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‘An American Tail’ musical adaptation hopes its Jewish immigration story will resonate in 2023
(JTA) — Itamar Moses was 10 years old when he watched “An American Tail” at his Jewish day school in California. He was struck by the 1986 film, an animated musical about a family of Russian-Jewish mice who immigrate to America. Even though he was surrounded by Jewish classmates and teachers, he had never seen a cartoon with Jewish protagonists.
“Watching this mainstream hit American animated movie where the central character and the central family were specifically Jewish — it was unusual,” Moses told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I think there was something that felt inclusive to us about that.”
Now a Tony Award-winning playwright, Moses has adapted the children’s classic for the stage. “An American Tail the Musical” will premiere at the Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis on April 25 and run through June 18. Along with writing by Moses, who won his Tony for a Broadway adaptation of the Israeli film “The Band’s Visit,” the new production features familiar songs such as “Somewhere Out There” and new music and lyrics by Michael Mahler and Alan Schmuckler (“Diary of a Wimpy Kid the Musical”). The team hopes to tour the show if it has success in Minneapolis.
The original film created by Don Bluth and Steven Spielberg follows the journey of a young, tenacious mouse named Fievel Mousekewitz. Fievel’s family lives below the human Moskowitz family in Shostka, a city in the Russian Empire, in 1885. Spielberg, who had yet to make “Schindler’s List” or widely address his Jewish family history, named the character after his maternal grandfather — Phillip or “Fievel” Posner — an immigrant from Russia.
The movie begins with the Mousekewitzes and the Moskowitzes celebrating Hanukkah when Cossacks tear through Shostka in an antisemitic pogrom, together with their animal counterparts — a battery of evil cats. The Mouskewitzes flee Europe and board a ship to America, where Papa Mouskewitz (voiced by Nehemiah Persoff) promises “there are no cats” and “the streets are paved with cheese.” But a thunderstorm at sea washes Fievel overboard, leaving his devastated parents and sister to arrive in New York City without him. Although they believe he did not survive, Fievel floats to shore in a bottle and sets out to find his family.
Of course, he quickly learns there are cats in America — along with corruption and exploitation. Fievel is sold to a sweatshop by Warren T. Rat, a cat disguised as a rat. A crooked mouse politician called Honest John (a caricature of the real Tammany Hall boss John Kelly) wanders Irish wakes, scribbling dead mice’s names in his list of “ghost votes.” But Fievel finds camaraderie with other immigrant mice rallying for freedom from the cats’ attacks and Warren T. Rat’s extortion. He befriends Italian mouse Tony and Irish mouse Bridget, who join the quest to reunite his family.
The film’s metaphors will be presented similarly in the stage version, which is also set in the 1880s, although Moses has expanded its lens on the immigrant groups that populated New York at the time. The musical will incorporate more “mice” communities, such as Chinese, Caribbean and Scandinavian mice, along with African Americans and former slaves.
A scene from rehearsal. (Kaitlin Randolph)
“An American Tail” was part of a shift in mainstream media toward Jewish representation, said Jennifer Caplan, an assistant professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Cincinnati who has studied this cultural change.
“It came out in 1986, and then ‘Seinfeld’ premiered in 1989,” Caplan told the JTA. “People point to 1989 as this moment when representations of Jews changed. There was this feeling in the late ‘80s that people were looking for new, different, possibly even more explicit representations of Jews.”
Yet despite the movie’s resonance with children like Moses, some film critics complained that it wasn’t Jewish enough. Critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave the film “two thumbs down” on a 1986 episode of their program “At The Movies,” calling it “way too depressing” for children and arguing that it “chickened out” of an explicitly Jewish story. Ebert noted that while most adults would understand the Mousekewitzes were Jewish, the word “Jewish” never appears in the film, potentially leaving young audiences in the dark.
“This seems to be a Jewish parable that doesn’t want to declare itself,” he said at the time.
Unlike in Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel “Maus,” where Jews are mice and Nazis are cats, the cat-and-mouse metaphor of “An American Tail” is expansive. The cats represent a universal force of oppression — Cossacks in Russia or capitalists in America — while the mice encompass all persecuted immigrants, regardless of their religion, ethnicity or national origin.
Caplan admitted that some might not have seen it as a Jewish story at the time.
“In 1986, we’re right at the birth of the multicultural push in American schools,” said Caplan. “You’ve got kids who are learning about the melting pot. I think if you are not looking for the coded Jewishness and you’re not familiar with it, then this just seems like a movie about immigrants.”
But Moses, who said the movie held a “mystical place” in his imagination, did not view the story’s broad allegory as a shortcoming. Instead, he saw an opportunity to pull its continuous thread for a message he hopes will feel relevant today: that while immigrants discover inequality and abuse in America, the forces of injustice are changeable, and that people can overcome life’s harsh realities through “grit and hard work and coming together.”
“That message is always timely, but definitely coming out of the last few years and the conversations that America is having about immigration,” said Moses. “I wanted to tell this story that’s really a fable, so you can get at these ideas indirectly as opposed to in a dry, didactic way.”
Jodi Eichler-Levine, a Jewish studies professor at Lehigh University, argued the tale’s success lies in being a “story of Jewish immigration that appeals to non-Jews as well” and called the movie a “fairytale about America.” It premiered 100 years after the Statue of Liberty’s dedication in 1886, amid centennial celebrations of the country’s immigration history. In the film, the statue comes alive, winking at Fievel and his sister once they find each other and look west at the vast expanse of the United States.
Itamar Moses won acclaim for adapting “The Band’s Visit” for Broadway. (Courtesy of Moses)
Whether viewers still buy into the optimistic crescendo of “An American Tail” remains to be seen. Do Americans still believe, as Moses hopes, that immigrants and oppressed peoples can unite to overthrow the tyrants of unfettered capitalism? A Gallup poll from February showed that Americans’ satisfaction with the country’s level of immigration has dropped to 28%, the lowest point in a decade.
Moses is betting that children’s theater has a way of refreshing themes adults have exhausted with political discourse. Children want to grapple with the ideas at the core of the show, he said, such as “the needs of the individual and the needs of the collective, the need to go out on your own but still remain connected to your family and your background.”
“The most successful material for kids tends to engage with real things that they’re thinking about and worrying about,” he said.
Today, another wave of families has fled Fievel’s hometown: though Shostka was part of the Russian Empire in the 19th century, it is now in the Sumy region of northeastern Ukraine. The Sumy Oblast was among the first regions stormed by Russian forces in February 2022 and continues to suffer daily shelling. Eichler-Levine expects that global refugee crises will only continue to broaden the appeal of a migration story.
“The ideas [in An American Tail] are sadly relevant for most of the planet right now, given that climate change and devastation from war are leading to another tremendous wave of global migration,” said Eichler-Levine.
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Maersk Tests Red Sea Route as Gaza Ceasefire Offers Hope
Containers are seen on the Maersk Triple-E giant container ship Majestic Maersk, one of the world’s largest container ships, next to cranes at the APM Terminals in the port of Algeciras, Spain, Jan. 20, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Jon Nazca
Danish shipping company Maersk said on Friday that one of its vessels had successfully navigated the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait for the first time in nearly two years, as shipping companies weigh returning to the critical Asia-Europe trade corridor.
The company stated that while it had no firm plans to fully reopen the route, it would take a “stepwise approach towards gradually resuming navigation” via the Suez Canal and the Red Sea. Maersk declined to further elaborate on its plans.
Maersk and rivals, including Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd, rerouted vessels around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope from December 2023 after Yemeni Houthi rebels attacked ships in the Red Sea in what they said was a show of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. The Iran-backed Houthis are an internationally designated terrorist organization.
The Suez Canal is the fastest route linking Europe and Asia and until the attacks had accounted for about 10% of global seaborne trade, according to Clarksons Research.
CMA HAS MADE LIMITED PASSAGES THROUGH THE SUEZ CANAL
French shipping firm CMA CGM has already made limited passages through the Suez Canal when security conditions allowed, with other operators similarly exploring resumption plans.
“Most carriers appear to be adopting a wait-and-see approach, monitoring developments, and any meaningful reopening would likely unfold gradually,” said Nikos Tagoulis, analyst at Intermodal Group.
The potential return of Maersk to the Suez Canal could ripple through the shipping sector, where freight rates have risen because the alternative route added weeks to transit times between Asia and Europe.
A recent ceasefire in the Gaza conflict has renewed hope of normalizing Red Sea traffic, though analysts note the fragility of the truce.
“By the end of 2026, we estimate things will start to look like they were before the Houthis attack started,” said Simon Heaney, a container industry analyst at Drewry Shipping Consultants. “The risk level has reduced, so they’re prepared to test the waters. But the Houthis aren’t particularly reliable.”
Maersk confirmed that one of its smaller vessels, Maersk Sebarok, had completed the first test transit through the Red Sea on Thursday and Friday, while stressing that no additional sailings were currently planned.
“Whilst this is a significant step forward, it does not mean that we are at a point where we are considering a wider East-West network change back to the trans-Suez corridor,” it said.
Niels Rasmussen, chief shipping analyst at ship-owner association BIMCO, projected that broader resumption of Suez Canal transits could result in a 10% drop in ship demand.
“The possibility of a return to Suez Canal routings looms large over the market outlook,” he said in a note published on Thursday.
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Israel Charges Russian With Allegedly Spying for Iran
Israel and Iran flags are seen in this illustration taken June 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Israel has charged a Russian citizen with spying for Iran, including photographing Israeli ports and infrastructure under the direction of Iranian intelligence agencies, Israel‘s domestic security agency the Shin Bet said on Friday.
The Russian individual was then paid in digital currency, the agency said in a joint statement.
A decades-long shadow war between Israel and Iran escalated into a direct war in June when Israel struck various targets inside Iran, including through operations that relied on Mossad commandos being deployed deep inside the country.
Israel has arrested dozens of citizens who allegedly spied for Iran, in what sources told Reuters has been Tehran’s biggest effort in decades to infiltrate its arch foe.
The arrests followed repeated efforts by Iranian intelligence operatives over the years to recruit ordinary Israelis to gather intelligence and carry out attacks in exchange for money.
In a statement sent to media in 2024 following a wave of arrests by Israel of Jewish citizens suspected of spying for Iran, Iran’s UN mission did not confirm or deny seeking to recruit Israelis and said that “from a logical standpoint” any such efforts by Iranian intelligence services would focus on non-Iranian and non-Muslim individuals to lessen suspicion.
Iran has executed many individuals it accuses of having links with Israel‘s Mossad intelligence service and facilitating its operations in the country.
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His family was killed in Sydney. Hours later, he helped feed 600 unhoused people in LA.
Hanukkah on Bondi Beach was the coolest party of the year, recalled Yossi Segelman.
“There’s singing. There’s dancing. There’s sufganiyot … There’s clowns and petting zoos,” he said. “It brought all people together.”
Segelman, who was born in London, spent 16 years living in Sydney, and now resides in Los Angeles, used to attend the celebration every year.
It was Segelman who drew Rabbi Eli Schlanger, his childhood neighbor in London, to Australia almost 20 years ago. Segelman made the shidduch, or match, between Eli and his wife Chaya’s cousin. As they became family, Segelman and Schlanger also became close friends.
“He was just always happy … a rocket full of joy,” Segelman said. “I knew many people who were personally moved and touched and became more connected to Judaism and to Israel as a direct result of their impact and connection with Rabbi Eli.”
When Segelman logged on to WhatsApp on Sunday, he learned that terrorists had murdered Schlanger at the same yearly Hanukkah celebration. One of his nieces was in surgery.
“I had a number of other family members, nieces, nephews, who were ducking at the tables and had bullets whizzing overhead and had seen things that no one should ever see,” he said.
And yet hours later, Segelman, who is the executive director of the nonprofit Our Big Kitchen Los Angeles, still showed up to lead dozens of people in preparing 600 meals for Angelenos in need.
That Sunday was my second time volunteering at OBKLA. As I snapped on blue nitrile gloves and prepared to scoop meatballs from a tub of ground beef, I was stunned that Segelman felt capable of showing up with one family member dead and another on the operating table.
But he insisted, during the session and two days later when I came back to speak with him, that it’s precisely during dark times that a community needs a space to come together and serve others. As rising antisemitism and violent attacks like the one in Bondi might pressure Jews to turn inward, Segelman’s emphasis on both Jewish pride and welcoming all, no matter their background, offers us a path forward.
Giving back in times of crisis
Schlanger and Segelman both served as chaplains in Australia; Schlanger for corrective services and Segelman for the military.
“We were involved in the same thing and that is to try and bring peace, and comfort, and solace, encouragement, to those who found themselves in difficult situations,” Segelman said.
In parallel to his work as a chaplain, Segelman became involved as an early director of Our Big Kitchen in Sydney, which prepares meals for Australians in need. The organization’s Bondi kitchen is less than a mile from where Sunday’s terror attack took place. Though the food is kosher, most meals go to the broader community, and most volunteers aren’t Jewish.
A few years after moving to Los Angeles, at the height of the pandemic, the Segelman family sprung into action to distribute snacks to hospitals, unhoused people, and first responders. Their impulse to help has since grown into a smooth operation, one the Segelmans activated at full throttle during LA’s wildfires this year.
In his office, Segelman has a basket where he keeps empty rolls from the stickers volunteers use to package food. Each roll signified a thousand meals. The basket was overflowing. In the past year, Segelman said, OBK LA welcomed more than 24,000 volunteers who made 183,574 meals.
Segelman emphasized the impact of the meals not only on the recipients, but also on the volunteers who created them.
“Volunteering, it’s being hands-on. It’s a visceral experience. You’re immersing yourself in an act of goodness and kindness,” he said.
How we respond to terror
Segelman has more practice than most in taking action. But the attack in Sydney posed a new challenge.
“For me to get up Sunday morning and welcome everybody and do what we do usually at OBK with cheer and with love was not easy,” he said. But he knew that his job was “to inspire people, especially when the going gets tough, and to really transform those feelings of helplessness into hopefulness.”
When we spoke on Tuesday at noon, Segelman had just finished an event with 70 school kids, with more programs to come later that day. Schlanger’s funeral, which he would attend remotely, was at 4 p.m. His teenage niece’s operation was successful, though his entire family remained extremely traumatized.
Nevertheless, Segelman insisted the Hanukkah celebration must return to Bondi Beach.
“100%. Bigger and better,” he said. “To cancel events and close down events is contrary to the story of Hanukkah.”
“We need to continue doing what we’re doing, do it stronger, obviously be smart, be vigilant, but absolutely go out there and to continue to do what we do and do it proudly.”
When I asked if a terror attack like Sunday’s might complicate OBK’s practice of welcoming everyone into its kitchen, his answer was adamant: “We are an organization rooted in Jewish values of chesed, of tzedakah, and we’re proudly kosher, and we’re proudly based in the heart of the community. But we welcome absolutely everyone, both to volunteer and to receive a meal.”
Violence cannot shatter our empathy
To be proudly Jewish and yet welcome everyone is an essential message; one whose second component, I think, may be hard for some in our community to hear right now.
The brutality of Oct. 7, of the subsequent rise in antisemitism and terror like the kind unleashed in Sydney, rightfully activates Jewish fears. It also, however, threatens to make a drought of our empathy. At its very worst — as I’ve written about in the case of far-right Jews denying hunger in Gaza or using AI to spread hate — Jewish pain is contorted into a pretext to ignore others’ suffering or even inflict it on them.
But now is the time to lean into our values, not turn away from the rest of the world. Segelman’s message for all of us this Hannukah: Find a way to give our time in service to others, even if it’s just an hour a week, and to provide inspiration or love, even to just one other person.
On Sunday night, a few hours after the OBKLA event, my partner and I welcomed our friends, some Jewish, some not, for the first night of Hanukkah. We fried latkes and schnitzel. My hand shook, then steadied, as I sang and led a menorah lighting for the first time. The candle burned through its wick; yellow and blue wax dripping onto parchment paper. We sat in the gentle glow, affirming joy.
This Hannukah, Segelman and OBKLA show us that when faced with unimaginable violence, the best way to nourish our souls might be to come together, cook, and serve others.
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