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This Jewish studies professor won $60,000 on “Jeopardy!” — despite missing out on a question about Yom Kippur
(JTA) — The most notable message Melissa Klapper got during her four-night run this week on “Jeopardy!” didn’t come because the Jewish studies scholar was unable to answer a question about Yom Kippur. It also wasn’t an unkind note from a game-show stickler who believed she’d gotten credit for a wrong response.
Instead, it was an email from a past student who recognized herself in the story Klapper told as part of her self-introductory stage banter — a staple of the game show. Klapper, who teaches history at Rowan University in New Jersey, described accusing a student of having plagiarized her paper.
The student then replied, Klapper recalled, that she “didn’t know [it] was plagiarized when she bought it.” The anecdote yielded laughs from host Ken Jennings and the two co-contestants whom Klapper later defeated to notch her third win.
After the episode aired Wednesday night, Klapper heard from the former student, whose name she had previously forgotten.
“She watches ‘Jeopardy!’ and when she was watching that interview, she thought to herself, this is about me,” Klapper told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “And she wrote to me to apologize. She’s a teacher now and, I think, is more understanding of why what she did was really not good. And I really appreciated it. It was kind of brave of her to get in touch with me after all these years.”
The experience was a fitting highlight of Klapper’s run on the show, which ended Thursday with a third-place finish and total winnings of $60,100. She said it was her training as an educator — not her education in Modern Orthodox schools or her scholarship on Jewish women, immigrant children and more — that prepared her for success on the show.
“I’m up in front of people all the time,” said Klapper, who is active in the Association for Jewish Studies and whose most recent book, “Ballet Class: An American History,” was published in 2020. “I do not have stage fright.”
Klapper spoke with JTA about her Jewish background, her research interests and how her most religiously observant friends managed to watch her on TV.
This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
JTA: First, I have to ask: Last night, did you end up with $1,800 on purpose? That’s a very Jewish number.
Klapper: No! That’s so funny. It didn’t even occur to me.
How are you feeling this morning? Any initial reflections on your appearance now that it’s over?
These shows were recorded in January, so I’ve had time to come to peace with what happened. I was disappointed not to win another game — or two. But Alec, the guy who won last night, was just unstoppable on the buzzer. Knowing the answers is not enough to do well in “Jeopardy!” You also have to have good hand-eye coordination, which I do not. I would say I knew the vast majority of answers but I often just could not get the buzzer in time. Once I knew I was going to be on the show, I did sort of sit at home and practice with a ballpoint pen, but it’s not the same.
I will say the fact that I couldn’t be fast enough to answer the Yom Kippur clue was pretty frustrating. [The clue was about a Jon Stewart quip about the Jewish day of atonement.] And I heard about that — I got a lot of fun teasing from some of my Jewish friends who were sending me helpful emails with links to the dictionary.com definition of Yom Kippur.
Can you share a little bit about your relationship with “Jeopardy!”, how you came to be on the show and your general reflection about your experience?
I grew up in a household where we watched “Jeopardy!” when I was kid. We had a “Jeopardy!” board game that I would play with my parents and my sister and I actually tried out for the teen tournament when I was in high school. Those were the days that you had to go in person, so my parents very kindly drove me into D.C. when we heard that there would be a tryout. I didn’t get past the first round — I didn’t know anything about sports, and I still don’t know that much, although I answered a surprising number of sports questions.
In the last few years I started to watch more regularly and it occurred to me, you know, I really think I could do OK on this show. I made it into the contestant pool the first time I took the online test, but I did not get called. The day after my 18 months [in the pool] ended, I started the process again, but I sort of assumed I would never hear from them again — especially because they asked you to write down dates when you can’t come and I had to write that I was not available during the semester — and, oh, also on Jewish holidays. But they called me for winter break.
They record five shows in a day, and all of mine were on one day. There’s about 10 minutes between shows when you change your top and can have a drink and then go right back onstage. It was just — really, it was all a blur. If you’d asked me at the beginning of this week what any of the categories were I would have been very hard-pressed to tell you.
You got some clues that seemed ready-made for a Jewish contestant such as one about Philip Roth’s “Portnoy’s Complaint” and another about Jack Antonoff, the Jewish musician and producer. What is your Jewish background like and were there moments where you felt like that gave you some kind of advantage?
Now I live in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, which has a large observant Jewish community. My husband and I belong to a Modern Orthodox synagogue and we are involved in a partnership minyan, Lechu Neranena.
I went to Jewish day school my whole life, kindergarten through 12th grade, first at Akiba Academy of Dallas and then Bais Yaakov of Baltimore, which was the only girls high school and where I got a very solid education and was encouraged to pursue my intellectual ambitions. I went to Israel right after high school before I started college. So I have a very intensive Jewish educational background, and throughout my education and all the schools that I went to, I found a lot of encouragement for my innate nerdiness.
So I’m not sure I could draw a direct line, but what I will say is that in the Jewish educational environment I grew up in, matched by an extremely Jewish traditional home, there was just a huge, enormous value on reading and books and learning, and I think that makes a difference.
I will say I don’t think I knew about Jack Antonoff because he’s Jewish — I knew him because of Taylor Swift.
Were there Jewish highlights of your experience, either on the show or behind the scenes?
They do not pay for you to go out to L.A. You’re responsible for your own travel, but they do provide lunch. I asked if it would be possible to get me a kosher lunch, and they immediately said yes, which I appreciated. There was no question or back and forth about it. I got a salad with a ton of protein that could take me through the day.
And then this is a little funny, but I have friends from across the spectrum of Jewish practice, or lack thereof. Some of my more traditionally observant friends don’t own TVs and wouldn’t have TVs in their houses — but they have been watching the show on YouTube every day because they have no other way to watch.
Your scholarship in American history and Jewish studies has been wide-ranging, and you’ve written books about American Jewish women’s activism, American Jewish girlhood and, most recently, ballet. How did your work as a scholar and a teacher prepare you for your appearance or dovetail with it?
I’m a teacher. I’m up in front of people all the time. I do not have stage fright. I give a lot of public talks of various kinds, in academic venues or community settings. And so I did not have any problems speaking or talking to Ken [Jennings] during the short interview period — that is not a problem for me. And for some contestants, it really is. They’re not used to just speaking in public at all like that. My professional background prepared me very well.
I have to ask about the big controversy. [Some viewers believed Klapper offered “Gregor” rather than “McGregor” as the response to a clue about the actor Ewan McGregor.] What did you make of that, and what do you think it means for the “Jeopardy!” viewership to have such intensity of passion that they referee a professionally refereed show?
First, it’s not a controversy. It’s clear to everyone that I said McGregor on stage, including to my co-contestants who have spoken about this. There should not have been and there should not be any controversy.
That said, I don’t personally sort of participate in any kind of fandom, so the way that this sort of took off is a little alien to me. But I know not just in the “Jeopardy!” community people are really, I guess, just very invested. It’s hard for me to explain.
Has the response been hard for you?
I’m sure that everyone who appears on “Jeopardy!” gets some nasty emails because unfortunately fandom can be vicious and I’m very easy to find. But I do know that women who are on “Jeopardy!”, especially women who do well, really can be targeted. And I do think that is part of what happened. Some of the — most of the emails I got from strangers were extremely nice and positive and, you know, full of good wishes. And I appreciated that, but I also got some really misogynistic, nasty gendered messages.
It’s disappointing because in my mind the “Jeopardy!” community is one of the last nice spaces that exists. I’ve talked about that with other contestants over the years, who have said it’s a congenial space. And I’ve asked them — and now I’ll ask you — what do you think the Jewish community can learn from the “Jeopardy!” community?
As a historian, it’s sort of not in my nature to comment on the contemporary Jewish community. I do think there are shared values around knowledge and education.
I do think there’s a nice community of contestants. Even though we were all each other’s competitors, everybody was just really friendly and encouraging. It’d be nice if all communities would just be like that.
You teach women’s and gender studies. You mentioned one big gender dynamic related to being a “Jeopardy!” contestant. Were there others, or other connections to your scholarship, that jumped out during your time as a contestant?
Not so much gender, but my current research project is about American Jewish women who traveled abroad between the Civil War and World War II. It’s a research interest — I noticed as I was working on all my other projects that the Jewish girls and women I was writing about traveled a lot, way more than you would expect for the late 1800s and early 1900s — but it’s also because I love to travel myself. And that’s another way to learn. There were definitely questions on “Jeopardy!” that I knew because I’ve been there — like about the sculpture in the harbor in Copenhagen of the Little Mermaid. I thought: I’ve been there and I’ve seen that.
So you like traveling and you just won a little over $60,000. Do you have any specific plans for the winnings?
Well, first, I’ll have to deal with the IRS. I’m involved with a bunch of different charities and so I will certainly be giving some of this money to them. And my husband and I already have our big trip for the year planned in May — to the north of England, to Newcastle and Hadrian’s Wall — and so we are going to upgrade some parts of that experience a little bit.
And then let’s go back to the student who reached out to you. What do make of that?
Whatever they’re teaching, teachers really matter, for better or for worse, and that’s where my real impact is. I teach a lot of students a lot of different things and I really value my relationship with them. And as it says in Proverbs, right, I have learned a lot from my students, just like I hope they learned from me. Seeing how excited some of my students have been this week, I do think that, in a way, being on “Jeopardy!” was sort of part of my teaching practice and that it just shows, again, this value of education and knowledge. Yes, it’s trivia, but still it just makes you a better-rounded person. And it was nice to be able to demonstrate that.
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The post This Jewish studies professor won $60,000 on “Jeopardy!” — despite missing out on a question about Yom Kippur appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Even Adam and Eve weren’t satisfied
האָסטו אַמאָל געטראַכט: „ווען איך וואָלט נאָר געהאַט דאָס אָדער יענץ, אָדער ווען מײַן מצבֿ וואָלט נאָר געווען אַנדערש, וואָלט איך געווען גליקלעך…“?
עס איז זייער אַנטמוטיקנדיק צו גלייבן אַז עס פֿעלט אונדז דאָס וואָס מיר דאַרפֿן כּדי צו דערגרייכן אונדזערע צילן און צו זײַן גליקלעך. און נאָך מער: ווען מען קומט צו אַזאַ מסקנה, פֿילט מען זיך ווי אַ קרבן פֿון די אומשטענדן, אוממעכטיק צו בײַטן די מציאות צום גוטן.
אָבער איז עס טאַקע אַזוי?
אין טיפֿן איז דאָס אַ פֿאַלשער חשבון. פֿרייד איז ניט אָפּהענגיק פֿון דעם וואָס מיר האָבן אָדער האָבן ניט, נאָר פֿון דעם ווי מיר קוקן אויף וואָס מיר האָבן און אויף וואָס עס פֿעלט אונדז.
אין דער וואָכעדיקער סדרה, בראשית, לייענען מיר וועגן בריאת־העולם און איר שפּיץ — די באַשאַפֿונג פֿון אָדם און חוה.
וואָס קען זײַן אַ בעסערער בײַשפּיל, אַז גליק איז ניט אָפּהענגיק פֿון אויסערלעכע אומשטענדן, ווי אָדם און חוה אין גן־עדן?
האָט זיי עפּעס געפֿעלט? ניין.
און דאָך האָבן זיי אַליין באַוויזן צו פֿאַרפּלאָנטערן דעם מצבֿ.
עס איז געווען בלויז איין בוים, פֿון וועמענס פֿרוכטן ג־ט האָט זיי פֿאַרווערט צו עסן, און זיי האָבן זיך ניט געקענט אײַנהאַלטן פֿון עסן דווקא פֿון יענעם בוים!
און נאָך מער: לויט דעם תּנא רבי מאיר איז דער בוים געווען אַ ווײַנשטאָק. זיי האָבן זיך געדאַרפֿט אָפּהאַלטן פֿון זײַנע פֿרוכטן בלויז עטלעכע שעה, ביז שבת וואָלט זיך אָנגעהויבן; דאַן וואָלטן זיי געקענט מאַכן קידוש אויפֿן ווײַן און אַזוי אײַנפֿירן אַן אייביקן שבת.
פֿאַר וואָס האָבן זיי ניט געקענט זיך אײַנהאַלטן?
עס איז אַ טייל פֿון אונדזער נאַטור צו וועלן דווקא דאָס וואָס מיר קענען ניט האָבן, און ניט אָפּצושאַצן ווי געהעריג דאָס וואָס מיר האָבן יאָ.
עס קלינגט כּמעט אומגלייבלעך — כאָטש דאָס געשעט צו אָפֿט — אָבער ווען ג־ט קומט צו אָדם און פֿאָדערט בײַ אים אַן ענטפֿער פֿאַר וואָס ער האָט געגעסן פֿון בוים, באַשולדיקט ער „די פֿרוי וואָס דו האָסט מיר געגעבן צו זײַן מיט מיר“, ווײַל זי האָט אים געגעבן צו עסן פֿון בוים.
וואָס פֿאַר אַן אומדאַנקבאַרקייט!
ג־ט האָט אים געגעבן אַ פֿרוי, ווײַל ער האָט געזען ווי שטאַרק אָדם לײַדט פֿון זײַן איינזאַמקייט. און אַנשטאָט אָפּצושאַצן דעם אוצר וואָס ער האָט באַקומען, קריטיקירט ער זי און באַשולדיקט זי.
אין אַ בריוו צו איינעם וואָס פֿלעגט זיך אָפֿט באַקלאָגן וועגן זײַן לעבן, שרײַבט דער ליובאַוויטשער רבי — זכותו יגן עלינו:
„אין דער וועלט אין וועלכער מיר לעבן, געפֿינט זיך אין אַלע זאַכן אַ געמיש פֿון גוטס און שלעכטס. דער מענטש דאַרף אויסקלײַבן אויף וועלכן פֿון די צוויי צדדים ער וויל לייגן דעם טראָפּ, אויף וועלכן ער וויל טראַכטן, און וועלכן ער וויל נאָכגיין…
„ווי באַלערנדיק איז דאָס וואָס אונדזערע חכמים זאָגן וועגן דעם וואָס אָדם איז געווען אַן אומדאַנקבאַרער: נאָך איידער ער איז פֿאַרטריבן געוואָרן פֿון גן־עדן — ווען ער האָט זיך נאָך געפֿונען אין אַ ממשותדיקן גן־עדן — האָט ער זיך שוין באַקלאָגט וועגן זײַן מצבֿ.
„פֿון דער אַנדערער זײַט זענען געווען ייִדן, מענער און פֿרויען, וואָס האָבן געדאַנקט און געבענטשט דעם באַשעפֿער, און געזאָגט די ברכות השחר יעדן אינדערפֿרי, בשעת זיי האָבן געלעבט אונטער די שרעקלעכסטע באַדינגונגען אין די דײַטשישע קאָנצענטראַציע־לאַגערן.
„אין דער ווירקלעכקייט וועט דער מצבֿ פֿון יעדן מענטש זיך געפֿינען ערגעץ צווישן די צוויי עקסטרעמען.
„מײַן כּוונה איז ניט אײַך צו מוסרן, נאָר אונטערצושטרײַכן אַ מציאות: וואָס פֿאַר אַ לעבן מיר לעבן — אַ לעבן פֿול מיט צופֿרידנקייט און באַדײַט, אָדער פֿאַרקערט — איז אין אַ גרויסער מאָס אָפּהענגיק פֿון אונדזער ווילנסקראַפֿט, וואָס באַשטימט צי מיר וועלן לייגן דעם טראָפּ אויף דעם פּאָזיטיוון אָדער אויף דעם נעגאַטיוון.“
מיר זײַנען מסוגל זיך צו באַקלאָגן אויף די באַדינגונגען אין גן־עדן און צו פֿילן הכּרת־הטובֿ, דאַנקשאַפֿט, אַפֿילו אין די אוממענטשלעכסטע באַדינגונגען פֿון אַ קאָנצענטראַציע־לאַגער.
איינער פֿון די פּערזענלעכע געהילפֿן בײַם רבין, הרבֿ בערל ע״ה יוניק, האָט דערציילט, אַז דער רבי האָט אים אַמאָל פּריוואַט געזאָגט:
„איך האָב געאַרבעט אויף זיך צו זען שטענדיק די זאַכן אין אַ פּאָזיטיוון ליכט; ווען ניט, וואָלט איך ניט געקענט איבערלעבן.“
ווען מען ווייסט וויפֿל פּערזענלעכע ליידן פֿון פֿאַרשידענע מינים דער רבי האָט אַליין דורכגעמאַכט, אין צוגאָב צו דעם ווייטיק פֿון די המונים מענטשן וואָס האָבן מיט אים געטיילט זייערע פּערזענלעכע צרות, קען מען פֿאַרשטיין, אַז אַזאַ בליק אויפֿן לעבן איז גאָר ניט קיין קליינע דערגרייכונג.
דערפֿאַר איז די „ווערקצײַג“ פֿון דער וואָך צו טראַכטן וועגן די פֿאָלגנדיקע פֿראַגעס:
זענען די אומשטענדן פֿון דײַן לעבן גוט אָדער שלעכט אומאָפּהענגיק פֿון דעם ווי דו קוקסט אויף זיי — אָדער ווערן זיי פֿאַר דיר גוט אָדער שלעכט דווקא צוליב דעם ווי דו קוקסט אויף זיי?
ס׳איז דאָ אַ וואָרט וואָס מען האָט געהערט אין נאָמען פֿון דעם דריטן חב״ד רבי, דעם צמח צדק זצ״ל: „אַזוי ווי מען שטעלט זיך אַוועק שבת בראשית, אַזוי גייט אַוועק אויף דעם גאַנצן יאָר“. דריק איך אויס די האָפֿענונג אַז מיר זאָלן אין דעם אַלע מצליח זײַן און האָבן אַ גוט געבענטשט יאָר.
The post Even Adam and Eve weren’t satisfied appeared first on The Forward.
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ADL makes a play for the arts with new reports suggesting anti-Jewish bias in culture spaces
(JTA) — The Anti-Defamation League is alleging “systemic exclusion of Jewish and Israeli artists” in a trio of reports released Thursday focusing on the publishing, museums and entertainment spaces.
The reports, which the ADL calls its “State of the Arts” initiative, were shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in advance of their publication and come as Jews have expressed alarm about their treatment in a post-Oct. 7 cultural landscape. They include:
- Grades for 40 museums on Jewish and Israeli representation that the ADL says “reveal a pattern of erasure by omission,” including comparatively few recognitions of Jewish American Heritage Month.
- A “trend report” based on interviews with more than 30 Jewish authors and publishing professionals alleging boycotts and exclusions from the publishing industry based on their identities.
- A survey of 65 incidents of “Jewish, Israeli and openly Zionist artists fac[ing] growing scrutiny, protest, disruption and cancellation” from performance venues or pressure from pro-Palestinian groups since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel.
- ADL-approved guidelines for how venues should host and engage with Jewish artists.
The reports will be accompanied by a launch event Thursday evening at the Jewish Museum in New York, to be attended by ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt as well as Jewish entertainers including actor Selma Blair and author and influencer Alyssa Rosenheck.
“We started to hear from patrons of the arts and artists and other people connected to museums that there was a real problem,” Shira Goodman, the ADL’s vice president of public affairs and special initiatives, told JTA in an interview about the genesis of the project.
As a result, the ADL started tracking Jewish and Israeli artists who had been targeted by protests. The group also heard from Jewish authors about the publishing industry, leading to an expansion of the project. Goodman said the team was motivated by the chance to leverage “boards of trustees and boards of directors, and donors, who might be able to have influence.”
“By shining a light on some of this, we might be able to have an effect and an impact,” she said.
The project follows the ADL’s campus antisemitism report cards, which launched in 2024 and assign letter grades to dozens of universities based on how well the group feels they have combated anti-Jewish sentiments. Criticized by many in higher education, and by some major Jewish groups including Hillel International, the report cards have nonetheless prompted several campuses to change or update their policies around Jewish issues.
That success led to the formation of a new ADL unit focused on ratings and assessments. Now, the watchdog’s attention is turning to the art world — at a moment when many eyes are trained on Jews and Israelis in those spaces.
Over the summer, a report from the literary free-speech group PEN America reached similar conclusions to the ADL on the exclusion felt by some Jewish and Israeli authors. The report led to deep internal divisions within PEN and the resignation of its president, who argued that the organization was not standing up for the free-speech rights of boycotters. New Jewish publishing initiatives aim to counteract what they say is the exclusion of Jewish voices in mainstream publishing.
Since Oct. 7, several pro-Israel Jewish artists, ranging from Jerry Seinfeld and Mayim Bialik to Matisyahu, have seen their events targeted by pro-Palestinian protesters. The ADL’s report catalogs all these incidents and more, including demonstrations staged by neo-Nazis against Jewish-themed theatrical shows, which the ADL’s staff said they see as equivalent to pro-Palestinian protests.
“They’re equally disruptive and exclusionary of Jewish voices,” Luda Isakharov, associate director of the ADL’s Ratings and Assessments Institute, told JTA. “We treat them the same in our grading.”
In recent weeks, two Israel-related arts controversies have further complicated the picture of how Jews in the cultural landscape orient themselves around the issue. Jewish mogul Robert Kraft pressured Ed Sheeran to drop Macklemore from his tour over the latter’s onstage rhetoric about Israel. And the Israeli documentary “NAZA” is being targeted by right-wing Israelis over the film’s detailing of the conduct of war in Gaza.
ADL researchers had no involvement in PEN’s publishing report, Goodman said; their own report argues that PEN didn’t go far enough. And while Greenblatt himself posted approvingly of Kraft’s role in the Macklemore dust-up, Goodman said the ADL has not yet thought through how it would record incidents like the Kraft controversy or the “NAZA” disputes, in which Jews or Israelis are the ones leading the protesting.
“We’re encouraging people to let speech go forward, to let concerts go forward,” she said. “Typically we have not been supportive of boycotts.” The report’s incident catalog, the ADL said, instead focuses on Jewish or Israeli artists targeted on the basis of their identities.
Goodman added, “We do speak out because we want celebrities to know how painful their language is, and the examples that they can set and what the impacts are.”
Both the Kraft and “NAZA” incidents occurred after the ADL had finalized its report. An earlier example of attempted cancellation directed at the “NAZA” filmmakers, when the mayor of Miami Beach briefly threatened to evict a theater showing the directors’ previous movie in 2025, failed to make the ADL’s catalog, although the directors are Jewish and Israeli.
One conclusion to draw from entertainment spaces’ relationship to Jews and Israelis, the ADL told JTA, is that many often cite heightened security concerns as a reason not to engage with the topic.
The museum report, similar to the campus report cards, assigns ratings to each of the 40 surveyed institutions, including major museums such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim. Grades range from “Gold Standard,” which the ADL assigned only to the Berkeley Art Museum, to “Critically Deficient,” which it gave to 12 museums, including the Whitney and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
The criteria include the number of Jewish and Israeli artists in each museum’s collection and whether or not they are presented with “Jewish framing.” Among those approvingly cited as representative of Jewish or Israeli art are left-wing Jewish artists such as Nan Goldin, as well as Arab-Israelis whose “art was very critical of Israel,” according to Isakharov. Goldin’s name does not appear in the early copy of the report shared by JTA, though other Israel-critical Jewish artists do.
The ADL also recorded whether a museum had been the site of a pro-Palestinian protest, and whether it had a process in place for identifying art that had been stolen by the Nazis from Jewish families.
Museum ratings also factor in an institution’s policies around anti-discrimination for Jews and Jewish programming — including for Jewish American Heritage Month, which ADL researchers said only one of the surveyed museums currently observes. Meanwhile, according to the ADL, 60% of the same museums observe other ethnic heritage months.
Some museums have already reached out to the ADL to say they would be sharing more of their policies related to anti-Jewish discrimination, Isakharov said.
Meanwhile, the ADL’s publishing report, similar to PEN’s, relies largely on anecdotal evidence about Jewish authors and subjects reportedly being passed over by agents, publishers or literary venues after Oct. 7.
“Much of what’s going on is happening below the surface,” Isakharov told JTA. “It’s oftentimes a last-minute drop, a gut feeling that authors have, and that makes it so hard to prove.”
One of the authors the ADL plans to spotlight prominently is Rosenheck, a photographer, influencer and author of the memoir “White. Blond. Jew.” She will be speaking at the ADL’s launch event Thursday. Rosenheck has a previous relationship with the ADL, having appeared at its “Never Is Now” summit last year, and has also spoken at the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Rosenheck’s book launch event in Nashville was cancelled by an independent bookseller earlier this year citing security concerns, an incident condemned by the local federation.
“This is what literary antisemitism looks like,” Rosenheck is quoted as saying in the ADL report, referring to her experience with the bookstore as well as negative posts about her book online.
Some Jewish scholars of publishing trends are critical of reports that suggest Jewish authors and subjects are facing discrimination. Such conclusions, they say, fail to make the case that Jews have been treated unfairly outside of industry norms.
Wellesley College professor Josh Lambert and Emory University professor Dan Sinykin, in a joint report also published Thursday, accuse the ADL’s study of being promoted by “political motivations.”
“The ADL’s report features quotes by a handful of right-wing activists (without acknowledging them as such), conflates Jews and Zionists, and opposes boycotts — all familiar strategies to suppress leftist Jewish and pro-Palestinian expression,” Lambert and Sinykin write in the left-wing magazine Jewish Currents.
The two present their own data suggesting that Jewish- and Israeli-themed fiction, after declining in 2024, actually entered an upswing in 2025. They also challenge some of the claims made by the PEN report’s key interview subjects, including the number of Jewish books one Jewish agent claimed to have signed since Oct. 7. Their story has prompted a correction on the PEN report.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post ADL makes a play for the arts with new reports suggesting anti-Jewish bias in culture spaces appeared first on The Forward.
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Netanyahu pledges new security measures in wake of FlyDubai attack
(JTA) — President Donald Trump spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “at length” about the flydubai attack on Wednesday, while the United Arab Emirates said it was opening an investigation into the incident.
The UAE noted in a statement that the investigation included looking at “any and all possible connection to terrorist intent” after one pilot attacked another on a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv and appeared to try to down the plane.
Netanyahu also spoke to UAE leaders about the event, acknowledging as of Wednesday night that it couldn’t be ruled out that the attacker was acting out of mental illness rather than political motivations.
He told CBS News that the co-pilot allegedly behind the attack is being interrogated in Saudi Arabia, where the plane eventually landed. “He will be investigated, interrogated, we’ll join the investigation and find out.”
While Netanyahu pointed to Israel having received signs that Iran, particularly through its proxies, was looking to attack Israelis abroad, he told CBS that “It’s too early to say there was Iranian collusion here.”
He noted that Israel is “concerned” about the safety of other flights to Israel and that flydubai flights were suspended for the next few days. At the same time Israel is trying to put in place additional security checks and close the loopholes that had led to this incident. He pointed out that most screening protocols have until now been aimed at passengers rather than pilots.
“We’re going to have Israeli planes fly to Dubai and bring the thousands and thousands of Israelis” back home, he said.
He also referred to reports of terror attacks being planned by Iran before the Oct. 27 national elections, necessitating extra vigilance on the part of the government.
Both Trump and Netauand praised the heroism of Israel passenger Yaniv Hayun, who first entered the cockpit and saved the plane from near-certain disaster.
Trump told the media that Netanyahu had told him “an incredible story” about what happened, though he noted he hadn’t himself verified the details.
“An Israeli plumber, never flew a plane, was rarely in planes, very rarely flew,” Trump said referring to Hayun, “having never flown a plane, he took the stick, lifted the stick and leveled out the plane before it crashed.”
Trump noted that Hayun attributed his knowledge of what to do to being a regular watcher of the TV show “Air Disasters.”
“He happened to be a Jewish plumber,” Trump noted, apparently making the comment to a staffer nearby who is Jewish himself and whom Trump called “very proud” of the passenger.
Netanyahu himself told Fox News that Hayun’s “act of unbelievable courage” saved the plane from disaster.
“It’s incredible heroism. I don’t know how he did it.”
He continued, “He managed to enter the cockpit, he saw the attacker trying to jam the instruments. He grabbed him from behind, pulled the stick back,” and then two other people on the plane headed off the attacker while reserve pilots on the plane took over.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Netanyahu pledges new security measures in wake of FlyDubai attack appeared first on The Forward.
