Tom Nesher doesn’t like heavy dramas about grieving families. She wanted her first feature to be a coming-of-age film made while she came of age herself. But when her brother, Ari, was killed in a hit and run accident in 2018, just after his 17th birthday, tragedy kept working its way into her writing.

Rather than avoid the subject — covered extensively in the Israeli press — she resolved to make the movie she and her brother would love.

“A film that is full of life and sexy and funny,” Nesher, 28, said from her home in Tel Aviv, “but also the film that I would want to see as a grieving young person, and a film that I felt like was missing, a film that I was searching for at the time.”

Come Closer, which collected four Ophir Awards, including best picture and best director for Nesher, was the Israeli entry for the 2025 Academy Awards and makes its theatrical debut in New York Dec. 5. Filmed well before Oct. 7, and shaped by her own loss, the film has an eerie prescience.

The story begins when Nati (Ido Tako) is kidnapped, a bag placed over his head and his wrists zip-tied together. We later learn he’s being taken to a surprise birthday party at the beach. On his way home, he’s struck by a car, sending the life of his 20-something club kid older sister, Eden (newcomer and Ophir winner Lia Elalouf), into freefall.

Coping with the loss — which at one point, during the shiva, drives her to try on her brother’s underwear — Eden learns that Nati had a secret girlfriend, the sheepish, high school-aged Maya (Darya Rosenn). The two develop a bond that becomes almost levirate as they grow into something more than friends. Both emerge more bruised and battered than before.

“It was very much of the DNA of the movie, having this feeling of Eros and Thanatos, this falling in love that happens with the backdrop of death,” said Nesher.

One sequence that scandalized European audiences drives the theme home.

We see Maya send texts to Eden from her school trip to Auschwitz (responding to an image of a mountain of shoes, Eden asks her for “a pair in my size”). Eden later twerks to a club remix of the Hannah Szenes poem Eli, Eli — a DJ’s interpretation of her “Holocaust song” request. At the same time Maya is bored touring concentration camps, we see Eden marching in the judicial reform protests, bearing witness to the collapse of democracy. 

“The most huge, historical, tragic events can happen, but they are just people falling in love or people having their small, intimate moments,” Nesher, whose grandmother was a Holocaust survivor, said. “Those things coexist.”

Watching the film today, Nesher is reminded of how every life lost is a tragedy leaving behind a mourning loved one. Come Closer knows something else about grief, true, Nesher believes, both to the war in Gaza, and human nature in general.

“When you are in great pain, you are, sadly, also in a place where you can create great pain for others,” Nesher said.

The post Israel’s 2025 Oscar entry is a story of grief, sex and looming national tragedy appeared first on The Forward.

Anti-Israel protesters march through the streets of the township of Lenasia in Johannesburg, South Africa, Oct. 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ihsaan Haffejee

An Israeli tourist recounted being brutally assaulted in Nepal this week by a group of local men after they allegedly heard him speaking Hebrew — the latest in a growing string of violent incidents targeting Israelis abroad amid a broader surge in antisemitic hostility worldwide.

On Monday night, Almog Armoza, a 25-year-old Israeli tourist, was walking back to his hostel in Kathmandu — a capital city popular with Israeli travelers — when a group of unknown men reportedly struck him from behind with an iron rod.

“If I hadn’t managed to run, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t be alive today,” Armoza told the Israeli news outlet Ynet. “If the first blow had knocked me out, it could have ended differently.”

According to the victim’s account, he was recording a voice message in Hebrew when a group of three to five men suddenly ambushed him.

One of the assailants then grabbed his jacket, and the group continued to beat him, leaving the victim with an open wound on his head.

“They chased me, but when they saw I was getting close to the entrance, where there is security, they ran off,” Armoza said.

He was later taken to a hospital, where he spent the night under observation due to his head wound and significant blood loss — causing him to miss his flight back to Israel.

He also said he reported the incident to police, noting that he did not believe the assault was an attempted robbery.

“My phone was in my hand, and they didn’t go for it,” Armoza said. “I have traveled the world for three years. This isn’t how robberies are done. The level of violence was meant to kill.”

This latest incident comes amid a global surge in antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

European Jewish communities in particular have been facing a surge in hostility and targeted attacks, including vandalism of murals and businesses, as well as physical assaults. Community leaders have warned that such incidents are becoming more frequent amid continued tensions related to the war in Gaza.

According to data from the Passport Card Index, Israeli tourists are increasingly choosing alternative holiday destinations amid a climate of growing hostility. Thailand has emerged as the top destination, rising from second place before the war, while the United Arab Emirates — previously number one — has fallen to fifth.

The data also highlights a surge in popularity for countries perceived as particularly friendly toward Israel: Hungary jumped from sixth to second place, the United States climbed from eighth to third, and the Czech Republic now ranks fourth.

By contrast, many Western European countries — including France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, and Italy — have become largely off-limits for Israeli travelers.

Last month, a group of Orthodox Jewish American tourists was brutally attacked at Milan’s Central Station by a pro-Palestinian individual.

The victim, who was with a group of 10 Orthodox Jewish tourists visiting Italy, was checking the departure board when an unknown individual began harassing him. 

The attacker then allegedly chased the victim while punching and kicking him and striking him in the head with a blunt metal ring.

During the attack, the assailant reportedly shouted antisemitic insults and threats, including “dirty Jews” and “you kill children in Palestine, and I’ll kill you.”

In September, a Jewish couple was walking through Venice in traditional Orthodox clothing when three assailants confronted them, shouted “Free Palestine,” and physically attacked them, slapping both.

This incident followed another attack on a Jewish couple in Venice the month before, when a man and his pregnant wife were harassed near the city center by three unknown individuals.

The attackers approached the couple, shouting antisemitic insults and calling the husband a “dirty Jew,” while physically assaulting them by throwing water and spitting on them.

Earlier this summer, a group of Israeli teenagers was physically assaulted by dozens of pro-Palestinian assailants — some reportedly armed with knives — on the Greek island of Rhodes.

This antisemitic incident took place after the Israeli teens left a nightclub, when a group of pro-Palestinian individuals followed them to their hotel and violently attacked them, leaving several with minor injuries.

In Athens, a group of pro-Palestinian activists vandalized an Israeli restaurant, shouting antisemitic slurs and spray-painting graffiti with slogans such as “No Zionist is safe here.”

The attackers also posted a sign on one of the restaurant’s windows that read, “All IDF soldiers are war criminals — we don’t want you here,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces.

Similar incidents of unprovoked violence and discrimination against Israelis or Jews perceived as being pro-Israel have been recorded across Europe and as far afield as Australia over the past two years.

People are walking on campus at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA, USA, on April 26, 2024. Photo: Bastiaan Slabbers via Reuters Connect

A significant portion of Jewish students at the University of Pennsylvania still find the climate on campus to be hostile and feel the need to hide their identity, according to a recent survey of Jewish undergraduates at the school.

The survey, conducted by Penn’s local Hillel International chapter, found that 40 percent of respondents said it is difficult to be Jewish at Penn and 45 percent said they “feel uncomfortable or intimidated because of their Jewish identity or relationship with Israel.”

Meanwhile, the results showed a staggering 85 percent of survey participants reported hearing about, witnessing, or experiencing “something antisemitic,” as reported by Franklin’s Forum, an alumni-led online outlet which posts newsletters regarding developments at the university.

Another 31 percent of Jewish Penn students said they feel the need to hide their Jewishness to avoid discrimination, which is sometimes present in the classroom, as 26 percent of respondents said they have “experienced antisemitic or anti-Israel comments from professors.”

Overall, 80 percent of Jewish students hold that anti-Israel activity is “often” antisemitic and that Israel’s conduct in war is “held to an unfair standard compared to other nations.”

Franklin’s Forum said the survey results can help the university chart a path toward restoring a culture of tolerance and respect.

“Penn’s efforts to confront antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of hate have lacked a clear baseline for measuring progress. This survey begins to fill that gap, offering the university a data-backed starting point for understanding Jewish life on campus,” its newsletter said. “This allows Penn to track what new initiatives are working, compare itself to national trends and peer institutions, build trust by showing measurable impact, and identify where progress is lagging.”

It added, “Data brings transparency and accountability, clarifying what is working and where more attention is needed. This survey provides a valuable baseline. Continued data gathering will be essential for Penn to track improvement, guide decision-making, and build a campus where Jewish students feel both proud of safe.”

The University of Pennsylvania emerged as a hotbed of campus antisemitism even before the phenomenon exploded nationwide in the aftermath of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.

In 2023, professor Huda Fakhreddine helped organize the “Palestine Writes Festival,” a gathering of anti-Zionists which featured Gaza-based professor Refaat Alareer, who said in 2018, “Are most Jews evil? Of course they are,” and Salman Abu Sitta, who once said in an interview that “Jews were hated in Europe because they played a role in the destruction of the economy in some of the countries, so they would hate them.” Roger Waters, the former Pink Floyd frontman, was also initially scheduled as a speaker, despite a documentary exposing his long record of anti-Jewish barbs. In one instance, a former colleague recalled Waters at a restaurant yelling at the wait staff to “take away the Jew food.”

That event prompted a deluge of antisemitic incidents at Penn, including Nazi graffiti and a student’s trailing a staffer into the university’s Hillel building and shouting “F–k the Jews” and “Jesus Christ is king!” overturning tables, podium stands, and chairs. Fakhreddine, who days after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel attended an on-campus rally in which a speaker castigated what he called “the Israeli Jew,” later sued the US Congress to halt its investigation of the incidents.

In 2024, the university pledged in a report on antisemitism that it would never again confer academic legitimacy to antisemitism and formally denounced the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel as “discriminatory” and “anti-intellectual.” The university also passed other policies aimed at protecting academic freedom and free speech from attempts to invoke them as justification for uttering hate speech and founded the Office of Religious and Ethnic Interests (OREI).

Recently, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the largest and oldest US organization for defending faculty rights, has been engaged in a fight over Penn’s efforts to combat antisemitism, arguing that a range of faculty speech and conduct considered hostile by Jewish members of the campus community are key components of academic freedom.

In a letter to the administration regarding antidiscrimination investigations opened by the OREI, the group charged that efforts to investigate alleged antisemitism on campus and punish those found to have perpetrated it can constitute discrimination. Its argument reprised other recent claims advanced by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), notorious for its defense of Sharia law and alleged ties to jihadist groups such as Hamas, in a lawsuit which aims to dismantle antisemitism prevention training at Northwestern University.

“Harassing, surveilling, intimidating, and punishing members of the university community for research, teaching, and extramural speech based on overly broad definitions of antisemitism does nothing to combat antisemitism, but it can perpetuate anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, and anti-Palestinian racism, muzzle political criticism of the Israeli government by people of any background, and create a climate of fear and self-censorship that threatens the academic freedom of all faculty and students,” the AAUP said, threatening to scrutinize the university. “AAUP-Penn will continue to monitor reports related to OREI.”

Additionally, the AAUP described Penn’s efforts to protect Jewish students from antisemitism as resulting from “government interference in university procedures” while arguing that merely reporting antisemitism subjects the accused to harassment, seemingly suggesting that many Jewish students who have been assaulted, academically penalized, and exposed to hate speech on college campuses across the US are perpetrators rather than victims.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.