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The ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’ movie is a dated view of intermarriage
(JTA) — After watching “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret” with one of my grandchildren, I’m very concerned that the thousands of tweens and teens who watch the movie will accept, as true, its very negative message about religion in general, and interfaith marriage in particular.
The movie is based on a book Judy Blume wrote in 1970, a long time ago. That date does flash on the screen when the movie begins, but it’s easy to forget that you’re watching a story based on things as they were over 50 years ago. The movie’s treatment of puberty, pre-teens kissing and mean girls ages well, although I’m no expert on those issues.
But the ways people experience interfaith marriage and religion today are very different.
The most dramatic part of the story is how Margaret’s Christian mother’s parents cut off contact with her when she married Margaret’s Jewish father — and had no contact with their granddaughter for 12 years.
It’s true that even today some non-Orthodox Jews react very harshly if their children fall in love with someone who is not Jewish. That definitely happened more in the 1970s, when there was not yet much interfaith marriage and the taboo against it was still high. My mother’s father literally sat shiva when a first cousin of mine intermarried in the 1960s.
When I married in 1974, my parents were unhappy that my wife was Christian, and while my wife’s parents never said anything, we learned much later that her father was unhappy that I was Jewish.
But they all put love of their family over those preferences, and they all had very loving relationships with our Jewish children.
Both of our children married partners from different faith backgrounds; I am pretty sure that our Christian machatunim (their spouses’ parents) were as delighted with these marriage choices as we were. Our grandchildren are adored by their two Jewish grandparents and two from different faith backgrounds.
I am afraid that the tweens and teens who watch the movie will not understand that its depiction of parents cutting off contact with their children for marrying someone from a different religion has fading relevance in our world today. As far back as 2000, an American Jewish Committee study found that 56% of American Jews did not oppose interfaith marriage and 80% said it was inevitable in an open society. The most recent Pew study of Jewish Americans found that only 22% of Jews said it was very important that their grandchildren marry Jews.
Meanwhile, Pew found that the number of Americans who have a spouse from a different religious group than their own rose from 19% who wed before 1960 to 39% who wed after 2010 — suggesting taboos have fallen among non-Jews as well.
Viewers of the movie won’t understand that people realize now that giving up connection with children and grandchildren deprives one of so much love, it’s just not worth doing.
The second largely out-of-date part of the story is how Margaret’s parents do not practice any religion — they don’t celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah — and tell Margaret she can pick a religion when she’s an adult. Margaret is clearly curious about religious matters — after all, as the title says, she’s always trying to talk to God.
I’m afraid that kids who watch the movie will not understand that today it is rare for Jewish-Christian couples to decide not to have any religion in their lives. The recent Pew study found that 57% of interfaith couples raise their children as Jewish only; that may include celebrating Christian holidays in a not-religious way, or it may not. The study found that 12% of parents raise their children partly Jewish and partly another religion. Some 30% do not raise their children Jewish at all; they may be raised Christian only, maybe with or without Jewish holidays, or with no religion at all.
There’s no suggestion in the movie that for Jewish-Christian interfaith families like Margaret’s, engaging in a religious community — whether Jewish, Christian, or both — can be a profound source of meaning and connection. Instead, the message is that religion is boring and confusing. In the movie’s synagogue scene, everything is unfamiliar to Margaret because she had no prior experience, and incomprehensible because all in Hebrew. I’m afraid that kids who watch the movie will have no idea that Jewish worship services can be lively and meaningful — even with lots of Hebrew.
The dramatic climax of the movie is a scene in which the Christian grandparents show up to say that Margaret should be baptized. They’ve had no contact with her for 12 years. The Jewish grandmother’s declaration that Margaret is Jewish because she went to services once is equally ridiculous. In over twenty-five years working with and studying interfaith families, I almost never encountered this kind of conflict. I’m afraid viewers won’t understand that this kind of fighting over a granddaughter’s religious identity — instead of respecting her parents’ decisions about religion — thankfully is very rare.
Fiction seems to need conflict. There is a paucity of positive messaging about interfaith families being happily engaged in fulfilling religious communities with supportive grandparents. Perhaps those stories wouldn’t sell — but they are the reality for so many interfaith families. It is very unfortunate that this movie will leave tween and teen viewers — especially those from interfaith families — questioning that reality.
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Deborah Lipstadt has second thoughts about tying Jackson synagogue arsonist to ‘Globalize the Intifada’
(JTA) — As news broke over the weekend of an arson attack that heavily damaged the only synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi, a few prominent individuals connected the culprit to pro-Palestinian activism.
“This is a major tragedy. But it’s more than that,” Deborah Lipstadt, formerly the State Department’s special envoy to combat antisemitism, wrote on the social network X. “It’s an arson attack and another step in the globalization of the intifada.”
Later, upon learning that the arsonist appeared to have been motivated by a strain of antisemitism associated with the far right, not the pro-Palestinian movement, she walked back her comments — to a degree. But Lipstadt’s initial comments about the arsonist’s motives reflect a larger sense of disorientation among diaspora Jews as they face increased levels of antisemitism from across the spectrum of left-wing, right-wing and Islamist extremism.
Jewish activists and communities have been engaged in fierce debate over which corner poses the greatest threat, and reports of new incidents are often met with immediate speculation over the attacker’s motivations. Lipstadt, an Emory University professor who had served in the State Department under President Biden, has herself criticized the politicization of antisemitism charges. “When you only see it on the other side of the political transom,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 2024, “I have to ask: Are you interested in fighting antisemitism, or was your main objective to beat up on your enemies?”
“Globalize the Intifada” is a term commonly used in left-wing, pro-Palestinian protests. Most of the perpetrators of the large-scale antisemitic attacks in the diaspora since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks in Israel — including in Washington, D.C.; Boulder, Colorado; Bondi Beach, Australia; and the arson attack on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home — have made their pro-Palestinian and/or Islamist affiliations public.
But when the identity of the Jackson arsonist was revealed and the suspect appeared in court, his comments and social media presence betrayed no obvious link to the pro-Palestinian movement.
Instead the suspect, 19-year-old Catholic school graduate Stephen Spencer Pittman, used language —including “synagogue of Satan” and “Jesus Christ is Lord” — popular among leading figures of the online far right who peddle antisemitism, including Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens. (“Synagogue of Satan” also has deeper roots; it was popularized by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.)
An Instagram account appearing to be Pittman’s also contains references to a “Christian diet” and a clip from “Drawn Together,” an adult animated series, referencing an antisemitic “Jew crow.” (One of the show’s creators is Jewish.) Neither Pittman’s public statements in court, nor his Instagram account, referred to pro-Palestinian activism.
In hindsight, was Lipstadt right to preemptively link the fire to “globalize the intifada”?
“It may have been inopportune of me to say that,” she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about her invocation of the phrase.
Lipstadt insisted, “I was not saying this was a leftist attack. Clearly it’s not.” Nor did she “mean to suggest that this was an Islamist attack.”
She offered that the phrase, which uses the Arabic word associated with the violent Palestinian uprisings of the late 1980s and early 2000s, could be interpreted as hatred toward Jews coming from all sides.
“If ‘globalize the intifada’ means ‘attack Jews everywhere,’ then it certainly fits,” she said. “So it depends on how you want to interpret the sentence.”
Lipstadt wasn’t the only prominent figure linking the arsonist to “globalize the intifada” and other pro-Palestinian phrases before his identity was revealed.
“It began with BDS. Some said, it’s just words,” Marc Edelman, a Jewish law professor at the City University of New York, wrote on X over the weekend.
He continued, “CUNY Law speech: ‘globalize the intifada.’ Still, just words? Recent pro-Hamas chants. Words again? And now the violence in Pittsburgh, Washington D.C., Sydney, Jackson, Mississippi and more. As the Left used to say, words matter!”
Even a pro-Palestinian politician condemned the arson while also addressing recent hard-line pro-Palestinian activism in her own city.
“Mississippi’s oldest and largest synagogue, and two of their Torah scrolls, were burned yesterday on Shabbat in a horrific antisemitic attack—days after protestors chanted ‘We support Hamas’, here in NYC,” Shahana Hanif, a New York City council member from Brooklyn who won re-election in a race that pivoted largely on Israel, wrote on X.
She was referencing recent pro-Hamas protesters outside synagogues in New York, who have been denounced by progressives who are critical of Israel including Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Hanif added, “These chants are antisemitic and deeply harmful. You can oppose land sales in the West Bank without supporting violence against Jews. Yesterday’s arson in Mississippi is a stark reminder of the consequences of hate.”
She attracted some criticism from the pro-Palestinian movement for her statement — including from the group that organized the pro-Hamas New York synagogue protests, which took offense at the comparison.
“Linking chants at a Palestine protest that support a resistance movement of occupied people to the klan bombing of a synagogue is absolutely irresponsible and disgusting,” PAL-Awda NY/NJ, a radical group, wrote to Hanif.
In the group’s Telegram channel viewed by JTA, PAL-Awda added, “We see you, politicians who claim to support Palestine but then follow the hasbara playbook to link people resisting colonial oppression with white supremacists bombing synagogues in Mississippi.” “Hasbara” is a Hebrew term used to describe Israeli public relations efforts.
Pro-Israel groups, meanwhile, claimed hypocrisy, with some sharing a screenshot of Hanif previously retweeting a pro-Palestinian activist’s post that included the phrase “Globalize the Intifada.” JTA was unable to verify the post.
Unlike Lipstadt, Edelman, the CUNY law professor, told JTA he stands by his initial assessment of the arson.
“Nothing changes the fact that the actions taken in Washington, D.C. and Sydney, Australia, coalesced with an extreme left anti-Israel position,” he said, referring to the mass shootings at the Capital Jewish Museum and Bondi Beach — the former by a declared pro-Palestinian activist, the latter by declared Islamists. (Edelman noted that he recently undertook a Fulbright scholarship in Australia.)
Edelman added, “It is also not surprising that far-right rhetoric, much as it has for generations in this country, has also led to increased violence against minority groups including Jewish Americans.”
But there’s a key difference between the two sides, in Edelman’s eyes.
“The big distinction here, and I say this as a member of the Democratic Party, is that the left has historically been better than this,” he said. “And now, perhaps, they are not.”
For Lipstadt, the incident has largely taught her that Jews shouldn’t spend time trying to determine which kinds of antisemitic attacks, whether from the left or right, are worse.
“It’s all horrible,” she said. “Much of it is lethal. It’s toxic and it’s dangerous.”
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In Jordan’s pick for the Oscars, a contradictory message about ethnonationalism
There’s a disagreement in public discourse about how to understand the First Intifada, the nature of the violence, the scale of destruction, and who is responsible. Even the date it began is a source of controversy — foreign-policy analyst Mitchell Bard points to an Israeli being stabbed to death in Gaza in December 1987; the Institute for Middle East Understanding says it was the killing of four Palestinians by an Israeli truck driver days later — but All That’s Left of You, Jordan’s entry for the Best International Feature Film at the Academy Awards, makes the claim that the real beginning was far earlier.
The film, directed by Cherien Dabis, opens in 1988 with a confrontation between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians in a refugee camp in the West Bank. Stones are thrown, shots are fired, and a teenager, Noor Hammad, is shot in the head. Suddenly, the film cuts to an old woman’s face looking straight into the camera.
“I’m here to tell you who is my son,” the woman, Hanan (played by Dabis), says. “But for you to understand, I must tell you what happened to his grandfather.”
We flash back to 1948, where the film marks the origins of the discontent that led to the First Intifada, just as a Zionist paramilitary unit descends on Jaffa. Noor’s grandfather, Sharif — then a young father — sends his family someplace safer as he faces the Israeli soldiers and is eventually imprisoned for refusing to cede his land. The second part of the film takes place after a 30-year time jump, and shows Sharif instilling a sense of Palestinian nationalism in his grandson Noor.
Noor’s father Salim instructs him to obey the laws of Israeli occupation, believing this will keep Noor out of harm’s way. But then we return to 1988 and the day Noor is shot.
All That’s Left of You is strongest in its moving portrayal of the intergenerational differences that can exist in a single family when it comes to dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even though the 1948 and 1978 sections occasionally meander, the timeline helps viewers understand the pressures in the region and within the Hammad family that led to a boiling point in 1988.
But the culmination of the film’s trauma-filled journey lands as a poor lesson in nationalism.
Towards the end of the film, we see an older Hanan in 2022 in a cafe in Tel Aviv — Jaffa. Hanan debates an Israeli about whether or not an organ can have a nationality, particularly in the context of an organ transfer. Ari, the Israeli, says no. Hanan asserts that yes — a Palestinian heart is always Palestinian no matter what body it occupies.
It’s a not so subtle metaphor for the belief that the land of Israel remains Palestinian in its soul, no matter who occupies it. But that feels like a case for embracing ethnonationalism to try and combat…ethnonationalism. Historically, no matter what name you call it, that patch of earth has always been home to many different people and an important marker of different cultural identities.
All That’s Left of You depicts Palestinian resilience in the face of great oppression but the message seems to be that this abuse is inherent to certain identities. Throughout the film, the characters make blanket statements about Zionists and Israelis as a monolithic force of evil. When these characters are dealing with being imprisoned, barred from their own homes, and humiliated at gunpoint, these angry generalizations are not surprising, especially if that is all they have known for three generations. But the ending argument, that an organ cannot exist without a nationalistic sentiment, does not offer a hopeful message. Up until this point, the film has demonstrated the destructive and dehumanizing effects of ethnocentric possessiveness, but it struggles to disentangle itself from the ideology it seeks to condemn. Instead, it ends up replicating it.
The post In Jordan’s pick for the Oscars, a contradictory message about ethnonationalism appeared first on The Forward.
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VIDEO: Chatting in Yiddish during an Iraqi Jewish meal
אין 2022 האָט דער פֿאָרווערטס אַרויסגעלאָזט אַ ווידעאָ, וווּ דער ייִדישער אַקטיאָר מײַק בורשטיין און זײַן פֿרײַנדינע פּערלאַ קאַרני שמועסן אויף ייִדיש בעת זיי עסן אין „פֿאַקטאָרס פֿיימאָס דעלי“ אין לאָס־אַנדזשעלעס.
עטלעכע לייענער האָבן דעמאָלט געזאָגט אַז זיי האָבן הנאה געהאַט פֿונעם ווידעאָ ווײַל, ווי איינער האָט געשריבן: „ס׳האָט מיך דערמאָנט אין די קינדעריאָרן ווען איך פֿלעג זיך אונטערהערן ווי מײַנע קרובֿים רעדן ייִדיש צווישן זיך.“
זינט דעמאָלט זענען אַרויס עטלעכע אַנדערע ווידעאָס, וווּ זיי עסן אין פֿאַרשידענע לאָקאַלן און שמועסן בשעת־מעשׂה אויף מאַמע־לשון.
איצט האָט מען זיי פֿילמירט בעת אַ סעודה פֿון איראַקישע פּאָטראַוועס צוגעגרייט פֿון אַ יונגערמאַן, ניקאָלאַס ניסים, וואָס רעדט אַליין ייִדיש.
דער ווידעאָ, וואָס ווערט באַגלייט מיט ענגלישע אונטערקעפּלעך, איז פּראָדוצירט געוואָרן פֿונעם ייִדישן טעלעוויזיע־קאַנאַל JBS
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