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A fake reality show trailer shines light on the real issue of child marriage
(JTA) — A three-minute trailer teases a new reality show called “Unseen Housewives,” and features women describing their experiences as child brides in forced marriages.
“I was groomed by a pedophile at age 14 and married by age 16,” one of four young women in the trailer tells the camera.
“I turned into a housewife at 14 but no one seemed to care when it happened,” says another.
There is no such reality show, although the trailer, making the rounds on social media, is describing a real issue. The video was produced for Unchained At Last, a nonprofit that’s been battling forced and child marriages for the past 12 years.
Founded by a woman who left what she calls an abusive forced marriage in a haredi Orthodox community in Brooklyn, Unchained At Last hopes the video will draw attention to its efforts to outlaw marriage for children under the age of 18, regardless of their background.
“We’re trying to solve a problem that most people don’t even know exists,” said Fraidy Reiss, Unchained At Last’s founder and executive director. “Most Americans have no idea that child marriage is legal in the U.S. Child marriage is a nightmarish legal trap.”
Unchained At Last has led a campaign that has outlawed child marriage in seven states, including New Jersey and New York. Legislation prohibiting marriage until the age of 18 is currently pending in 11 states: Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, South Carolina, Illinois, Kansas, Texas, California, New Mexico, Washington and Hawaii. The organization is particularly optimistic about the chances for passage in Vermont and Connecticut. Reiss said the group expects similar legislation to be introduced in Michigan this week.
The idea for the video came from Bruno Guimaraes, the creative director at Area 23, a Manhattan ad agency that specializes in health care campaigns, said Reiss. Guimaraes’ wife, the psychiatrist Morgan Fallor, interviewed survivors of child marriage and prepared their stories for the project.
Guimaraes’s colleague, Jihane Ghostine, produced the “Unseen Housewives” video.
“I just wanted to shed light on this topic,” Ghostine said. “I come originally from Lebanon where it’s actually legal to marry at a very young age. I think through our art and our crafts, we are maybe able to change the world in some kind of way. And this is what pushed me to do this.”
Ghostine said Gustavo Lemme, the director for the trailer, came from Sao Paulo, Brazil to helm the video. The actresses who appeared in the trailer worked at a discounted rate because they support the cause, she said.
The lines in the video are based on the real-life stories of women who were married when they were legally considered children. The trailer was shot in Tampa, Florida.
Reiss, married at 19, left her marriage after 12 years and went on to attend Rutgers University. In 2011, after working as a reporter at the Asbury Park Press and as a private investigator at Kroll, the global investigations company, she founded Unchained At Last. Initially it helped both Jewish and non-Jewish women leave arranged and forced marriages and seek custody of their children in civil court. Reis now describes herself as “a devout atheist.”
The organization has since begun pushing for legislation prohibiting marriage for children — which is legal in 43 states with parental consent or judicial approval. Opponents say child marriage is related to sexual exploitation, increased poverty, a higher risk of health complications and lower educational attainment.
Although the issue crosses various social and religious lines, Reiss has sometimes found herself facing off against Orthodox Jewish communities like the one she left and where, she said, friends were already married in high school. In 2018, the haredi Orthodox advocacy group Agudath Israel of America called the New Jersey legislation too strict, saying it wanted to see an exemption made for older teenagers who want to wed. The bill stalled under Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, and was signed into law by his Democratic successor, Phil Murphy.
Reiss hopes the “Unseen Housewives” trailer will go viral on social media. She plans to screen it during her spring travels to promote Unchained At Last’s legislative agenda.
The group plans to continue with its “chain-in” events, in which women wearing wedding dresses appear in street protests with chains on their wrists and their mouths taped shut. More than 100 wedding gowns, some dating back to the 1940s, have been donated for the demonstrations.
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Advocates decry ‘pogrom on the playground’ after Jewish children targeted in Chicago suburb on Oct. 7
A heavily Jewish suburb of Chicago has condemned antisemitism after an investigation confirmed reports that a group of Jewish children were attacked with pellet guns and subjected to antisemitic rhetoric in a public park earlier this month.
The incident took place on Oct. 7, the first day of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot and the second anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel, in Shawnee Park, which is located blocks from a number of the town’s Orthodox synagogues.
It occurred when five children between the ages of 8 and 13, were approached by another group of children who asked if they were Jewish, according to the Chicago Jewish Alliance, an advocacy group that has taken an aggressive stance against antisemitism in Chicagoland.
When the children replied that they were Jewish, the group of roughly 20 assailants, who were between the ages of 12 and 14, then allegedly shouted “f—k Israel” and “you are baby killers so we are going to kill you” at the children and shot gel gun pellets from a recreational gun at them, according to a Facebook post by Daniel and Robyn Burgher Ackerman, the parents of a 13-year-old girl who was among the victims.
The Ackermans posted what they said was their first public account of the incident on Thursday, after an investigation by the town was completed. The Village of Skokie said this week that police had responded to the scene on Oct. 7, where the children alleged to have participated in the incident were identified and interviewed and a police report was filed.
The case was “closed” following the investigation’s conclusion, according to the Village of Skokie. It did not name any actions it was taking in response but said the incident had been documented and shared with the Human Relations Commission, which would later issue a recommendation based on its findings.
“There is no place for hate in Skokie,” said Mayor Ann Tennes in a statement. “Our community has long been built on respect, inclusion and care for one another. The Village remains committed to standing against antisemitism and all forms of bias, and to ensuring that Skokie continues to be a safe and welcoming place for everyone.”
The Skokie Park District said it had been made aware of the incident only this week. “We do not tolerate racist remarks or acts of violence in our parks,” it said in a statement issued Thursday. “We are prepared to work with the Village of Skokie’s Human Relations Commission and the Skokie Police Department as part of a community-wide effort to address this hateful occurrence and prevent these behaviors in the future.”
The Ackermans and the Chicago Jewish Alliance say they are concerned that the incident is not being treated with the appropriate urgency, citing a lack of evidence of any disciplinary action against the children who participated.
The Skokie Police Department did not immediately respond to questions about whether charges would be filed in the case.
The Chicago Jewish Alliance is urging residents to attend the Human Relations Committee meeting on Monday and the Village of Skokie Board meeting on Nov. 3 to demand that the incident be treated as a hate crime, according to Daniel Schwartz, the group’s president.
He said that during the assault, the assailants allegedly told the victims that they would “get a real gun and kill you Jews.”
Schwartz, who referred to the incident as a “pogrom on the playground,” said the incident had “really disturbed” the local Jewish community.
“I think this hits a nerve, because it happened on Oct. 7, it happened to children, it happened to children in Skokie, Illinois, which has a very dense Jewish population, and then the municipality itself, similar to what we saw in 1940s Germany, was almost like — there was just no justice or repercussion,” said Schwartz.
He added that the parents of the victims of the attack are also seeking legal counsel over the incident.
“This was not ‘kids being kids.’ This was a targeted, violent antisemitic attack on Jewish minors- in their synagogue dresses on a Jewish holiday,” the Ackermans wrote. “The fact that it happened on October 7th—exactly two years after the October 7, 2023 massacre of Jews in Israel—makes it even more chilling.”
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Jewish and Israeli Leading Figures Call for Israel Sanctions, Accountability for Alleged ‘Violations of International Law’
Jewish director Jonathan Glazer poses with the Oscar for Best International Feature Film for “The Zone of Interest” in the Oscars photo room at the 96th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, US, March 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Dozens of leading Jews and Israelis in the entertainment industry published an open letter this week that calls on world leaders to hold Israel’s leadership accountable for “violations of international law.”
The open letter, posted on Tuesday under the banner “Jews Demand Action,” is addressed to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, “presidents, prime ministers, heads of state and permanent representatives to the United Nations.”
The prominent Jewish and Israeli members of Hollywood requested that world leaders “turn the ceasefire into a just and lasting peace, ending Israel’s system of occupation and apartheid and thereby guaranteeing the future well-being of Palestinians and Israelis alike.”
“Apply the necessary pressure, end impunity, and hold Israel’s leadership accountable for its violations of international law. We come together to reclaim a Jewish ethic that is universal, learns from our history and guides our tomorrow,” they wrote. “Accountability for the Israeli leadership’s grievous violations of international law is necessary. It is time to do everything possible to definitively end the Israeli government’s collective punishment of the Palestinians and to pursue peace for the sake of both peoples … The monumental scale of the killing and destruction, the forced displacement, the deliberate withholding of life-sustaining necessities, and the ongoing criminal actions in the West Bank must end and never be repeated.”
Oscar-winning directors Jonathan Glazer and Yuval Abraham are among the many who signed the open letter, which also expressed support for the recent Israel-Hamas ceasefire, and the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. The group said it hopes the ceasefire would “end daily killing, destruction, displacement, and starvation in Gaza.”
“And yet there should be no doubt that this ceasefire is fragile,” they added. “Israeli forces remain in Gaza, the agreement makes no reference to the West Bank, the underlying conditions of occupation, apartheid, and the denial of Palestinian rights remain unaddressed.”
“It was international pressure that helped to secure this ceasefire, and it must be sustained to guarantee that it endures,” the group noted. “The ceasefire must be the beginning, not the end. The risk of reverting to a political reality of indifference to occupation and permanent conflict is too great. This same pressure must be continued to deliver a new era of peace and justice for all, Palestinians and Israelis alike.”
Others who signed the open letter include Emmy-winning actresses Hannah Einbinder and Ilana Glazer; author Gabor Maté; actors Morgan Spector and Wallace Shawn; Israeli comedian and activist Noam Shuster-Eliassi; and producers James Schamus and Libby Lenkinski. Daniel Levy; Lenkinski; Israeli author and businessman Avrum Burg; journalist Peter Beinart; Belgian politician Simone Susskind; and writer and activist Em Hilton initiated the open letter. Its publication comes two weeks after the ceasefire deal for the Israel-Hamas war took effect on Oct. 10. The two-year war started following the Hamas-led deadly terrorist attack in southern Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken as hostages back to the Gaza Strip.
“The need for redress long predates October 7th, 2023. The crimes committed by Hamas and other armed factions on that day horrified us. The Israeli actions that followed were unconscionable,” the letter further stated. The group also condemned Israeli leaders for justifying Israel’s military actions in Gaza during the war. “Israeli leaders have repeatedly taken to the world stage to declare that these actions are committed in the name of the Jewish people, as a manifestation of Jewish destiny. The Israeli government may claim to speak on behalf of the Jewish collective, but it does not speak for us,” they said.
The signatories stated that many aspects of international law protecting human life were originally created in response to the Holocaust. “Those safeguards have been relentlessly violated by Israel,” they claimed. “Accountability for the Israeli leadership’s grievous violations of international law is necessary. It is time to do everything possible to definitively end the Israeli government’s collective punishment of the Palestinians and to pursue peace for the sake of both peoples.”
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Last Fighter of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Dies at Age 99 in Israel
One of the most famous pictures of Jews being rounded up by Nazi Germans during the Holocaust, this from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in May 1943. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Michael Smuss, who was the last surviving fighter from World War II’s Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, died in Israel at the age of 99, the Embassy of Poland in Tel Aviv confirmed on Thursday.
Smuss was born in 1926 in what was formerly known as the city of Danzig and is now Gdańsk in Poland. He later moved with his family to Lodz and then, following the German invasion of Poland in 1939, he and his father were sent to Warsaw, where they were forced to live in the Warsaw Ghetto. He joined the Jewish resistance and helped them smuggle weapons into the ghetto.
“We filled up bottles which were then put up on the roofs of all the houses close to the entrance of the ghetto, with the expectation that, once they’re going to come, we’ll be throwing them down,” Smuss recounted three years ago in a video for the Sumter County Museum in South Carolina.
In 1943, the Germans began liquidating the Warsaw Ghetto to deport its inhabitants to the Treblinka concentration camp. Smuss was one of hundreds of Jews that fought Nazi soldiers for almost one month and defended the Warsaw Ghetto during the uprising that began on April 19 of that year. He was 16 years old at the time and helped throw Molotov cocktails at Nazis from the rooftops of the ghetto, he said in a video shared by the Israel Defense Forces.
“Whenever the Germans came in on the first day, they didn’t expect anything to happen,” he added. “We let them walk in to the end of the street, and then little by little the Jewish soldiers on the balconies started firing, which was very successful. On the second day, as we see that they are coming … we threw the Molotov cocktails.”
Thousands of Jews were killed and roughly 50,000 were captured during the uprising, according to the IDF. Seven thousand of those Jews were immediately murdered and most of the others were sent to death camps. Smuss and his father were captured and put on a train to Treblinka, but Smuss was instead taken to be a forced worker at different camps before he being liberated by US troops in 1945. He also survived a death march in the spring of 1945. His father died during the Holocaust.
After reuniting with his mother and sister at the end of World War II, Smuss moved the United States and then Israel. He began painting to cope with his trauma, and gave lectures about the Holocaust and antisemitism. Last month, he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit by Germany.