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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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Most Jewish Israelis Say Israel Is the Safest Place for Jews, New Survey Shows
Pro-Israel demonstrators gathered at Bebelplatz in central Berlin on Nov. 30, 2025, before marching toward the Brandenburg Gate. Participants held Israeli flags and signs condemning rising antisemitism in Germany. Photo: Michael Kuenne/PRESSCOV/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Most Jewish Israelis view Israel as a safer place for Jews than anywhere else in the world, according to a new end-of-year survey, as Jewish diaspora communities continue to face unabated antisemitism, marked by a surge in targeted attacks and rising anti-Israel hostility.
On Tuesday, the Israel Democracy Institute released a December survey conducted by the Viterbi Family Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research, showing that 76 percent of Israeli-born Jews consider Israel the safest place for Jews, up almost 10 percent from earlier in 2024.
In contrast, Arab Israelis expressed mixed opinions, with 32 percent saying Israel was safer for Arabs than abroad, 35 percent saying life abroad was safer, and 29 percent saying both were equally safe.
The survey also found that most Jewish respondents believe Israel should work with foreign governments to protect Jewish communities, deploy official emissaries — representatives who coordinate with local authorities — and play an active role in planning security for Jewish events.
Half of respondents also backed financial aid for the Jewish diaspora, representing the most widely supported option in the survey.
Jewish communities around the world, especially in Europe, have faced a troubling surge in antisemitic incidents and anti-Israel sentiment since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Jewish leaders have consistently called on authorities to take swift action against the rising wave of targeted attacks and anti-Jewish hate crimes, ranging from the vandalism of murals and businesses to violent physical assaults, that their communities continue to face.
With global antisemitism continuing to skyrocket, Israel recorded a surge in Jewish immigration from Western nations in 2025, despite an overall decline in Jews abroad moving to their ancient homeland.
According to data from Israel’s Immigration and Absorption Ministry, over 21,900 Jews from more than 100 countries arrived last year amid ongoing hostility abroad, a decline of roughly one-third from 2024, largely driven by a sharp drop in Russian emigration.
However, aliyah – the process of Jews immigrating to Israel – from the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and other Western countries surged sharply in 2025. Continuing a steady upward trend, arrivals from France jumped 45 percent last year to 3,300, up from 2,200 in 2024, while immigration from the UK rose almost 20 percent to 840 immigrants.
Ministry data also showed 420 newcomers from Canada, 220 from South Africa, and 180 from Australia.
These latest figures come as Jewish communities worldwide warn of escalating threats in the wake of a deadly attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach that left 15 dead and at least 40 injured.
Last year, a string of deadly terrorist attacks also targeted Jewish communities abroad, including the Yom Kippur assault in Manchester that killed two Jewish men, the firebombing of a march for Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado – which killed one and injured 13 – and the murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington, DC.
According to Nefesh B’Nefesh (NBN), a nonprofit that promotes and facilitates aliyah from the US and Canada, overall North American immigration rose about 12 percent in 2025 to 4,150 new arrivals, the highest annual total the organization has seen in four years.
However, even as antisemitic incidents worldwide reach levels not seen in decades following the Oct. 7 atrocities, Jews and Israelis continue to emigrate to Europe, reshaping the heart of today’s Jewish diaspora.
Despite an increasingly hostile social and political climate, Jewish life in much of Europe is not shrinking. In some places, it is holding steady — and in others, growing.
According to recent demographic reports, Israeli immigrant communities in Europe are among the fastest-growing Jewish communities in the world.
Europe is home to nearly 30 percent of all Israelis living outside the country — roughly 190,000 to 200,000 people — with their population steadily increasing across the continent, according to a report from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR).
JPR data shows that Israel-born Jews now make up nearly 50 percent of the Jewish population in Norway, 41 percent in Finland, and over 20 percent in Bulgaria, Ireland, Spain, and Denmark.
Over the past decade, the number of Israeli-born Jews has grown significantly in Baltic countries (135 percent), in Ireland (95 percent), in Bulgaria (78 percent), in the Czech Republic (74 percent), in Spain (39 percent), in the Netherlands (36 percent), in Germany (34 percent), and in the UK (27 percent).
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Actor Proposes Casting Anti-Israel Star Melissa Barrera to Replace Gal Gadot in Next ‘Wonder Woman’ Film
(L-R) Simu Liu and Melissa Barrera attend ‘The Copenhagen Test’ Season 2025 New York Screening, at the Whitby, New York, NY, December 16, 2025. Photo: Anthony Behar/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Canadian actor Simu Liu said he thinks Mexican actress Melissa Barrera, his costar on “The Copenhagen Test,” would be a great Wonder Woman to replace Israeli actress Gal Gadot in the upcoming DC Universe film by James Gunn about Diana Prince.
“James Gunn or anybody else out there, I think she really pushes herself,” said Liu, who starred in Marvel’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” during a recent interview with JoBlo. “There were a couple of moments during stunt training where I was like ‘That’s Wonder Woman-esque.’ I’m just throwing it out there. I don’t know who’s watching or listening to this interview, but I just think she’s a total badass. And she puts in the work.”
Barrera came under fire in November 2023 for sharing posts on social media that accused Israel of genocide and criticized the Jewish state during its war against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, following their deadly rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7 of that year. The actress uploaded posts on Instagram that described Israel as a “colonized” land and suggested that the Jewish state controls the media. She reshared a post that accused Israel of “genocide and ethnic cleansing,” and also shared posts from other accounts that featured messages calling for “every civil institution” to boycott the country. She additionally shared a post that includes claims about manipulating facts related to the Holocaust “to boost the Israeli arms industry,” according to the BBC.
“Gaza is currently being treated like a concentration camp,” Barrera wrote in one post on her Instagram Story in 2023. “Cornering everyone together, with no where to go, no electricity no water … People have learnt nothing from our histories. And just like our histories, people are still silently watching it all happen. THIS IS GENOCIDE & ETHNIC CLEANSING [sic].”
Barrera was fired from the film “Scream 7” following her social media posts against Israel. In a statement to Variety magazine, a spokesman for the movie’s production company Spyglass said its stance was “unequivocally clear.”
“We have zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form, including false references to genocide, ethnic cleansing, Holocaust distortion or anything that flagrantly crosses the line into hate speech,” the statement noted.
Hours after her firing was announced, Barrera shared a statement on Instagram claiming that she condemns antisemitism and Islamophobia, and all forms of hate and prejudice.
“Every person on this earth … deserves equal human rights, dignity and, of course, freedom,” she added. “I believe a group of people are NOT their leadership, and that no governing body should be above criticism. I pray day and night for no more deaths, for no more violence, and for peaceful co-existence. I will continue to speak out for those that need it most and continue to advocate for peace and safety, for human rights and freedom. Silence is not an option for me.”
Barrera and Liu were among the the many celebrities who signed an open letter by Artists4Ceasefire in October 2023 that called for an immediate ceasefire to end the Israel-Hamas war, a release of the hostages taken by the terrorist organization after its invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, and an end to “the bombing in Gaza.” The letter makes no mention of the Hamas terrorist organization by name, which slaughtered 1,400 Israelis, took more than 200 civilian hostages from Israel and led to the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
Liu is not the first to nominate Barrera as the next Wonder Woman. Several publications have ranked her among the top contenders for the role, and she addressed the topic in an interview with the online publication A Shot Magazine in April 2025.
“I think whoever gets the role, I just hope that they can embody the essence of the character because I think that those movies, whether they’re Marvel or DC, their reach is so big,” she said. “And because those artists that get those roles will inevitably get a built-in fanbase and have the eyes and the ears of so many people, I think that it would be nice if they did something actually positive with the influence that they have to at least be a good example of the kind of human being that you wanna be in the world, instead of just using it for self-serving purposes.”
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Rights Groups Say At Least 25 Dead in Iran Protests
A man walks near an anti-US and anti-Israeli billboard displayed on a building in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 4, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
At least 25 people have been killed in Iran during the first nine days of protests that started in the bazaar of Tehran over the plunging value of the currency and soaring inflation, according to rights groups.
The authorities have acknowledged the economic hardships but accused networks linked to foreign powers of stoking the protests. On Tuesday, Iran‘s police chief vowed to “deal with the last of these rioters.”
The shopkeepers’ protest continued on Tuesday in the bazaar, with about 150 people focusing on economic demands, Iran‘s Fars news agency reported.
The protests have spread to some cities in western and southern Iran but do not match the scale of unrest that swept the nation in 2022-23 over the death of Mahsa Amini, who died in the custody of morality police for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code.
However, even though smaller, these protests have quickly expanded from an economic focus to broader frustrations, with some protesters chanting against the country’s clerical rulers.
MORE THAN 1,000 ARRESTED, RIGHTS GROUPS SAY
Iran also remains under international pressure, with US President Donald Trump threatening on Friday to come to the aid of protesters if security forces fired on them. Iran‘s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed not to “yield to the enemy.”
Hengaw, a Kurdish Iranian rights group, put the death toll at 25, including four under 18. It said more than 1,000 had been arrested. HRANA, a network of rights activists, said at least 29 had been killed, including two law enforcement agents, in addition to 1,203 arrests, as of Jan. 5.
Reuters has not been able to independently verify the numbers. Iranian authorities have not given a death toll for protesters, but have said at least two members of the security services have died and more than a dozen have been injured.
Authorities have attempted to maintain a dual approach to the unrest, saying protests over the economy are legitimate and will be met by dialogue, while meeting some demonstrations with tear gas amid violent street confrontations.
The police chief, Ahmadreza Radan, was quoted on Tuesday by state media as saying they had drawn a distinction between protesters and what he called rioters, the latter facing arrests on site or following identification by intelligence units.
“I pledge that we will deal with the last of these rioters. It is still time for those who were deceived by foreign services to identify themselves and draw on the Islamic Republic’s greatness,” Radan said.
WITNESS REPORTS HEAVY POLICE PRESENCE
Fars said Tuesday’s gathering of shopkeepers on Saadi street in Tehran ended without “expanding the police’s presence.”
Mohammad, 63, a jewelry shop owner in the bazaar, told Reuters there was a heavy presence of riot police and plainclothes security forces inside and around the area.
“They were forcing shopkeepers who were on strike to open their shops. I did not see it myself, but I heard there were clashes outside the bazaar and police fired tear gas,” he told Reuters by phone. He declined to give his family name.
Footage shared on Telegram on Tuesday by Vahid Online, which posts videos of the protests to more than 650,000 followers, appeared to show dozens of security forces on motorbikes patrolling the street and the unidentified person who took the clip can be heard saying the security forces had fired tear gas.
Reuters confirmed that the video was filmed on Saadi street but could not verify the exact date when it was taken.
GOVERNMENT PROMISES REFORMS TO PROTECT PURCHASING POWER
President Masoud Pezeshkian has promised reforms to help stabilize the monetary and banking systems and protect purchasing power.
The government has announced a subsidy reform, removing preferential currency exchange rates for importers in favor of direct transfers to Iranians to boost their purchasing power for essential goods. The measure will come into force on Jan. 10.
The central bank chief was also replaced on Dec. 29.
The rial fell further to 1,489,500 on Tuesday, representing a 4% fall since the protests started.