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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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Iran Unveils New Underground Missile Base Amid Rising Tensions With US, Israel
Iran unveils new underground missile base amid rising tensions with US and Israel. Photo: Screenshot
Iran has revealed a new underground missile base, which officials claim symbolizes Tehran’s growing “Iron Fist,” equipped with thousands of precision-strike missiles to bolster its military power amid rising tensions with the United States and Israel.
The Aerospace Division of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a state military force and internationally designated terrorist organization, revealed the underground base, which Iranian media described as a “missile megacity,” on Tuesday.
This is the third facility of its kind to be revealed in under a month, highlighting the expansion of Iran’s military capabilities — or at least its attempts to put on a brave face for the world.
According to Janatan Sayeh, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based think tank, the regime’s recent missile displays and military drills serve a dual purpose: bolstering domestic support through propaganda while reinforcing its psychological warfare against the US and Israel.
“While Iran inflates its military capabilities, its ballistic missile program remains the primary threat,” Sayeh told The Algemeiner.
However, he also explained that “Iran’s air and naval forces lag significantly behind their American and Israeli counterparts,” posing little challenge to the superior firepower of the US Navy or the Israeli fleet.
WATCH: Iran’s IRGC unveils what it claims is its largest ‘underground missile city,’ housing thousands of precision-guided missiles. pic.twitter.com/RzZLxJzJgp
— Ariel Oseran أريئل أوسيران (@ariel_oseran) March 25, 2025
According to Iranian state media, some of Tehran’s newly unveiled missiles are capable of defeating the United States’ THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) system, with some of them designed to evade the system.
“Iran’s Iron Fist is far stronger [today] than before,” Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, said in a speech.
“All the [defensive] dimensions that are required for generating a [military] capability that is ten times [stronger than] the one deployed during Operation True Promise II, have been created,” the commander said during the unveiling, referring to the regime’s name for its ballistic-missile attack against Israel in October.
Although the Islamic Republic has the largest missile arsenal in the Middle East, Sayeh explained that its limitations became evident during the October missile barrage targeting the Jewish state.
“Much like its naval swarm tactics, the regime’s missile strategy hinges on overwhelming adversaries — whether the US Navy or Israel’s David’s Sling and Arrow defense systems,” Sayeh told The Algemeiner.
Last April, Iran launched what was then an unprecedented direct attack on Israeli soil. In that attack, Iran fired some 300 missiles and drones at Israel, nearly all of which were downed by the Jewish state and its allies.
The failed assault, dubbed by Tehran as “Operation True Promise,” was in retaliation for an alleged Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Syria’s capital of Damascus that killed seven IRGC members, including two senior commanders.
At the time, Iranian officials said the operation showcased “Iran’s ability to strike Israeli military and intelligence targets with surgical accuracy,” adding that they had only deployed a fraction of their firepower.
Iran’s second direct attack on Israel in October came after Israeli forces killed several top leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, both terrorist proxies of the Iranian regime, including the assassination of Hamas’s political chief in Tehran.
According to Sayeh, Tehran views sheer numbers as a way to compensate for its technological shortcomings.
“If Iran were to meaningfully intensify its ballistic missile attacks in the future, it could inflict significant damage with a sufficient volume of projectiles,” Sayeh told The Algemeiner.
“Recognizing this threat, Israel has already targeted missile stockpiles and is likely to do so again should a new round of direct military confrontation arise between the two countries.”
Israel responded in late October to Iran’s second attack with a sophisticated three-wave strike that targeted Iranian missile production sites and air defenses, leaving Tehran vulnerable and crippling its key defensive capabilities.
According to Israeli defense sources, the operation also significantly hindered Iran’s missile systems and production capacity, reducing its ability to launch large-scale attacks. The Islamist regime’s ballistic missile program will need at least a year to recover from the strikes, experts said after the strikes.
Against a backdrop of escalating regional tensions, the US gave Tehran a two-month ultimatum earlier this month to reach a nuclear agreement, warning of severe consequences if it refuses.
During the unveiling of the new underground missile base this week, Iran’s military chief said that the Islamic Republic was advancing its defensive capabilities at a much faster rate than its enemies’ recovery.
“The enemy will definitely fall behind in this balance of power,” Bagheri said during his speech.
Last week, the IRGC deployed advanced missile systems on the islands of Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb, and Abu Musa, reinforcing its military presence in the Persian Gulf. These islands are located along a critical maritime route for global energy transit, with more than one-fifth of the world’s oil supply passing through the strategic corridor.
According to Iranian state media, these islands are now equipped with “dozens of missile defense and air defense systems.” Additionally, the IRGC’s fast-attack and assault vessels patrolling the Persian Gulf are “armed with new cruise missiles and ready for operations” capable of targeting naval assets.
In an effort to counter Tehran’s expanding military position, Washington has reinforced its naval presence in the region by dispatching additional amphibious assault ships and support vessels to mitigate the risk of Iranian threats to the free flow of commerce through the Strait of Hormuz.
The post Iran Unveils New Underground Missile Base Amid Rising Tensions With US, Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Article Suggests Poor Gazans Might Throw Out Food Aid During Ramadan Because of ‘Large Number’ of It
Trucks carrying aid move, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hussam Al-Masri
Hamas mouthpiece Felesteen recently featured an article about how Gazans should fulfill the obligation of zakat (charity), during this year’s Ramadan holiday.
In the article, questions were asked to the Mufti of Khan Younis, Sheikh Muhammad Ihsan Ashour.
There are questions about whether one may transfer money to the recipient’s bank account where they would have to pay high fees to withdraw it, or whether a widow who receives vouchers to get goods for her children can use them to help her mother.
This one opinion from Ashour is noteworthy (translation courtesy of Google Translate and Grok AI translation):
Sheikh Ashour pointed out that it is not permissible for the zakat payer to purchase food parcels for the poor from his zakat money, lest the poor person be forced to sell the food parcels for a low price or throw them out into the streets due to their large number among the people, as we saw previously.
He seems to be saying that there has been so much food aid in Gaza that poor people didn’t know what to do with it all, so they either threw the aid into the streets or they sold them for next to no money since no one needed it. The article specifically references the 2025 Ramadan holiday, though there is no explicit mention of the time period when food was thrown out.
Still, this is the advice being given in 2025.
A famine zone would not have this problem — which raises serious questions about how many in the media could continue to claim that a famine is even close to happening.
The post Article Suggests Poor Gazans Might Throw Out Food Aid During Ramadan Because of ‘Large Number’ of It first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Rashida Tlaib Introduces Anti-Israel Amendment to Bill Meant to Reduce Foreign Influence on US Universities
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) addresses attendees as she takes part in a protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza outside the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, US, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) has introduced an anti-Israel amendment into the Republican-led DETERRENT Act, which aims to crack down on foreign gifts and contracts at American universities, arguing that the Jewish state’s relationships with US institutions of higher education should be closely monitored.
While speaking on the House floor on Tuesday, Tlaib stated that Israel should be added to the “countries of concern” influencing American universities. Tlaib, one of the most outspoken anti-Israel members of Congress, claimed that the Republican Party has advanced the Defending Education Transparency and Ending Rogue Regimes Engaging in Nefarious Transactions (DETERRENT) Act in order to “scapegoat” the issues plaguing US higher education on countries such as Iran, Qatar, and China.
The DETERRENT ACT, if passed, would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to limit contracts with specific foreign entities and countries adversarial to the United States, mandate faculty and staff reveal gifts and contracts from foreign actors, and require that certain foreign investments within endowments be disclosed.
“We know that President Trump is the biggest threat to our education system in America right now, not someone in North Korea or China, so please give me a break,” Tlaib said in her remarks, adding that she tacked on an amendment to ensure the bill includes “countries whose leaders have active arrest warrants issued against them by the International Criminal Court [ICC]” and “countries actively on trial with the International Court of Justice [ICJ] for violating the Genocide Convention and the Geneva Conventions.”
The ICC issued arrest warrants last year for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for alleged war crimes in Gaza. Meanwhile, South Africa has been pursuing a case at the ICJ accusing Israel of committing “state-led genocide” in its defensive war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
US and Israeli leaders have lambasted both the ICC arrest warrants and ICJ case as baseless, counterproductive, and indicative of a deeply entrenched anti-Israel bias at both institutions.
During her speech, Tlaib pointed to her colleagues’ support for Israel as supposed evidence of their ineffectiveness in “holding countries with human rights abuses accountable” and their unwillingness to “uphold international law.” The firebrand progressive then accused her colleagues of engaging in aggressive action to protect the “Israeli government apartheid regime” by supporting the detainment and arrest of non-citizen college students who protest Israel.
In the 17 months following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, Tlaib has levied a series of withering criticisms toward the Jewish state. Tlaib, the only Palestinian American woman elected to the US Congress, has repeatedly accused Israel of committing “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza as well as causing a famine, despite the Israeli military’s efforts during the war to mitigate civilian casualties and allow aid to enter the enclave.
“This is not about transparency, as it is claimed. It’s truly about destroying freedom of speech,” Tlaib asserted.
The DETERRENT Act was advanced due to concerns over American universities being targeted by foreign adversaries, seeking to use their financial influence to censor free speech and distribute anti-Western propaganda. Following the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, the topic became a key issue in Washington as campuses became a hotbed of anti-Zionist and anti-American protests.
Critics have also raised alarms over lavish financial gifts and investments given to American universities by countries with close ties to terrorism such as Qatar, which hosts several high-ranking Hamas leaders who often live in luxury outside of the Gaza Strip.
Some observers argue that Qatar severely curtails academic freedom at American schools. Prestigious universities such as Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, and Northwestern operate campuses in the Middle Eastern country. Texas A&M announced plans to shutter its Qatar campus in February 2024.
The legislation also comes as the Trump administration has moved to detain and deport non-citizens accused of supporting internationally recognized terrorist groups. Specifically, the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian legal resident from Syria who completed post-graduate studies at Columbia in December who was apprehended by federal authorities for supporting Hamas, has sparked outrage among liberal lawmakers.
Tlaib decried Khalil’s arrest and penned a letter to Homeland Security Kristi Noem, demanding that Khalil be “freed from DHS custody immediately.” The missive also claimed that the arrest of Khalil represents another example of the Trump administration’s purported “anti-Palestinian racism” and accused the White House of trying to dismantle the “Palestine solidarity movement in this country.”
The post Rashida Tlaib Introduces Anti-Israel Amendment to Bill Meant to Reduce Foreign Influence on US Universities first appeared on Algemeiner.com.