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The legacy of Isaac Babel, Russia’s Jewish Hemingway, is dissected in new Chicago play
CHICAGO (JTA) — All writers strive for a good story. How far they will go to find it depends on their ambition, their wherewithal and their sanity.
Isaac Babel, a Russian-Jewish writer who came from a relatively stable, privileged background in Odessa in the late 1800s, would go to war among Cossacks who murdered Jews, make friends with Soviet agents and then cuckold one of them. The reason why Babel constantly put himself in harm’s way may have been simple, according to another writer.
“I think he wanted something to write about,” said Rajiv Joseph, whose play at Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago, “Describe the Night,” centers on Babel. “He was a young man who had wanted to be a writer but had nothing to write about.”
“Describe the Night” blends three stories from different eras that engage with questions of who controls the truth. The first portrays Babel, the Soviet secret police head Nikolai Yezhov and Yezhov’s wife, Yevgenia, with whom Babel begins an affair. The second follows a young Soviet agent rising through the ranks just before the Berlin Wall falls, and the third dives into a conspiracy behind a 2010 plane crash near Smolensk, Russia.
Babel himself may not rise to the ranks of Tolstoy or Dostoevsky in terms of immediate name recognition in the United States, but the journalist, author and playwright is remembered as one of Russia’s preeminent 20th-century writers. His modernist and bloody tales in “Red Cavalry,” a collection of short stories inspired by his time on the frontlines of the Polish-Soviet War of 1919, vaulted him to the status of a Russian Hemingway. The pithy American war correspondent once expressed his admiration, perhaps even jealousy, of Babel’s writing, saying “Babel’s style is even more concise than mine.”
Like Hemingway, Babel went to war in search of a good story. Combat itself was not the only threat to him: as a Jew, he bore witness to the Cossack cavalry’s antisemitic atrocities. Babel tamped down his Jewish identity while covering the war, though he would feel a sense of isolation in both societies or as his grandson would later describe him “a Jew among the Cossacks, and a Cossack among the Jews.” In his own diary, Babel wrote “Talking to the Jews, I feel kin to them, they think I’m Russian and my soul is laid bare.”
Joseph, who is not Jewish and authored the Pulitzer-nominated play “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo,” had read “Red Cavalry” years ago but was inspired to write “Describe the Night” after discovering the poetic journal Babel had kept during the war. The title of the play comes directly from the diary, which repeats the word several times in Babel’s own prompts to describe things ranging from kitchens to marketplaces to women to horses. Sometimes Babel successfully answers his own prompts by forcing himself to write, and other times he doesn’t, Joseph said.
Lead actor James Vincent Meredith is also not Jewish and admitted he had concerns about “the choice of casting a black man in the role of a Jewish man living in the world of Russia, the Ukraine and Paris.” He partly found his way to the character by watching the 2015 documentary “Finding Babel,” which follows Babel’s grandson across Russia and Ukraine as he searches for his famous ancestor’s remains.
“I can read Babel’s work (I have), I can travel to Israel (I have, decades ago), I can take Hebrew as an elective in college (I did, not very well), I can read Chaim Potok (I have). But these are at their best, however well intentioned, tourist pursuits for one who is not Jewish,” he said. “I will never come close to knowing the true soul of a Jewish person. Thankfully, Rajiv has created this character that by his design, anyone can inhabit.”
Yasen Peyankov and James Vincent Meredith in a scene from the play about Isaac Babel. (Michael Brosilow)
He added that the play isn’t meant to be historically accurate. “The character of Isaac, as well as others in the play, is meant to be an entry point into a world where the scalpel crafting the ‘truth’ is rarely placed in the hands of those who are adversely affected by it. As a black male and father of a black male in the U.S., I’m certainly cognizant of that world.”
Joseph feels that he and other artists share the instinct Babel had to leave his comfort zone. He wanted to be a writer, but growing up in suburban Cleveland gave him little inspiration. After college, he joined the Peace Corps and spent three years in West Africa.
“That was a real life-changing event for me that opened my world and opened my mind,” Joseph said. “Not nearly as traumatic as traveling with the cavalry through Poland in 1920, but the same impulse to break out of your norms.”
Yet Joseph believes Babel’s desires went beyond pushing boundaries and into a deep, pathological need to associate with danger.
“The thing I find really interesting about Babel, both through his writing and through his personal life, is this inexorable draw towards danger and filth,” Joseph said, adding that Babel would hang out in taverns with Soviet soldiers, members of the secret police and executioners like Yezhov. “He was already treading on such thin ice. So he had a recklessness, you could call it a death wish if you want.”
Meredith was also stunned by the writer’s intense flirtations with danger.
“Why get that close to the flame? That to me is one of the things that really appealed to me about this guy,” Meredith said. “I tend to play it safe, as safe as an actor can play it, but I see this guy who had these kinds of desires, he had this quest to make this amazing art as far as his stories and I just I’m just so attracted to that.”
Joseph said he saw some parallels between Babel’s story and the exodus of some of his artistic peers in Russia, who have fled to Europe. In his time, Babel was seen as subversive by nature, existing as a Jewish man in early Soviet Russia. His relished writing about prostitutes and mobsters, transforming underworld characters into urban legends. His 1935 political play “Maria” was canceled during rehearsals and by 1939, Soviet police arrested him and confiscated his writing. Throughout the 1940s, his works disappeared from circulation. Though some believed Babel had spent time throughout that decade in a prison camp, the government had executed him in 1940.
“In the 1930s and ‘40s, I think if you are a Jewish creative writer, you’re automatically subversive,” Joseph said. He noted one pivotal scene where Nikolai Yezhov labels Babel as such because his writing portrays Russia as gloomy rather than inspiring.
“If you’re telling the truth, you are subversive,” Joseph added. “So I think that pretty much any creative writer worth his or her weight would be considered subversive at that moment.”
“Describe the Night” runs until April 9 at the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago.
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Jewish New Yorkers rally outside Park East Synagogue, 2 weeks after anti-Israel protest there
(JTA) — Hundreds of New York City Jews and their allies braved the cold Thursday evening for a rally outside Park East Synagogue, where pro-Palestinian protesters had demonstrated two weeks prior shouting chants like “Globalize the Intifada” and “Death to the IDF.”
Thursday’s demonstrators carried signs distributed by organizers that read “Proud New Yorkers, Jews, Zionists.” Others brought signs from home with messages including “Proudly Park East” and “Anti-Zionism is Jew hate is not OK.” Messages from speakers focused mostly on the protesters’ rhetoric and embracing Israel as an important part of Jewish life.
“This evening we come together representing the scale, strength and diversity of our incredible New York Jewish community,” said Eric Goldstein, CEO of UJA-Federation of New York, which spearheaded the rally. “And we gather outside the sacred space that was so violently targeted a few weeks ago.”
In referring to “sacred space,” Goldstein was using the language that Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani used when he responded to the protest in a way that many of his Jewish critics found disappointing. But if it was meant to be an allusion, Goldstein didn’t say. In fact, no one mentioned Mamdani directly from the speaker podium as a number of Jewish elected officials and community leaders addressed the crowd and denounced the rhetoric used by the protesters.
Joanna Samuels, CEO of the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, came the closest with comments that appeared to allude to criticisms of the incoming mayor, a longtime and staunch devotee to the pro-Palestinian cause.
“The great leaders of our city have sought to unite people of all backgrounds around broad common goals,” she said, adding that New York’s greatest leaders “have not been ideologues.”
“Our great leaders have had the maturity and discipline to get rid of divisive language and rhetoric in service of their love of our city and their love of New Yorkers,” Samuels said. “I invite all of our leaders and our future leaders to uphold these values, and to demand them from those who speak in your name and on your behalf.”
The rally, which also featured a performance by the musician Mastisyahu, drew both critics and allies of Mamdani in politics. It represents a show of force as Jewish leaders in the city ready themselves for Mamdani’s inauguration on Jan. 1, when the city will go from having a mayor who prides himself on being pro-Israel to having one who has called for its boycott.
Mamdani was asked about the pro-Israel solidarity rally at an unrelated event earlier on Thursday.
“On those who are rallying today, and on Jewish New Yorkers across the five boroughs, I look forward to being a mayor for each and every one of them, and each and every person who calls the city home,” Mamdani said. “And being that mayor means protecting those New Yorkers, it also means celebrating and cherishing those New Yorkers.”
A spokesperson for Mamdani said two weeks ago that he would continue to “discourage” the language used at the Park East protest. But speakers on Thursday called out the protesters in far more explicit terms, saying they used antisemitic rhetoric.
Those speakers included Mark Levine, the comptroller-elect who traded endorsements with the mayor-elect, and will be one of the most powerful officials in the city government alongside Mamdani.
“We are out here in the cold to denounce the hatred that was directed at our fellow Jewish New Yorkers outside of this synagogue,” Levine asserted. “It is never OK to call for the death of anyone, as these protesters did. It is not OK to obstruct and threaten people entering a house of worship, as these protesters did.”
Levine himself has been the subject of protests by left-wing groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace, which endorsed Mamdani and, like the mayor-elect, opposes Levine’s intention to invest city funds in Israel bonds.
Levine also defended attendees of the event inside Park East, which was organized by Nefesh B’Nefesh, a nonprofit that facilitates North Americans’ immigration to Israel, saying, “You can be interested in immigrating to a country even if you don’t agree with every policy of the government of that country.”
He added, “And in the case of Israel, one of the most common reasons people are interested in immigrating is to flee antisemitism, which is on the rise in New York and America — a fact perhaps lost on the protesters, who were busy trying to make the attendees feel unsafe.”
Jewish State Assembly member Micah Lasher, who is running for Congress in the 12th district which includes Park East, commended Levine on social media for his “powerful words.”
Lasher arrived at the event alongside Brad Hoylman-Sigal, the Jewish state senator and incoming Manhattan borough president who endorsed Lasher in October.
Both politicians had endorsed Mamdani in the general election, as did Assemblymember Alex Bores, one of Lasher’s opponents in the 12th district; Sen. Liz Krueger, who is Jewish; and City Council Member Gale Brewer, who were all present. Meanwhile, another notable attendee — Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League — has had an antagonistic relationship with the mayor-elect, who is the subject of the ADL’s “Mamdani Monitor.”
While Mamdani was alluded to in Samuels’ remarks, some attendees said they felt that he should have been discussed explicitly.
Aaron Herman, a former New York City resident who commuted in from White Plains, in Westchester County north of the city, said he and his rabbi were discussing the subject.
“He brought up to me, like, ‘There’s one thing that was missing during this incredible rally: No one actually mentioned our mayor-elect, Mamdani,’” Herman said. “The mayor-elect said something wrong. It needs to be addressed.”
Herman shared a video he took at the rally of Rabbi Avi Weiss, the founder of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, in which Weiss noted that Mamdani had not been mentioned. “We’re 15 minutes into this rally and I’ve not heard the word Mamdani,” Weiss said. “He’s the problem. … I’m so proud of this rally and the people who planned it but don’t be afraid to stand up to the challenge that we face in the future — and that is the mayor elect, Mamdani.” He then sought to lead others in the crowd in chanting, “Mamdani, we are Israel.”
Still, Herman and other attendees said they appreciated the event altogether, which brought Jews from around the city to the Upper East Side. Buses were chartered from areas like Riverdale, a Bronx neighborhood with many Israeli and Orthodox Jewish residents.
“It was nice to see everyone come together,” said Allison Levy, who was also among the pro-Israel counter-protesters outside the Nefesh B’Nefesh event. “I wish we could do this more often because it seems like we’re really divided, so it was nice that people showed up — especially considering how cold it is.”
The rally included performances from Jewish musician Matisyahu, who has been a vocal supporter of Israel, and Park East Synagogue’s youth choir. Park East’s 95-year-old senior rabbi, Arthur Schneier, spoke, imploring lawmakers to implement a law prohibiting protests directly outside houses of worship.
Schneier’s son Marc, also a rabbi, has urged Mamdani to support such legislation, to which Mamdani’s team has expressed openness. Lasher co-introduced a bill banning protests within 25 feet of houses of worship on Wednesday.
Other speakers included Rabbis Joseph Potasnik and Sara Hurwitz of the New York Board of Rabbis, and 92NY’s David Ingber. Potasnik is one of five rabbis sitting on Mamdani’s transition committees.
Police blocked off the entire block of 68th Street between Lexington and Third avenues, accompanied by security from Hatzalah and the Community Security Service, Jewish security groups. Multiple speakers commended the NYPD, which had previously drawn criticism for not properly responding to the initial protest, leading commissioner Jessica Tisch to apologize at a Park East Shabbat service.
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JD Vance rejects claims that antisemitism is growing inside the GOP, breaking his silence on the topic
(JTA) — Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that he does not believe antisemitism is surging inside the Republican Party, pushing back on prominent conservatives who have raised alarms about hostility toward Jews among young right-wing activists.
“I do think it’s important to call this stuff out when I see it. I also, when I talk to young conservatives, I don’t see some simmering antisemitism that’s exploding,” Vance told NBC News in an interview marking his first year in office.
Vance said antisemitism is wrong, stating that “judging anybody based on their skin color or immutable characteristics, I think, is fundamentally anti-American and anti-Christian.” (Vance himself is a convert to Catholicism who recently said he hopes his Hindu wife chooses to become a Christian in the future.)
Vance added, “In any bunch of apples, you have bad people. But my attitude on this is we should be firm in saying antisemitism and racism is wrong. … I think it’s kind of slanderous to say that the Republican Party, the conservative movement, is extremely antisemitic.”
These remarks amount to Vance’s most direct response to Sen. Ted Cruz and other prominent figures on the right who have in recent weeks have warned of rising antisemitism among conservatives especially after Tucker Carlson, a Vance ally, hosted Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes on his podcast.
Vance’s comments land amid a larger, unresolved debate inside Republican circles over how seriously to treat the rise of explicitly antisemitic figures such as Fuentes, whose online “groyper” movement has attracted a following among young GOP staffers and activists. Jewish conservatives and other right-leaning commentators have expressed alarm at Fuentes’ influence, estimating that significant numbers of junior Republican staffers consume his content. Fuentes has described “organized Jewry” as a threat to American unity.
Vance’s silence on antisemitism was a prominent topic of conversation at a recent confab for Jewish conservatives, where speakers questioned his close association with Carlson.
President Donald Trump recently defended Carlson after the podcast host interviewed Fuentes, saying, “You can’t tell him who to interview.” Carlson campaigned for Trump in 2024 and remains influential within the administration. Trump himself met with Fuentes and Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, at Mar-a-Lago in 2022, later claiming he did not know who Fuentes was.
Vance has taken a similarly restrained approach. He defended Carlson’s son, Buckley, from accusations of antisemitism without addressing Carlson’s interview with Fuentes. In October, he was criticized for responding to a college student’s question about Jews and Israel without acknowledging its antisemitic framing.
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Ireland, Spain, Netherlands announce boycott of Eurovision following failed effort to oust Israel
(JTA) — Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands and Slovenia’s public broadcasters said they will boycott this year’s Eurovision Song Contest after a Thursday meeting of the European Broadcasting Union confirmed Israel’s participation.
The Thursday General Assembly meeting in Switzerland of the European Broadcasting Union, which organizes the annual song competition, was convened to discuss some members’ calls to have Israel ousted from the contest over the war in Gaza and allegations of voting interference.
But despite calls for a vote on Israel’s participation, the EBU instead said that its members approved new rules prohibiting voter interference from governments and third parties. (Several countries called for an audit of Eurovision’s public voting system after Israel’s Yuval Raphael took second place last year after being bolstered by the audience vote.)
While the EBU did not reference Israel in its press release following the meeting, it said that there would be “no need for a further vote on participation.”
“A large majority of Members agreed that there was no need for a further vote on participation and that the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 should proceed as planned, with the additional safeguards in place,” the EBU said in a statement Thursday.
Delphine Ernotte Cunci, the EBU’s president, praised the decision in a statement, saying that the result “demonstrates our members’ shared commitment to protecting transparency and trust in the Eurovision Song Contest.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog wrote in a post on X that he was “pleased” that Israel will be included in this year’s competition, adding, “Israel deserves to be represented on every stage around the world, a cause to which I am fully and actively committed.”
And Golan Yochpaz, the CEO of Israeli broadcaster KAN, told EBU members during the meeting that “the attempt to remove KAN from the contest can only be understood as a cultural boycott.”
“A boycott may begin today with Israel, but no one knows where it will end or who else it may harm,” continued Yochpaz. “Are EBU members willing to be part of a step that harms freedom of creation and freedom of expression?”
But after the meeting, several public broadcasters that had previously stated their intention to boycott the competition if Israel was allowed to compete followed through on their promises.
The Netherlands’ public broadcaster AVROTROS said in a statement that it had finalized its decision to boycott the competition, citing the “severe humanitarian suffering in Gaza, the suppression of press freedom, and the political interference during the last Eurovision Song Contest.”
RTÉ, the public broadcaster of Ireland, also announced that it was pulling out of the song contest:
“RTÉ feels that Ireland’s participation remains unconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there, which continues to put the lives of so many civilians at risk,” the broadcaster said in a statement. “RTÉ remains deeply concerned by the targeted killing of journalists in Gaza during the conflict and the continued denial of access to international journalists to the territory.”
The secretary general of RTVE, the public broadcaster in Spain, also criticized the EBU for declining some members’ requests to hold a vote on Israel’s participation in a press release announcing its withdrawal.
“We would like to express our serious doubts about the participation of Israeli broadcaster KAN in Eurovision 2026,” RTVE Secretary General Alfonso Morales said in an address at the meeting. “The situation in Gaza, despite the ceasefire and the approval of the peace process, and Israel’s use of the contest for political purposes, make it increasingly difficult to maintain Eurovision as a neutral cultural event.”
In her address to EBU members before the decision, the president of the board of Slovenia’s public broadcaster, Natalija Gorščak, said, “We are hostages of the political interests of the Israeli government.”
“For the third year in a row, the public has demanded that we say no to the participation of any country that attacks another country. We must follow European standards for peace and understanding,” said Gorščak. “Our message is: we will not participate in the ESC if Israel is there. On behalf of the 20,000 children who died in Gaza.”
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