History Is Very Powerful’
The sign “Arbeit macht frei” (“Work makes you free”) is pictured at the main gate of the former Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz in Oswiecim, Poland. Photo: Reuters/Pawel Ulatowski
A US-based Jewish educator has brought to life a movie about one of the more unknown but riveting stories from the Holocaust.
After years of educating Jewish youth around the world, Rabbi Shmuel Lynn never expected to find himself back in the art of filmmaking, he told the Algemeiner in a recent interview about his new movie, Bardejov.
Raised secular in Florida, Lynn was once focused intently on a career in Hollywood — with Jewish studies nowhere near the front of his mind. Indeed, after completing a degree in film from Duke University, he packed his bags and headed to Los Angeles to focus on writing scripts for movies. “I was always involved in the arts, music, and theater,” he said.
But after a spark of interest in Judaism, Lynn began a multi-year journey in which he studied in Jerusalem, before giving up film altogether. He began doing Jewish outreach work in 2004 on college campuses, mainly at the University of Pennsylvania.
Seeing the success he had teaching and influencing people on campus, Lynn helped to found Meor Manhattan, an organization geared toward Jewish outreach for young professional Jews in New York City. The organization is now called Olami.
During this time, Lynn wanted to launch international summits in places where Jews had thrived but ultimately suffered in the past, such as in Spain during the Spanish Inquisition. “The idea is that if you know where you come from, you will cherish and appreciate the sacrifice that got you where you are… Generations ran away from the Cossacks, the Nazis, etc,. for you to have the beautiful life you have today. Jewish history is very powerful.”
It was on these trips that Lynn’s artistic background came into play. He said his team was brainstorming ideas to captivate the large number of Jews on the trip, and the concept of staging a play came up. Lynn jumped at the opportunity, putting together one-off plays in the streets of places such as Spain. “Street theater — it was a eureka moment,” Lynn said, describing the power of arts to educate people.
Back in the US, Lynn’s organization put together an interactive play experience called “New York Circa 1909” where attendees could put themselves in the shoes of Jewish immigrants who came to America at the turn of the 20th century.
Another place Olami brings young Jews is Poland. “Not just to see the [Nazi] concentration camps,” he explained, “but there is a celebration of Jewish life you can find there.”
One day, as the group was passing through Slovakia, Lynn remembered that a donor he had spoken to mentioned he must go to the town of Bardejov, which led the rabbi to arrange a visit.
Upon arriving, “the man who met us was so excited, he cried when he saw us. Not many people know the Slovakian story,” Lynn remarked, noting its early collaboration with the Nazis.
One particularly moving story from the town during the Holocaust was that 312 girls were set to be rounded up and sent to a “shoe factory,” which in reality was the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp.
Just hours before they were set to be deported, however, the true plan to send the girls to Auschwitz was discovered. The townspeople then gathered where Rafuel Lowy, the town’s rabbi, devised a plan to give Typhus vaccines to the girls, which allowed them to show positive for the disease, leading to a forced quarantine of the town.
In the end, the girls were saved, though a few years later Lowy was himself captured and sent to his death at Auschwitz.
Lynn was captivated by the episode, calling it “a Hollywood story for the ages.” From one miracle to the next, as he described, he was able to write a screenplay for the movie and have it directed, where it is now available on platforms such as Apple TV and Amazon Prime.
Lynn said there can be huge power in filmmaking to tell the Jewish story on a global stage.
“We need to put as many bricks of testimony as we can. We need to flood the airwaves with true stories of Jewish history,” he said, adding that is the only way, as “people whose minds need to be recalibrated aren’t reading books.”
Lynn said that while being a rabbi will remain his main work, he is excited to work to see other moving stories like those of Bardejov come to fruition on the big screen.
The post Rabbi Turned Filmmaker Makes Riveting Holocaust Movie: ‘Jewish History Is Very Powerful’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Israel Strikes Yemeni Ports, Warns That Houthi Leader Is a Target
Illustrative: Smoke rises in the sky following US-led airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 25, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Adel Al Khader
Israel struck Yemen’s Red Sea ports of Hodeidah and Salif on Friday, continuing its campaign to degrade Houthi military capabilities and warning that the Iran-backed terrorist group’s top leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, could be targeted if attacks on Israel persist.
The Houthis have continued to fire missiles at Israel in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, although they have agreed to halt attacks on US ships.
Israel has carried out retaliatory strikes in response, including one on May 6 that damaged Yemen’s main airport in Sanaa and killed several people.
On Friday, the Israeli military said the ports of Hodeidah and Salif were being used to transfer weapons, reiterating its warnings to residents of those areas to evacuate.
Residents in Hodeidah said they heard four loud booms and saw smoke rising from the port following the Israeli strikes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement they would hunt down the Houthis’ top leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi.
“If the Houthis continue to fire missiles at the State of Israel, they will be severely harmed, and we will also hurt the leaders,” they said, adding that al-Houthi could join the list of terrorist figures killed by Israel, such as Hamas’s Yahya Sinwar and Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah.
The Houthis are part of Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance” against Israeli and US interests in the Middle East, alongside Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. About 60 percent of the Yemeni population lives under their control.
Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, the Houthis have launched dozens of missile and drone attacks toward Israel, most of which have been intercepted or landed short.
The post Israel Strikes Yemeni Ports, Warns That Houthi Leader Is a Target first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Russia Says Ukraine Talks Yielded Prisoner Swap Deal and Agreement to Keep Talking
Russian delegation, led by presidential adviser Vladimir Medinsky, attend a meeting with Ukrainian delegation (not pictured) in Istanbul, Turkey, May 16, 2025. Photo: Murat Gok/Turkish Foreign Ministry/Handout via REUTERS
Russia said on Friday that the first direct talks with Ukraine in more than three years had yielded a deal to swap 1,000 prisoners of war each soon and to resume talks after each side had set out its vision for a future ceasefire.
In a short statement shown live on Russian state TV after the negotiations in Istanbul had wrapped up, Vladimir Medinsky, the head of Russia‘s delegation, said that Moscow was satisfied with progress made and was ready to keep talking to Kyiv.
“In general, we are satisfied with the result and are ready to continue contacts. In the coming days, there will be a massive thousand-for-thousand prisoner exchange,” said Medinsky.
That would be one of the largest exchanges of its kind since Russian President Vladimir Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022 in what he called a special military operation.
“The Ukrainian side requested direct talks between the leaders of our states. We have taken note of this request,” Medinsky added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had challenged Putin to fly to Turkey for direct talks with him on Thursday, but Putin – who had proposed the talks in the first place but had not said who was going for Russia – sent a mid-level delegation of experienced negotiators instead.
In the event, the talks took place on Friday, not Thursday.
US President Donald Trump, who has tried to pressure both sides to move towards a peace settlement, has said he wants a 30-day ceasefire in an attempt to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
Kyiv, which is on the defensive on the battlefield, has agreed to a 30-day ceasefire.
But Russia – which is slowly but steadily advancing on the battlefield and is worried that Ukraine will use such a pause to regroup and re-arm – has said it needs to nail down the terms of a ceasefire before signing up to one.
Medinsky said Russia and Ukraine had agreed to go away and set out in detail and in writing their vision for what a future ceasefire would look like.
“After such a vision has been presented, we believe it would be appropriate, as also agreed, to continue our negotiations,” he said.
In an interview with state TV released after his statement, Medinsky said that history showed that ceasefires did not always precede peace talks and that negotiations had been held throughout the Korean and Vietnam wars while fighting raged.
“As a rule, as Napoleon said, war and negotiations are always conducted at the same time,” said Medinsky.
The Kremlin said earlier on Friday that a meeting between Putin and Trump was essential to make progress on Ukraine and other issues, but needed considerable preparation and had to yield results when it happened.
The Russian and US presidents have spoken by phone but not met since Trump returned to the White House in January, despite both leaders expressing their desire for face-to-face talks.
The post Russia Says Ukraine Talks Yielded Prisoner Swap Deal and Agreement to Keep Talking first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Assailant Who Stabbed Author Salman Rushdie Sentenced to 25 Years
Defendant Hadi Matar arrives for his trial on charges of second-degree attempted murder and second-degree assault dating to an attack on Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie, at Chautauqua County Court in Mayville, New York, US, Feb. 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Robert Frank
The man who stabbed and partially blinded novelist Salman Rushdie onstage at a Western New York arts institute in 2022 was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Friday for an attack that also wounded a second man, the district attorney said.
Rushdie, 77, has faced death threats since the 1988 publication of his novel The Satanic Verses, which Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran’s supreme leader, denounced as blasphemous, leading to a call for Rushdie‘s death, an edict known as a fatwa.
Hadi Matar, 27, a US citizen from Fairview, New Jersey, was found guilty of attacking the author in the Chautauqua County Court in Mayville, New York, in February. He faced a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison on the attempted murder charge.
Video that captured the assault shows Matar rushing the Chautauqua Institution’s stage as Rushdie was being introduced to the audience for a talk about keeping writers safe from harm. Some of the video was shown to the jury during the seven days of testimony.
“He’s traumatized. He has nightmares about what he experienced,” Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt said after the sentencing hearing, referring to what Rushdie suffered.
“Obviously this is a major setback for an individual that was starting to emerge in his very later years of life into society after going into hiding after the fatwa.”
Also hurt in the attack was Henry Reese, co-founder of Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum, a nonprofit that helps exiled writers. He was conducting the talk with Rushdie that morning.
Schmidt said Matar was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the second degree attempted murder charge stemming from the attack against Rushdie and seven years for a second degree assault charged for the stabbing of Reese. The sentences will run concurrently.
Rushdie, an atheist born into a Muslim Kashmiri family in India, was stabbed with a knife multiple times in the head, neck, torso, and left hand. The attack blinded his right eye and damaged his liver and intestines, requiring emergency surgery and months of recovery.
Matar did not testify at his trial. His defense lawyers told jurors that the prosecutors had failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt the necessary criminal intent to kill needed for a conviction of attempted murder, and argued that he should have been charged with assault.
Matar’s attorney Nathaniel Barone said his client will file an appeal.
“I know if he had the opportunity, he would not be sitting where he’s sitting today. And if he could change things, he would,” Barone said.
Matar also faces federal charges brought by prosecutors in the US attorney’s office in Western New York, accusing him of attempting to murder Rushdie as an act of terrorism. Prosecutors accuse him of providing material support to Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group, which the US has designated as a terrorist organization.
Matar is due to face those charges at a separate trial in Buffalo.
The post Assailant Who Stabbed Author Salman Rushdie Sentenced to 25 Years first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login