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Sofia Richie, Lionel Richie’s daughter, marries Jewish music executive after converting to Judaism
(JTA) — Sofia Richie, a model and the daughter of musician Lionel Richie, married Jewish music executive Elliot Grainge on Saturday, less than a month after she said she completed her conversion to Judaism.
Earlier this month, Richie had posted on Instagram that Nathan Lam, a prominent Los Angeles cantor, had been “helping me along this journey of converting to Judaism.”
Pronouncing her conversion complete on April 3, she posted on Instagram, “It has been one of the greatest experiences of my life.”
Richie, 24, and Grainge, 29, tied the knot at a hotel in Antibes, France, where they were married by Rabbi Thomas Solomon, a British rabbi, according to a report in Vogue magazine. They also held a private ceremony to sign the ketubah, the Jewish wedding contract.
In photos, the couple can be seen standing with their parents under a lush chuppah, with Grainge wearing a white kippah and tallit. “It was very important to Elliot’s family and to me, now that I’ve converted, that it be a traditional Jewish ceremony,” Richie told Vogue.
The couple has been together since 2021. Grainge, who grew up in England and runs an independent rap and pop music label, is the son of Lucian Grainge, the CEO of Universal Music Group, one of the world’s biggest music companies, and a self-proclaimed “nice Jewish boy.”
Elliot Grainge told JewishBoston.com in 2013 that Take That, a British pop group that had several chart-topping hits in the 1990s and 2000s, performed at his bar mitzvah.
Richie, whose adoptive sister Nicole is a celebrity in her own right as a TV personality, grew up attending the Oaks Christian School in Los Angeles. Her father Lionel, 73, became one of the best-selling pop artists of all time through a career starting in the 1970s as a member of The Commodores.
Lam, formerly a celebrity voice coach and a senior cantor at the city’s Stephen Wise Temple — a Reform congregation that is one of Southern California’s largest — has been accused of carrying on a series of inappropriate sexual relationships with congregants and mentees. Since last year he has been a cantor at the Temple of the Arts in Beverly Hills, a Reform congregation that operates in a theater owned by billionaire and prominent Democratic donor Haim Saban.
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The post Sofia Richie, Lionel Richie’s daughter, marries Jewish music executive after converting to Judaism appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Tucker’s Ideas About Jews Come from Darkest Corners of the Internet, Says Huckabee After Combative Interview
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – In a combative interview with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, right-wing firebrand Tucker Carlson made a host of contentious and often demonstrably false claims that quickly went viral online. Huckabee, who repeatedly challenged the former Fox News star during the interview, subsequently made a long post on X, identifying a pattern of bad-faith arguments, distortions and conspiracies in Carlson’s rhetorical style.
Huckabee pointed out his words were not accorded by Carlson the same degree of attention and curiosity the anchor evinced toward such unsavory characters as “the little Nazi sympathizer Nick Fuentes or the guy who thought Hitler was the good guy and Churchill the bad guy.”
“What I wasn’t anticipating was a lengthy series of questions where he seemed to be insinuating that the Jews of today aren’t really same people as the Jews of the Bible,” Huckabee wrote, adding that Tucker’s obsession with conspiracies regarding the provenance of Ashkenazi Jews obscured the fact that most Israeli Jews were refugees from the Arab and Muslim world.
The idea that Ashkenazi Jews are an Asiatic tribe who invented a false ancestry “gained traction in the 80’s and 90’s with David Duke and other Klansmen and neo-Nazis,” Huckabee wrote. “It has really caught fire in recent years on the Internet and social media, mostly from some of the most overt antisemites and Jew haters you can find.”
Carlson branded Israel “probably the most violent country on earth” and cited the false claim that Israel President Isaac Herzog had visited the infamous island of the late, disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“The current president of Israel, whom I know you know, apparently was at ‘pedo island.’ That’s what it says,” Carlson said, citing a debunked claim made by The Times reporter Gabrielle Weiniger. “Still-living, high-level Israeli officials are directly implicated in Epstein’s life, if not his crimes, so I think you’d be following this.”
Another misleading claim made by Carlson was that there were more Christians in Qatar than in Israel.
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Pezeshkian Says Iran Will Not Bow to Pressure Amid US Nuclear Talks
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit 2025, in Tianjin, China, September 1, 2025. Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Saturday that his country would not bow its head to pressure from world powers amid nuclear talks with the United States.
“World powers are lining up to force us to bow our heads… but we will not bow our heads despite all the problems that they are creating for us,” Pezeshkian said in a speech carried live by state TV.
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Italy’s RAI Apologizes after Latest Gaffe Targets Israeli Bobsleigh Team
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Bobsleigh – 4-man Heat 1 – Cortina Sliding Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – February 21, 2026. Adam Edelman of Israel, Menachem Chen of Israel, Uri Zisman of Israel, Omer Katz of Israel in action during Heat 1. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
Italy’s state broadcaster RAI was forced to apologize to the Jewish community on Saturday after an off‑air remark advising its producers to “avoid” the Israeli crew was broadcast before coverage of the Four-Man bobsleigh event at the Winter Olympics.
The head of RAI’s sports division had already resigned earlier in the week after his error-ridden commentary at the Milano Cortina 2026 opening ceremony two weeks ago triggered a revolt among its journalists.
On Saturday, viewers heard “Let’s avoid crew number 21, which is the Israeli one” and then “no, because …” before the sound was cut off.
RAI CEO Giampaolo Rossi said the incident represented a “serious” breach of the principles of impartiality, respect and inclusion that should guide the public broadcaster.
He added that RAI had opened an internal inquiry to swiftly determine any responsibility and any potential disciplinary procedures.
In a separate statement RAI’s board of directors condemned the remark as “unacceptable.”
The board apologized to the Jewish community, the athletes involved and all viewers who felt offended.
RAI is the country’s largest media organization and operates national television, radio and digital news services.
The union representing RAI journalists, Usigrai, had said Paolo Petrecca’s opening ceremony commentary had dealt “a serious blow” to the company’s credibility.
His missteps included misidentifying venues and public figures, and making comments about national teams that were widely criticized.