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The real Jewish history in ‘History of the World: Part II’: Part I
Spoilers for “History of the World: Part II” follow.
(JTA) – Finally fulfilling the promise Mel Brooks made in 1981, the long-belated “History Of The World: Part II” brings us … “Hitler on Ice.”
For a sketch first teased during the end credits of Brooks’ film “History Of The World: Part I,” the leader of Nazi Germany can be seen attempting to land some difficult moves (perhaps a triple Axis?) at an Olympics-like skating competition.
Needless to stay, Hitler wasn’t known as a figure skater. But some aspects of the sketch — such as why collaborationist Vichy France would give the Nazi leader’s routine a perfect score — might benefit from a more detailed understanding of the real history that’s being pilloried.
The same goes for the sendups of Christianity, the Russian Revolution and Henry Kissinger — all historical events and figures depicted in the first episodes of the series, which landed on Hulu on Monday. Produced by Brooks and offering up its share of his Catskills-style Jewish humor, the eight-episode, four-night romp through history stops frequently on items of Jewish interest. Some sketches recur throughout the series.
So here is your guide to the real-life Jewish history of “History of the World: Part II,” to be updated daily as new episodes drop.
The Russian Revolution
In a longer narrative first introduced in Episode 1, the show’s depiction of the fall of the Russian Empire is a high-wire blend of parodies and stylistic influences, as well as a crash course on Russian antisemitism.
It begins with a grody depiction of early-1900s Jewish shtetl life borrowing heavily from “Fiddler on the Roof.” Mud-pie dealer and patriarch Shmuck Mudman, played by Jewish actor Nick Kroll, uses a truncated song-and-dance number (“Submission”) to encourage his feisty son to follow Jewish traditions and stay away from cosmopolitan life in Moscow. But his son is unconvinced: “The shtetl stinks, it’s no place for a Jew.” Like Anatevka, the tiny Jewish village from “Fiddler,” the Jews are heavily implied to be living in the “Pale of Settlement,” the only region of the Russian Empire where Jews were permitted to live starting in the early 19th century and lasting until the Russian Revolution in 1917. State-backed schooling and “Russianization” programs sought to erode Jewish communal identity and replace it with a Russian national identity; a small number of Jews were allowed to work or study beyond the Pale if they had special skills.
In “History,” the Mudmans, including a mother played by Jewish comic Pamela Adlon, are menaced by the Cossacks, the Ukrainian mercenaries and feared horsemen who carried out a series of pogroms agains the Jews often at the behest of the Russian state. Meanwhile, the gilded Romanov family are depicted as Kardashian-like beauty influencers headed up by Tsar Nicholas II (Danny DeVito), who discovers their empire is on the brink of collapse.
In real life, the Russian Revolution liberated the state’s Jewish population with the fall of the tsar in 1917, and a large percentage of Communist party members at the time were Jewish. (Like DeVito, Nicholas II in real life was a short man, around five-foot-six.) In the decades to follow, Communist rule would come to have a devastating effect on the Jews of the Soviet Union, suppressing their religion and culture, and purging many of the Jewish party members.
Hitler on ice
It’s hard to impress a team of international judges when you’re the genocidal maniac who tried to conquer them.
In the skit, Hitler is despondent when judges from the countries in which he waged war all give him zeroes — with the exception of Vichy France, which awards him a perfect score, and Poland, which awards him an expletive. (It’s an uneasy restaging of the line “Winter for Poland and France,” from “Springtime for Hitler,” the musical highlight in Brooks’ “The Producers.”)
The scores reflect Nazi Germany’s relationship with the countries: It conquered France and installed a puppet government that acquiesced to Hitler’s orders to round up and denationalize the country’s Jews. Meanwhile, the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, dividing up its rule with the Soviets and murdering much of its Jewish population in the Holocaust. Unlike the French government, which signed an armistice with Germany after heavy losses to clear the path for Vichy rule while preserving the Republic in name, Poland does not acquiesce to a collaborationist narrative; decades later, it is illegal in Poland to suggest that the country was complicit in Nazi atrocities.
But these wartime victories make Hitler the loser of “Hitler on Ice.” Accompanied by his “coach” Joseph Goebbels (the Nazis’ propaganda minister) and partner Eva Braun, this Hitler hangs his head in shame as he trudges away to the jeers of the crowd, intending to go shoot himself in his Berlin bunker in a repeat of his actual death by suicide at the end of World War II.
“If you put concentration camps in people’s countries,” offers one of the sportscasters (played by Jewish comic Ike Barinholtz), “you better be flawless on the ice.”
Jesus (Jay Ellis) and Judas (Nick Kroll) in a scene from the “Curb Your Judaism” sketch in “History of the World” Part II.” (Aaron Epstein/Hulu)
The betrayal of Jesus Christ
Titled “Curb Your Judaism,” the show’s dramatization of the events following the Last Supper is styled in the manner of Larry David’s long-running HBO comedy “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Kroll plays Judas like he’s Larry David, and his betrayal of Jesus is depicted as a series of comic misunderstandings — which, like the original “Curb,” often revolve around questions of Jewish identity. “Curb” regulars play supporting roles as disciples, with J.B. Smoove as Luke and Richard Kind as Peter.
Besides aping the “Curb” mannerisms, including Judas’ grumblings about foot-washing and the size of the portions at the Last Supper, much of the comedy of the Jesus segments revolves around to what degree Jesus himself (Jay Ellis of “Insecure”) has formally renounced his Judaism. The segment depicts how Christ endeared himself to his followers, and introduced Christianity, by relaxing many of the requirements of Jewish tradition, including kosher laws and circumcision. “Something’s off with this Jesus guy. He’s trying to phase out his Judaism,” Judas remarks.
Jewish scholars have generally viewed Jesus Christ as a teacher, but not as a prophet or messiah as Christians believe. Jews have granted differing levels of respect to Jesus depending on Jewish-Christian relations at any given point throughout world history (Jews weren’t such big fans of Jesus during the Spanish Inquisition, so memorably depicted in “Part I”).
Whether Jesus really did instruct his followers to disregard kosher laws and other Jewish practices is disputed by New Testament scholars and interpreters of the Gospel of Mark; other scholars believe Jesus intended to live as any other Jew. But “Curb Your Judaism” does depict Jesus as ultimately perishing at the hands of the Roman Empire, with whom Jews had a contentious relationship at the time, rather than at the hands of Jews, which was a popular belief used to justify antisemitism among various Christian denominations for centuries. “Nostra Aetate,” the influential 1965 papal decree, finally “absolved” the Jews for Christ’s murder, at least according to official Catholic doctrine.
Henry Kissinger
A sketch that imagines Shirley Chisholm, the first Black female member of Congress, as the star of a 1970s sitcom modeled on “The Jeffersons” includes a role for Kroll as Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon’s Jewish secretary of state. (Kroll is also an executive producer on the entire series, which helps explain his regular onscreen appearances.)
Historians generally view Kissinger, a refugee from Nazi Germany, as the lead architect of the Nixon administration’s most controversial decisions, including prolonging the Vietnam War and orchestrating a secret bombing campaign on Cambodia. Some call him a war criminal.
The Kissinger of “History” catches some of that criticism. A throwaway line further suggests he is an immortal demon.
Check back in throughout the week as JTA brings you Jews in space… the history space, that is.
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The post The real Jewish history in ‘History of the World: Part II’: Part I appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Greta Thunberg Released From Custody After Arrest at UK Anti-Israel Protest
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg speaks to a police officer during a pro-Palestinian protest as she holds a sign that says she supports prisoners linked to Palestine Action, an organization which the British government has proscribed as a terrorist group, in London, Britain, Dec. 23, 2025. Photo: Prisoners for Palestine/Handout via REUTERS
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was released from custody after being arrested on Tuesday in London at an anti-Israel protest, police said.
UK-based campaign group Prisoners for Palestine said Thunberg was earlier arrested under the Terrorism Act for holding a sign that said “I support the Palestine Action prisoners. I oppose genocide.” The British government has proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist group.
City of London Police said Thunberg had been bailed until March.
Police said earlier two other people had been arrested for throwing red paint at a building. A spokesperson said 22-year-old woman later attended the scene and was arrested for displaying a placard in support of a proscribed organization.
Prisoners for Palestine, which supports some detained activists who have gone on hunger strike, said the building had been targeted because it was used by an insurance firm which they said provided services to the British arm of Israeli defense firm Elbit Systems.
The insurance company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Thunberg, 22, became prominent after staging weekly climate protests in front of the Swedish parliament in 2018.
Last year, she was cleared of a public order offense in Britain as a judge ruled police had no power to arrest her and others at a protest in London the year before.
She was detained along with 478 people and expelled by Israel in October after joining an activist convoy of vessels, the Global Sumud Flotilla, that attempted to breach Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Israel has consistently denied genocide allegations, noting it has targeted Hamas terrorists with its military campaign and taken measures to try and avoid civilian casualties.
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When Famine Vanished: How the Media Repeated a Claim, and Never Reckoned With Its Collapse
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid and fuel line up at the crossing into the Gaza Strip at the Rafah border on the Egypt side, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, in Rafah, Egypt, October 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
CNN delivered the update quietly and inaccurately, with much less gravity than it once used to amplify the warning.
“Gaza no longer in famine,” read a CNN post, citing a UN-backed hunger monitor.
Reuters and the Associated Press followed with similar headlines.
What is striking is not that the unreliable IPC, which has been criticized in the past for faulty methodology, revised its assessment.
What’s really upsetting is that much of the press treated the reversal as a weather update, not as a reckoning.
Only months earlier, these same institutions helped cement a very different narrative.
In late July 2025, UN agencies issued a high-profile warning that key indicators in Gaza exceeded famine thresholds, citing IPC data and describing hundreds of thousands facing famine-like conditions. The IPC alert itself stated that famine thresholds had been reached for food consumption in most of Gaza and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City.
In August 2025, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) announced that famine was confirmed for the first time in Gaza, again anchored to IPC assessments.
Those claims ricocheted through global media coverage with little visible skepticism about methodology, access constraints, or incentives baked into a wartime information environment.
The result was a widely accepted narrative that Israel was causing famine, a narrative that shaped diplomatic pressure and public outrage long before the data could be stress tested.
Now the IPC’s latest assessment says no area has ever been in famine, attributing improvements to increased humanitarian and commercial food deliveries after the ceasefire, while warning that the situation remains fragile and could deteriorate again if access is disrupted or fighting resumes.
IPC’s latest fraudulent Gaza report implies 1,700+ starvation deaths this December 2025—even TODAY we should see 57 such deaths! But even Hamas reports only 475 total starvation deaths for the ENTIRE WAR. The math exposes how detached from reality all these models are. 1/ pic.twitter.com/wOvIohWTt2
— Aizenberg (@Aizenberg55) December 19, 2025
The AP at least gestured to the whiplash, noting that months earlier, the IPC said famine was occurring in Gaza City and was likely to spread without a ceasefire and an end to restrictions.
Reuters likewise framed the change as a shift from earlier IPC findings, while stressing continued emergency-level needs. But what was largely missing was the one ingredient journalism owes the public when an apocalyptic claim collapses or is materially revised: responsibility.
No media outlet interrogated the underlying assumptions when famine warnings were treated as settled fact. None explained what changed in the inputs and thresholds. None revisited the earlier certainty with the same prominence as the original alarm.
This matters because narratives do not stay on paper.
In the United States, the ADL has reported that anger at Israel during the war has been a driving force behind antisemitism, underscoring how the information ecosystem around Gaza can translate into real-world hostility toward Jews. When famine claims are amplified uncritically, they do not just inform. They inflame.
The new UN-backed update does not erase Gaza’s suffering, and it does not vindicate anyone’s politics. It does, however, expose a core media failure: outsourcing verification to a single authoritative label, and then moving on when the label changes.
If famine was once a front-page certainty, the correction cannot be a footnote.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
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US Heritage Foundation Think Tank Staff Quit Amid Antisemitism Controversy
The Heritage Foundation’s logo is displayed during the 2025 Joseph Story Distinguished Lecture in Washington, DC, US, Oct. 22, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
Over a dozen employees have left jobs at the Heritage Foundation or were fired in recent days, according to the influential right-wing US think tank, as it grapples with allegations from former supporters that it has aligned itself with those accused of antisemitism.
In a statement about the resignations and firings on Monday, Heritage Foundation chief advancement officer Andy Olivastro said a handful of staff had chosen “disruption” and “disloyalty.”
He said the think tank “has always welcomed debate, but alignment on mission and loyalty to the institution are non-negotiable.”
The foundation has been caught in a firestorm of accusations and counter-accusations that began when former Fox News host Tucker Carlson interviewed Nick Fuentes, a self-described Christian nationalist, in October. The interview focused on their mutual opposition to US support of Israel, a view at odds with that of many conservatives.
Some supporters of the foundation have said it should distance itself from Carlson, characterizing the journalist’s views as antisemitic. But Kevin Roberts, the foundation president, has continued to personally back Carlson, who he says is a friend. Carlson strongly rejects accusations of antisemitism.
One of those who resigned this week was Josh Blackman, a law professor who contributed to Project 2025, a right-wing policy initiative overseen by the Heritage Foundation. In a letter posted online, he blamed Roberts for making Heritage‘s brand “toxic.”
“You aligned the Heritage Foundation with the rising tide of antisemitism on the right,” said Blackman, who edited the group’s Guide to the Constitution publication.
In an Oct. 30 video defending Carlson, Roberts said a “venomous coalition” was attacking the prominent podcaster over his interview with Fuentes. Roberts said conservatives should feel no obligation to support any foreign government no matter how great the pressure from “the globalist class.”
He later apologized for his use of the term “venomous coalition,” which he said Jewish colleagues understood to be an antisemitic trope.
Speaking at a November staff townhall meeting, Roberts said his intention was not to endorse Fuentes, who he called “an evil person,” but to “convert” some of his audience of several million people.
Advancing American Freedom said on Monday the three former leaders of Heritage‘s legal, economic, and data teams had joined the conservative advocacy group, along with 10 of their staff. The group led by former Vice President Mike Pence is critical of US President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement.
Three Heritage Foundation board trustees have also resigned since November.
Chief US Circuit Judge William Pryor, a conservative jurist who contributed to Heritage‘s 800-page Guide to the Constitution, said in an interview he did not attend a promotional event for the book due to Roberts’ “totally inappropriate” language in the Oct. 30 video.
For some remaining Heritage employees, recent staff departures were driven by Republican Party jockeying rather than antisemitism or Israel.
“These resignations have a lot more to do with 2028 than it does with anything else,” Heritage fellow Robby Starbuck posted online. “One group wants a return to the Pence/Ryan GOP and the rest want to MAGA with @KevinRobertsTX.”