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Variety’s star-studded Hollywood summit on antisemitism takes a turn amid war in Israel
WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (JTA) — When he heard that Hamas had called for a global day of protest last week to accompany its deadly attack on Israel, Alex Edelman’s mind turned, naturally, to jokes.
Riffing on the traditional Hebrew holiday greeting “chag sameach,” the Jewish comedian wondered aloud to a packed room of Hollywood industry members and Jewish leaders, “Do you say ‘Rage Sameach?’”
Moments later, Edelman struck a more somber tone about the violence in Israel, which his brother A.J. Edelman has represented in the Olympics. “For me, Israel is a sort of home,” Edelman said, tearing up on stage.
Edelman — whose one-man Broadway show about his encounter with white supremacists made him a star last year — was speaking at Variety magazine’s star-studded summit on antisemitism and Hollywood. Edelman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he chose to be part of the event because “I wanted to be with other Jews, and without sounding canned, with non-Jewish allies, who are interested in wrestling with a more nuanced understanding of antisemitism.”
Although the summit was planned months before Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, it was dominated by what is going on in Israel and Gaza. Edelman’s two comments about Israel were indicative of the tenor of the daylong, invite-only event: It flip-flopped between seriousness and humor, as the speakers attempted to process the news while simultaneously sticking to a pre-planned event schedule.
Put on in partnership with several Jewish organizations, the summit featured a series of panel conversations with Jewish A-list stars including Edelman, Julianna Margulies, Tiffany Haddish, Marc Maron, Josh Malina and Josh Peck, plus remarks from leaders of Jewish groups such as the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and the USC Shoah Foundation. (A previously planned keynote address by SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher was scrapped due to developments in the actors union’s strike negotiations.)
The event covered a number of topics related to antisemitism and entertainment: representation, social media, comedy, the history of Jews in Hollywood and others. The original event agenda included only one panel about Israel, but much of the day’s conversations revolved around the war.
Several speakers echoed the sentiment that the violence in Israel had only made the summit more important and timely because of the online conversation and wave of antisemitic incidents around the world tied to peoples’ responses to the war. The program began with a prayer for peace and with the message, shared by Variety’s chief production officer Claudia Eller and others throughout the afternoon, that the magazine “stands in solidarity with Israel.”
CNN commentator Van Jones said he had attended because of the current pain of many in the Jewish community.
“People are hurting,” he told JTA. “I know as a Black person, we look to see who understands our pain. This is a group of people who is grieving, and nobody should grieve alone.”
During one particularly poignant moment during the talk that was specifically intended to focus on Israel, Israeli actress Swell Ariel Or shared that seven of her childhood friends had been killed.
Swell Ariel Or, left, and Odeya Rush, right, speak on a panel about Israel and entertainment at the Variety Hollywood & Antisemitism Summit in West Hollywood, California, Oct. 18, 2023. (Araya Doheny/Variety via Getty Images)
Or, the star of Netflix’s “The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem,” moved to the United States two weeks ago, right before Hamas’ attack, and said she feels a degree of guilt that she’s not in her home country.
The panel, titled “Israel and the Entertainment Industry,” focused on the idea that Hollywood ought to create more content that shares the real-life, everyday stories of Israel and Israeli culture. The Tony-winning play “The Band’s Visit,” which was also adapted into a film, was given as an example of such a story.
During an earlier panel, producer Matti Leshem, whose production company made the 2021 HBO film “The Survivor,” commended U.S. President Joe Biden for his administration’s response to the war, eliciting a full round of applause from the audience.
Some panels alluded to other trends that had inspired the summit in the first place — such as the rise in antisemitic incidents in the United States and recent high-profile scandals like the one surrounding Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West.
“We’re very proud to be able to do this,” Variety CEO Michelle Sobrino-Stearns told JTA. She pointed out that her magazine has also published a special section of 28 articles on antisemitism, penned by Jewish influencers, celebrities and others, some of whom participated in the summit.
In the first celebrity conversation of the day, award-winning actor Julianna Margulies said “it is shocking” how few members of her industry have spoken out against antisemitism.
“The last thing I thought in my life is that I would be the one actress speaking up for Jews,” she told Eller during their chat. “But I’m proud to be here and I hope to inspire other people to speak up.”
Margulies shared her personal Jewish story, talked about her efforts to expand Holocaust education in New York City public schools and gave her take on the debates over Jewish representation in Hollywood.
The Golden Globe and Emmy award-winning actor said she “came to my Judaism quite late in life.” She said she is raising her son Jewish and enjoys celebrating Shabbat every week. “It’s about being together,” she said. “And that’s what I love about Judaism – it’s about community.”
Julianna Margulies, left, and Chief Production Officer of Variety Claudia Eller, right, speak onstage during the Variety Hollywood & Antisemitism Summit in West Hollywood, California, Oct. 18, 2023. (Araya Doheny/Variety via Getty Images)
When it comes to the debate on “Jewface” — whether non-Jews should play Jewish characters on screen — Margulies said, “It’s a slippery slope.” She added that while she would never play a character of a different race, she said actors should be allowed to act.
On the other hand, Margulies also advocated for more casual depictions of Jewishness on screen — characters who happen to be Jewish, whether or not that identity is relevant to the plot.
She recalled that the costume department for the Apple TV+ hit “The Morning Show” had given her a cross necklace to wear for her character Laura Peterson. Margulies said she didn’t think much of it at first, since her character’s faith was not prominent in the show. But as she returned for a second season, Margulies said her mentality changed. “What if Laura Peterson was wearing a Star of David, or a chai?” she said, suggesting that subtle Christianity shouldn’t always be the default.
On one panel about comedy, which featured perhaps the most famous speakers of the day, Edelman, Ike Barinholtz, Maron and Haddish discussed the role of comedy as a response to tragedy.
Maron, who has infused Jewishness and jokes about antisemitism into much of his comedy over a decades-long standup and TV career, said his father still warns him to be careful when he’s touring — especially because of how vocally Jewish he is in his stand-up.
Haddish shared her experience discovering her Jewish heritage and noted the importance of recognizing the various different ethnicities Jewish people can represent.
“I thought it was important to be here so that the narrative can be heard that we do care, that we are sticking together, that comedy is important for the soul and can heal,” she told JTA after the panel.
“I do think Jews are able to find comedy in horrible things, in horrible moments,” said Barinholtz, who has starred in “The Mindy Project” and more recently in “History of The World: Part II.” “And I don’t think we’re there yet with [Israel], I don’t know if we ever will be.”
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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
The post US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.
Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”
The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.
President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.
In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.
The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”
“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks
IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.
Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.
A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery.
“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner.
“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”
According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.”
Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.
“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks.
Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.
The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations.
“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.
The post IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.