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7 Jewish highlights from the new Museum of Broadway
(New York Jewish Week) — There’s a reliably funny Twitter account called @JewWhoHasItAll, which imagines a universe where nearly everyone is Jewish and those who aren’t are the outliers.
That’s the sensation I got on a visit to the Museum of Broadway, which opened last month. A three-story tribute to the Theater District located in its very heart, it is organized around a series of rooms dedicated to landmark musicals and plays, and the majority bear the stamp of Jewish creators: Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein’s “Showboat,” Richard Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!”, Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story,” Stephen Sondheim’s “Company,” Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America.”
Other projects dedicated to the history of Broadway aren’t shy about noting the over-representation of Jews in the business. “Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy,” a documentary that seems to run on a nearly endless loop on my local PBS station, notes that “over the [first] 50-year period of its development, the songs of the Broadway musical were created almost exclusively by Jewish Americans.”
If the Museum of Broadway acknowledges this, I didn’t notice. Some might take this as an omission or a snub, the way critics objected when a new museum about the history of Hollywood initially overlooked the essential Jewish contribution to the movie business. But in this case, the Jewishness of Broadway is taken as a given. You’d have to be culturally illiterate not to notice how many of the most celebrated creators are Jewish: In addition to the musical tributes, there are wall placards singling out the contributions of Sondheim and the director Harold Prince, a corner devoted to “Fiddler on the Roof” and a gallery celebrating Joe Papp (born Joseph Papirofsky) and his Public Theater, that reliable pipeline of breakthrough Broadway shows.
(There were, however, frequent mentions of the specifically African-American contributions to Broadway. That seemed a deliberate attempt to counter perceptions that Broadway is indeed the “Great White Way.”)
The museum, whose opening was delayed by the pandemic, is a collaboration with Playbill, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (which is supported by a portion of the stiff $39 admission charge), the Al Hirschfeld Foundation, Concord Theatricals and Goodspeed Musicals. Its approach is chronological, with a timeline that pulls visitors from room to room, from vaudeville, through Broadway’s “Golden Age” and up to the present. Original costumes and props are on display in Instagram-ready settings that resemble the original sets for various shows.
Among the paraphernalia and stagecraft are a number of Jewish highlights. Here are seven:
A whirligig of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals
A sample of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, on display at the Museum of Broadway. (NYJW)
Just past the cornstalks celebrating the ground-breaking 1943 musical “Oklahoma!” is a wall display showcasing the duo’s most important collaborations, including “Carousel,” “South Pacific,” “The King and I,” “Flower Drum Song” and “The Sound of Music.” Rodgers, working with Hammerstein and before him Lorenz Hart, wrote more than 900 songs and 41 Broadway musicals. Combine that with Hammerstein’s work with Kern, and it is hard to imagine two more important figures in the history of musical comedy.
Jerome Robbins’ notes on “West Side Story”
Choreographer Jerome Robbins suggested a “seder” scene in an early conception of what became “West Side Story.” (NYJW)
Look closely at this list of proposed scenes for a musical based on “Romeo and Juliet” and you’ll see the word “seder.” Robbins, the choreographer, originally proposed that the show focus on a star-crossed love story between a Jewish girl and an Irish boy, but he and his fellow Jewish collaborators — composer Leonard Bernstein, lyricist Stephen Sondheim and playwright Arthur Laurents — soon felt the interfaith idea had already been exhausted in plays like “Abie’s Irish Rose.” When the show premiered in 1957, the gangs were Puerto Rican and a medley of ethnic whites.
Florence Klotz’s costume “bible”
Florence Klotz won six Tony Awards for her costume designs. (NYJW)
Costume designer Florence Klotz frequently collaborated with Prince and Sondheim. The museum displays her sketches for Sondheim’s “Follies” and “A Little Night Music.” Born in Brooklyn, Klotz would win six Tony awards. She died in 2006. The museum also includes an entire floor dedicated to the “backstage” talent: costume and set designers, stage managers, prop masters and writers.
A shrine to “Company”
A display at the Museum of Broadway celebrates a recent revival of “Company.” (NYJW)
Sondheim and Prince emerge as the museum’s lodestars. “Their intense and fruitful partnership and their creative trailblazing in [the 1970s] resulted in an extraordinary artistic innovation and a slew of provocative new works,” a wall card proclaims. “Company” (1970) was a largely plotless exploration of urban anomie. The museum calls it a “frank, even painful look at modern life,” perfectly attuned to the upper-middle class theatergoers who, it says, are the “backbone” of the Broadway audience. It’s the show people love or hate if they love or hate Sondheim. The “Company” exhibit includes photos of the original cast and spare set, and a backdrop that draws on the recent gender-bending revival.
A tribute to Joseph Papp
Costumes from productions that originated at Joseph Papp’s Public Theater on display at the Museum of Broadway. (NYJW)
Joe Papp flipped the script on how shows made it to Broadway: His Public Theater produced edgy off-Broadway plays that drew audiences downtown, and then successfully transferred that same buzz to the “Big Stem.” Papp, a son of Yiddish-speaking parents who grew up in a Brooklyn slum, founded the New York Shakespeare Festival. A section of the museum includes costumes and posters from important productions that originated at The Public — including wildly popular revivals of “The Pirates of Penzance” and “The Threepenny Opera” — and a dress Meryl Streep wore in her Broadway debut, in “Trelawny of the ‘Wells.’” Two other musicals developed at The Public — “Hair” and “A Chorus Line” — get their own tribute rooms.
Al Hirschfeld’s barber chair
A room at the Museum of Broadway includes works by the famed caricaturist Al Hirschfeld. (NYJW)
The museum has an entire gallery dedicated to the work of artist Al Hirschfeld and his caricatures of Broadway stars and productions from 1923-2001. His pen-and-ink drawings were a visual shorthand for “Broadway,” and it would sometimes seem that the stars he drew would come to resemble his drawings, not the other way around. The museum includes his wonderfully kooky Barbra Streisand in “Funny Girl” and a bearish, brooding Zero Mostel as Tevye. On display is a barber chair similar to the one he used in his studio (the original had fallen apart by the 1990s).
A stage set from “The Producers”
An exhibit space at the Museum of Broadway evokes the scenery from the Mel Brooks musical “The Producers.” (NYJW)
You can sit behind a desk and pretend you are Broadway producer Max Bialystock, who was played by Nathan Lane in the phenomenally successful 2001 musical adaptation of Mel Brooks’ 1967 film about the worst musical ever staged for Broadway. The display is a reminder of the impact of the show, and not only on ticket prices: It proved the viability of adapting movies for Broadway, and earned a record-setting 12 Tony Awards. The museum calls the musical, with its tap-dancing Nazis and sweet and conniving Jewish protagonists, a “glittering homage to Broadway’s past” — a past that is unmistakably Jewish.
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Antisemitism tensions rise as NYC Young Republicans host white nationalists, conspiracy theorists at annual gala
(JTA) — The guest list at the New York Young Republican Club’s annual gala on Saturday included white nationalists, antisemitic conspiracy theorists and a Jewish City Councilwoman, who ultimately decided not to attend.
Inna Vernikov, a Jewish City Council member who represents a south Brooklyn district with a large Russian Jewish population, did not attend despite being promoted as an “honored guest.” Vernikov, who was one of a few politicians to back out, later suggested on social media that her absence was connected to antisemitism on the right.
Those who did attend the gala included a NYYRC member and former George Santos staffer who had posted a video depicting Jews as cockroaches, costing him his job on Matt Gaetz’s news show; politicians from Germany’s far-right party which the country officially labeled an extremist group; Jared Taylor, the editor of a white supremacist website called American Renaissance; and Sneako, the streamer who posts antisemitic content and has said “people are sick of hearing about the Holocaust.”
Meanwhile, avowed antisemite Nick Fuentes said he received an invite and made the trip to New York — even though the New York Young Republican Club said by email on Monday that he “was never formally invited.”
Fuentes was seen lingering outside Cipriani, the upscale restaurant where the gala took place, Politico reported, but did not attend the event itself. He recorded a stream with Sneako following the black-tie affair, saying his invite had been rescinded at the last minute to avoid a potential “revolt.”
Saturday’s gala was held during a moment of growing debate about antisemitism on the right, and as Fuentes’ seemingly ascendant role within the Republican Party has emerged as a source of anxiety among more mainstream Republicans.
The New York Young Republicans Club has generated some of the angst. Just weeks ago, the club’s statewide counterpart disbanded in the wake of leaked group chats in which officials joked about gas chambers, praised Adolf Hitler and used racist, antisemitic and homophobic slurs. (Attendees seemingly referenced those texts on Saturday, according to Talking Points Memo, joking with each other that they were “neo-Nazis.”)
The debate on the right has centered largely around how to deal with figures like Fuentes, who calls Hitler “cool” and has been interviewed by major personalities like Tucker Carlson and Piers Morgan.
Republican politicians, including non-Jewish ones such as Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, have scorched Carlson for his friendly interview with Fuentes. Vice President JD Vance, meanwhile, has drawn scrutiny for not condemning Carlson or Fuentes, and for previous instances of not pushing back against antisemitic conspiracies. Vance also downplayed the leaked texts as “jokes” and said critics should “grow up.” Trump, meanwhile, defended Carlson, saying, “You can’t tell him who to interview.” (He also dined with Fuentes and rapper Kanye West in 2022, but later said he didn’t know who Fuentes was.)
On Sunday, the day after the gala, Vernikov took to X to post about the Republicans’ growing antisemitism problem, saying, “I will DISASSOCIATE myself from any event, individual, or organization whether Democrat or Republican, that welcomes these vile bigots into their mist, defends them or amplifies their voices,” referring to figures like Fuentes, Carlson and Candace Owens.
Antisemitic rhetoric “has fully infiltrated the Democratic Party,” Vernikov wrote on X, adding, “Unfortunately today the same venom has entered corners of the conservative movement and the hard RIGHT WING of the Republican Party.”
Then she named names, writing, “Lunatics like Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, who spew bigoted, racist and antisemitic rhetoric, should be condemned and excommunicated from the Republican Party never to be welcomed again.”
Vernikov declined to comment further on the event.
The gala was hosted by Matan Even, an 18-year-old Israeli-American YouTuber known for his pranks, such as crashing a 2022 Game Awards speech to thank his “Reform Orthodox rabbi, Bill Clinton.” Even’s humor, which involved singing the “Spongebob Squarepants” theme song onstage, seemingly did not land. Even is Jewish but has recorded streams with Sneako despite the latter’s use of antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Right-wing pundit and activist Jack Posobiec was the event’s keynote speaker, and delivered a fiery speech in which he spoke about Charlie Kirk’s death while holding a rosary.
The far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, was represented at the gala by about 20 lawmakers at the state, federal and EU levels. The AfD has drawn criticism for using slogans similar to the Nazi party’s and was classified this year as a right-wing extremist organization by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency.
Rep. Dan Goldman, the Democratic congressman whose district includes Lower Manhattan, where the gala was held, wrote earlier on Saturday that the NYYRC was “rolling out the red carpet for leaders of Germany’s Nazi-cosplaying AfD party.”
“I condemn it in the strongest of terms, as should my New York Republican colleagues,” he wrote. “The AfD and their bigotry is not welcome in NY-10.”
At the gala, a protester wearing a Nazi armband was removed after popping up from his seat and reportedly yelling “I guess we’re all Nazis!” In a video recorded outside after his removal, the protester, who later said he was Jewish, pointed to the Nazi symbol and said, “This is what this event represents,” naming specifically the invitations of Vish Burra — the man who posted a video depicting Jews as roaches — and of AfD officials.
The NYYRC’s Twitter account countered accusations of being “Nazis” by writing that “the only swastika in the room was held by a left-wing freak protester who we forcefully booted from the premises.”
The protester was told to “go back to Israel” by an attendee, who then accepted the swastika banner from the protester and left with it.
Stefano Forte, the club’s president, spoke defiantly about the NYYRC’s partnership with the AfD.
“You want us to denounce the AfD? You want us to denounce our allies? You want us to denounce those that stand with us?” he asked.
“Well here’s a denunciation. We unequivocally denounce the fake news media that distorts the truth to put us in danger,” he said, referring to right-wingers being labelled “Nazis” as leading to assassination attempts on Trump and Charlie Kirk.
Forte also declared that the club was “prepared to endorse” Trump for a third presidential term in 2028, drawing loud applause.
The post Antisemitism tensions rise as NYC Young Republicans host white nationalists, conspiracy theorists at annual gala appeared first on The Forward.
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Jewish donors help raise $1.3M for Ahmed al Ahmed, the Muslim man who disarmed a Bondi Beach attacker
(JTA) — A crowdfunding campaign to support Ahmed al Ahmed, the Muslim fruit seller shot after disarming one of the men who was attacking a Hanukkah event in Sydney, generated $1.3 in its first day — with the largest donation coming from the American Jewish billionaire Bill Ackman.
Ackman gave $66,000 to the GoFundMe for al Ahmed and promoted the campaign to his followers, tweeting, “This is the verified link for the Bondi hero.”
In a viral video on Sunday, shortly after the attack on Bondi Beach that left 15 killed and over 40 injured, al Ahmed, 43, can be seen crouching behind a car before jumping into action as one of the terrorists shoots a firearm at the Jewish celebration. Al Ahmed, a Syrian-born father of two who was unarmed, then jumped on the attacker from behind, wresting the firearm from his hands.
“In a moment of chaos and danger, he stepped forward without hesitation,” the sponsors of the GoFundMe, Car Hub Australia, wrote on the page. “His actions were selfless, instinctive, and undeniably heroic, taken without regard for his own safety. Early reports indicate he was shot twice in the process while protecting others.”
As al Ahmed’s heroic actions were shared widely on social media on Sunday, he garnered praise from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
As al Ahmed recovered from his injuries in a hospital on Monday, he was visited by Chris Minns, the premier of New South Wales, the Australian state that includes Sydney.
“Ahmed is a real-life hero,” wrote Minns in a post on X alongside a photo of him visiting al Ahmed in the hospital. “Last night, his incredible bravery no doubt saved countless lives when he disarmed a terrorist at enormous personal risk.”
Praise also poured in on social media from Jewish leaders in the United States, including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“Ahmed al Ahmed, a Muslim father of two, risked his life to disarm a murderer who was shooting down Jews celebrating Hanukkah in Sydney,” wrote Sanders in a post on X. “Religion must not divide our common humanity. We must stand together and end antisemitism, Islamophobia and all hate — no exceptions.”
For others, al Ahmed’s act of bravery during the massacre appeared to be divine intervention — coming as it did at a time when many Jews feel isolated and abandoned by their non-Jewish allies.
“I’ve been thinking about this man Ahmed and his selfless act of courage, and I can’t help but feel that it as an act of God,” wrote Jewish social media influencer Alana Zeitchik in a post on Instagram. “It is a message that could only have been written by something higher than all of us. Like all actions it has a ripple effect. In this moment of immense grief and fear, his actions repair a painful tear in the collective Jewish soul that so badly needed to be tended to.”
She continued, “He will be cherished and spoken about by our people for generations.”
Among the 34,000 donors to the GoFundMe campaign so far are several who said in notes that they were Jewish and explained why they donated unusual sums, in multiples of $18.
“Ahmed, you are a true hero. As a Jewish supporter, I donated $180 USD because 18 (“chai”) represents life. Your courage embodied that meaning in the most profound way,” wrote Craig Gross. “Thank you for what you did, and may you heal fully and quickly.”
The post Jewish donors help raise $1.3M for Ahmed al Ahmed, the Muslim man who disarmed a Bondi Beach attacker appeared first on The Forward.
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4 members of pro-Palestinian group arrested for planning bombings across Los Angeles
(JTA) — Federal authorities have arrested four people in connection to an alleged plot to bomb locations across Southern California on New Year’s Eve.
The four suspects — Audrey Ilene Carroll, 30, Dante Garfield, 24, Zachary Aaron Page, 32, and Tina Lai, 41 — are members of the Turtle Island Liberation Front, an offshoot of a pro-Palestinian far-left extremist group, according to the Department of Justice and FBI.
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the arrests in a post on X on Monday, writing that the arrests had foiled what “would have been a massive and horrific terror plot in the Central District of California.”
“The Turtle Island Liberation Front—a far-left, pro-Palestine, anti-government, and anti-capitalist group—was preparing to conduct a series of bombings against multiple targets in California beginning on New Year’s Eve. The group also planned to target ICE agents and vehicles,” wrote Bondi.
The group’s name is an Indigenous reference to the American continent, and the group promotes aggressive actions in support of decolonization.
“Peaceful protest will never be enough,” wrote the group in a recent social media post. “Free occupied Turtle Island from the illegal American empire. Free Palestine. Free Hawaii. Free Puerto Rico.”
Earlier this month, the group posted the address of the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, inviting followers to “join us in a protest against these genocidal monsters” while the synagogue was hosting Israeli speakers. Two people were arrested during the pro-Palestinian protest at the synagogue, which was called “abhorrent” by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
The arrests in the alleged New Year’s plot took place last week in the Mojave Desert where the suspects were allegedly planning to test improvised explosive devices. The group now faces charges including conspiracy and possession of an unregistered destructive device, according to a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
Patel said that the FBI had also arrested a “FIFTH individual believed to be linked to this radical TILF subgroup – also allegedly planning a separate violent attack.”
On Monday, a post on what appeared to be the group’s instagram account of a “Palestine Pop Up” market was flooded with comments about the arrest: “Have fun in jail,” many of the comments said.
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