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Texas school board that banned Anne Frank book invited Messianic ׳rabbi’ charged with sexual assault to open meeting with prayer
(JTA) – On Monday, the board of Keller Independent School District in Texas introduced that evening’s prayer leader as “Rabbi Griffin.”
A man wearing a suit and kippah then approached the podium and recited the priestly blessing in Hebrew. “Grant us, Adonai, your mind tonight so we can be a blessing to our community, to our children,” he continued. “Bring ‘Shalom,’ nothing missing, nothing broken, to this meeting tonight.”
But this was not an ordinary rabbi, nor an ordinary school board meeting. Keller is the district that, earlier this year, had ordered its libraries to remove all copies of a 2018 graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary from shelves. And “Rabbi Griffin” is Mark Aaron Griffin, a Messianic Jew who last year was charged with multiple counts of sexual assault.
“Last night we were shocked but excited when we saw a man who said he was a rabbi come up to pray,” Laney Hawes, a parent in the Keller district who regularly sounds off about the board’s policies, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. But, she said, “a quick Google search” revealed Griffin’s true identity.
Griffin, who heads a congregation in nearby Saginaw, Texas, that blends Christian beliefs and Jewish practices, is currently awaiting trial on four counts of sexual assault. According to reports of the indictment, he is accused of using his stature as a “rabbi” to sexually assault a woman in March 2020 after coercing her to become his “concubine” and citing Abraham and Jacob as examples of spiritual figures who enjoyed multiple partners. The victim claimed she had been assaulted in Griffin’s congregation, including in his office, which DNA samples seemed to corroborate, a warrant said.
First indicted in late 2020, Griffin faces trial next month, local county records indicate.
A spokesperson for the school district did not return a JTA request for comment. The district had ordered the removal of “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation” this summer, resurrecting a months-old parental challenge to the book following a new school board election. The new board then launched an effort to revise its policies around book challenges and bans — which have become a major rallying cry among right-wing parent activists in public schools.
Keller returned “Anne Frank’s Diary” to circulation a week later following massive public outcry.
Griffin’s congregation, Sar Shalom Synagogue, says its adheres to “Yeshua Centered Judaism,” using a Hebrew name for Jesus. Mainstream Jewish denominations consider the movement to be Christian and hostile to traditional Jewish beliefs, although Messianic Jews often advertise themselves using Jewish signifiers: On its website, Sar Shalom (which identifies “Rabbi Aaron” as its founder) claims to have “the very first kosher mikvah [or Jewish ritual bath] built for a Jewish community centered on Messiah Yeshua in modern history.”
Keller’s board reportedly began its opening convocation policy after its most recent members, several of whom were backed by right-wing groups, were elected in May. According to Hawes, they have never invited spiritual leaders from non-Christian faiths to lead the convocation.
“We then realized why the school board was letting [Griffin] pray, because he was praying to Jesus,” Hawes said.
Hawes claimed that after the meeting, she asked two board members if they had known about Griffin’s indictments, and that their response was that he had not yet been convicted.
Hawes also said she asked the board “why they weren’t allowing members of other faiths and beliefs to participate” in the opening prayer, and said she was told that the prayer was intended only for the school board trustees, who all believe in Jesus.
Later at the same meeting, a Jewish student at Keller High School spoke out against what she said were “rather offensive and antisemitic comments” she received after wearing a Hanukkah sweater to her school’s Ugly Sweater Day.
“Unfortunately, these incidents will only become more common with minority students of diverse backgrounds when you actively seek their removal in educational settings,” the student, who identified herself as Allison Perlman, said while holding a “Nazis Banned Books” sign, accusing the board of “removing all possible books and curricula that don’t align with your narrow-minded Christian nationalist views.”
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The post Texas school board that banned Anne Frank book invited Messianic ׳rabbi’ charged with sexual assault to open meeting with prayer appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran says it has finished striking Israel, after Trump says both countries ‘must immediately stop’
(JTA) — Iran says it has completed its attack on Israel after its missile barrage on Sunday night launched the first direct exchange of hostilities since April.
Iran’s military command said the barrage, which did not do any major damage in Israel, represented its “painful response” to an Israeli attack on a Hezbollah installation in Lebanon. The statement was published in English on Iranian state media, which attributed the halt to pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Trump had denounced the Iranian strike and publicly urged Israel not to respond. On Monday morning, after it did, he posted on his Truth Social account: “Israel and Iran must immediately stop ‘shooting.’”
Israel responded to the initial barrage with a large-scale airstrike against Iranian defense systems on Monday morning local time.
The Israeli military announced that the strike targeted Iran’s strategic defense systems and hit several targets in Iran’s petrochemical complex in Mahshahr in southwestern Iran. The military said the systems had been “degraded” during the February “Operation Roaring Lion” war and that “the strike led to the destruction of these systems.”
Shortly after the Israeli strike, Iran launched a second round of missiles into Israel, sending families into shelters. Schools were already canceled for Monday following Sunday night’s attacks.
According to local Israeli media, explosions were heard in Isfahan and Kermanshah, and Iranian Foreign Minister Esmaeil Baghaei blamed the United States for Israel’s response.
The Israeli response came after Trump told Axios Sunday night that he would tell Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to not respond to the attacks. “I am going to call Bibi right now,” Trump told the news site, “and tell him not to retaliate.”
He added that both countries had “had their fun. Israel had its strike, and Iran had its strike. We don’t need another one.”
In a second Truth Social post on Monday, Trump wrote that “ignorance and stupidity” were hampering the already fragile Iran-Israel ceasefire negotiations. “The Blockade will remain in place, and in full force and effect, until a “Final Deal” is reached,” he wrote.
The U.S. Navy imposed a blockade of Iranian ports on ships traveling to and from Iran on April 13. Trump made the decision after the collapse of talks aimed at permanently ending the five-week war the U.S. launched against Iran on Feb. 28 and Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz on March 2.
Meanwhile, on Monday morning the Iran-backed Houthi terror group in Yemen launched a single missile into Israel. No injuries were reported. Later, the Iranian-backed group said it would impose a complete naval blockade on Israeli ships in the Red Sea.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Iran says it has finished striking Israel, after Trump says both countries ‘must immediately stop’ appeared first on The Forward.
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John Lithgow wins Tony Award for portraying Roald Dahl in ‘Giant,’ about Roald Dahl’s antisemitism
(JTA) — The actor John Lithgow won his third Tony Award on Sunday for his depiction of the writer Roald Dahl as an antisemite.
Lithgow stars as Dahl in “Giant,” which opened on Broadway in March. The play, which originated in London in 2024, depicts ultimately unsuccessful efforts to get Dahl to rein in antisemitic comments he made about the 1982 Israel-Lebanon war.
Lithgow’s award for best leading actor in a play recognized what he has said was an effort to portray Dahl as emotionally complex, a man who had suffered grave losses and was kind to those close to him yet baldly antisemitic in his criticisms of Israel.
“Who knows where antisemitism or any bigotry comes from. In playing the role, I just looked for the damage,” Lithgow said during a March appearance on a New Yorker podcast. “To me, a person who suffered injury or carries demons, it just manifests itself in hatred of the other.”
Accepting the award, which made him, at 80, the oldest man to win a competitive Tony, Lithgow did not mention antisemitism or Dahl specifically but said, “It’s a play about cruelty in a cruel age.” He also shouted out the play’s Jewish author, Mark Rosenblatt.
Meanwhile, multiple awards went to Jewish performers during the 79th Annual Tony Awards on Sunday, which was hosted at Radio City Music Hall in New York City by P!nk, the rock musician who has spoken publicly and with pride about her identity as a Jewish mother.
Caissie Levy won best performance for a leading actress for her appearance in “Ragtime.” Levy, who has gained renown for playing a number of Jewish roles, plays a non-Jewish character, Mother, in “Ragtime,” the revival of the musical based on E.L. Doctorow’s 1975 book portraying ties between a Black musician and Jewish immigrants in early-20th-century New York.
Alden Ehrenreich, the Jewish actor whose big break came when Stephen Spielberg saw the video he made for a friend’s bar mitzvah in Los Angeles, won best performance for a featured actor for his role in “Becky Shaw.”
Shoshana Bean, who performed “Sabbath Prayer” from “Fiddler on the Roof” at last year’s record-setting Shabbat dinner in New York City, won best performance for a featured actress in “The Lost Boys,” about a family that gets enmeshed with vampires.
And Bess Wohl, who was not raised Jewish but is raising her children Jewish, won best play for “Liberation,” which portrays a women’s consciousness-raising group in the 1970s. The play includes a Jewish character whom Wohl has said was inspired by the many Jewish figures in the women’s liberation movement.
The ceremony also featured one pro-Palestinian demonstration, a recent hallmark of awards shows. Ali Louis Bourzgui, who won featured best actor in a musical for his performance in “The Lost Boys,” said the fantastical vampires in his show offer a lens to interpret real-life dynamics.
“Vampires represent those who have shunned their own humanity in order to achieve a non-existent sense of superiority,” he said, offering as an example: “The colonizers will never find fulfillment from the land and lives they steal.”
Bourzgui drew loud cheers as he included among the groups to which he dedicated the prize “the people of Palestine who deserve to live a fruitful life, a free life, a full life without occupation” and “Arab theatermakers and artists … so our humanity becomes undeniable, and our families can no longer be written off as merely collateral damage.” Bourzgui’s father is Moroccan.
Meanwhile, a pioneering performer who is also a prominent critic of Israel also made history at the awards. Qween Jean, a cofounder of the Black Trans Liberation Movement, drew criticism after saying at a pro-Palestinian rally in early 2024 while excoriating Democratic politicians, “We are sick and tired of being told and reminded of the events of October 7.” On Sunday, Qween Jean became the first trans performer to win a Tony, nabbing one for best costume design for a musical for “Cats: The Jellicle Ball.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post John Lithgow wins Tony Award for portraying Roald Dahl in ‘Giant,’ about Roald Dahl’s antisemitism appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump urges Iran to make a deal after Iran fires missiles at Israel for first time in 2 months
(JTA) — Iran fired multiple barrages of missiles toward northern Israel on Sunday night local time, in the first direct fire from Iran on Israel since early April.
No one was immediately reported injured in the barrages, according to Israeli media, and the Israeli military said it shot down all the missiles aimed at the country on Sunday night.
The attack came hours after a stabbing attack by an Israeli Arab on Jews in central Israel killed one person and left several others injured.
The Iran salvo added to the turmoil for Israelis living in the north, who have been under constant fire from Iran’s proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, and upsetting an uneasy quiet in the rest of the country. Schools across Israel will be closed on Monday.
Iranian officials said the barrage was a response to Israel’s strike earlier Sunday on a Hezbollah installation in the suburbs of Beirut, which the Israeli army said targeted a command center used to direct attacks on its troops.
Hezbollah last week rejected a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal that would have halted Israeli strikes in Beirut, saying that it could not abide by terms that would have required it to exit southern Lebanon.
During a five-week war that Israel and the United States initiated against Iran on Feb. 28, at least two dozen Israelis were killed when Iran fired hundreds of missiles at the country in near-daily barrages. Active hostilities involving Israel ended when U.S. President Donald Trump initiated a ceasefire on April 8. He and Iran have not yet agreed to terms that would permanently end the war.
Trump said he was “not happy about” Israel’s strike in Beirut and signaled that he did not see Iranian barrage as an impediment to a future deal.
“It’s certainly not going to help negotiations,” he told Fox News. “We’re very close. I would say an agreement would be signed on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday of this coming week. And now this takes place.”
Addressing Iran directly, Trump said, “You’ve shot your missiles, that’s enough. Get back to the table and make a deal.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not immediately respond publicly to the Iranian attack on Israel.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Trump urges Iran to make a deal after Iran fires missiles at Israel for first time in 2 months appeared first on The Forward.
