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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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Suspect Arrested in Venezuela for 1994 Panama Flight Bombing That Killed 21, Including 12 Jewish Passengers
The wreckage of Alas Chiricanas Flight 901 after it exploded midair in 1994, killing all 21 passengers and crew on board. Photo: Screenshot
Interpol has confirmed the arrest in Venezuela of a suspect linked to the 1994 bombing of a Panamanian commercial flight that killed 21 people — including 12 members of the country’s Jewish community — marking a major development more than three decades after one of Latin America’s deadliest terror attacks.
On Saturday, the Interpol National Central Bureau in Panama said in a statement that it “received confirmation” from its counterparts in Venezuela of the arrest of Ali Hage Zaki Jalil — a Venezuelan citizen of Lebanese descent — on Margarita Island in the northeastern state of Nueva Esparta, in a joint operation with the international police organization Interpol and local and national authorities.
In 1994, Alas Chiricanas Flight 901, a domestic passenger plane traveling a short 30–40 minute route from Colón on Panama’s Caribbean coast to the capital, Panama City, was destroyed by a midair explosion, killing all 21 passengers and crew on board.
At the time, local authorities determined that a suicide bomber had triggered explosives concealed within a portable radio.
Jalil allegedly managed logistics and transportation for the terrorists responsible for the attack, according to officials.
Panama’s government investigation found that the bomber was Hamas operative Ali Jamal, who had boarded the flight carrying a suitcase packed with explosives.
The terrorist attack occurred just one day after the bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, in which 85 people were killed and more than 300 wounded — the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentina’s history.
International intelligence agencies have long suspected that the two attacks were part of a Hezbollah-led wave of coordinated violence in the early 1990s targeting Jewish and Israeli interests across Latin America.
The Lebanese terrorist group has long operated within Latin America to finance illicit activities, particularly in countries like Venezuela and Colombia, as well as in the Tri-Border Area — where Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil meet and organized crime has long thrived.
Iran serves as Hezbollah’s chief international backer and also maintains close ties with Venezuela.
In 1995, a classified Panamanian intelligence report identified “operational similarities” between the Panama and Buenos Aires bombings, citing the use of suicide attackers, identical explosives, and links to Lebanese nationals operating in Venezuela and Paraguay.
The investigation into Flight 901 stalled for years due to political instability and lack of international cooperation, only to be reopened in 2017 when new forensic and intelligence evidence connected suspects in Venezuela and Lebanon to the attack.
In 2024, the US State Department offered a $5 million reward for information leading to those responsible for the terrorist attack, as well as additional rewards for tips on Hezbollah’s financial networks in Latin America.
In coordination with Israeli and American intelligence services, Panama’s government gradually traced leads to Jalil, who reportedly spent years living under multiple aliases in the country.
According to local officials, Jalil had spent years on Margarita Island hiding under false identities, shielded by networks sympathetic to Hezbollah-linked organizations.
Panama has formally requested Jalil’s extradition, and Venezuela’s Interior Ministry confirmed that he will remain in custody while the process moves forward.
If extradited and convicted, Jalil is expected to face charges of premeditated murder and crimes against state security, carrying a potential life sentence under Panamanian law.
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Trump Vows to ‘Make Syria Successful’ After Historic White House Meeting With President, Ex-Al Qaeda Commander
US President Donald Trump meets with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House, Washington, DC, US, Nov. 10, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
US President Donald Trump on Monday hosted the first-ever visit by a Syrian president to Washington, DC, vowing to help Syria as the war-ravaged country struggles to come out of decades of international isolation.
“We’ll do everything we can to make Syria successful,” Trump told reporters after his White House meeting with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al Qaeda commander who until recently was sanctioned by the US as a foreign terrorist with a $10 million bounty on his head.
Trump added that he “gets along” with Sharaa, whom he described as a “strong leader,” and that he would like to commence “working also with Israel on getting along with Syria.”
Israel and Syria, two longtime foes, are reportedly in the final stages of months-long negotiations over a security agreement that could establish a joint Israeli, Syrian, and US presence at key strategic locations.
Trump, speaking from the Oval Office, said that he expects to share “some announcements on Syria” soon.
“We want to see Syria become a country that’s very successful, and we think this leader can do it,” he added.
Sharaa led Islamist rebel forces that toppled longtime Syrian autocratic leader Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Iran, last year. Since taking power, he has sought to depict himself as a moderate leader who wants to unify his country and attract foreign investment to rebuild it after years of civil war. Many foreign leaders and experts have been skeptical of Sharaa, however, questioning whether he is still a jihadist trying to disguise his extremism.
One of Sharaa’s primary objectives has been to lift crippling US and international sanctions imposed on Syria during Assad’s tenure.
The US removed its bounty on Sharaa in December, and Trump ordered the lifting of most US sanctions on Syria in May after meeting him in Saudi Arabia. However, the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019, which authorizes the toughest US sanctions for human rights abuses, remains in place.
Sharaa was expected to push hard for the full removal of sanctions when he met with Trump behind closed doors. The US Treasury Department on Monday announced a 180-day extension of its suspension of enforcement of the Caesar sanctions, but only the US Congress can remove them permanently.
The State Department removed Sharaa and his interior minister from the Specially Designated Global Terrorist list on Friday. Several other countries and the UN have taken similar measures in recent weeks and months.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry announced that Syria and the United States have reached an agreement to incorporate the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces into the Syrian army.
According to the statement, the initiative is part of a broader effort to unify state institutions and strengthen national security.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described Monday’s meetings as “part of the president’s efforts in diplomacy to meet with anyone around the world in the pursuit of peace.”
Discussions centered on counter-terror cooperation, border stabilization, and a Syrian role in the US-led coalition against Islamic State (ISIS).
The Syrian information minister said in a post on X on Monday that Syria has signed a political cooperation declaration with the US-led “Global Coalition to Defeat Islamic State.”
Hours before the White House talks, reports came out saying that two ISIS plots to assassinate Sharaa had been foiled in recent months.
Trump has lavished praise on the Syrian leader’s tenure, saying that he is “doing a very good job so far” and that “progress” has been made with Syria since the lifting of sanctions.
Despite such praise, Sharaa arrived without the fanfare typically reserved for foreign leaders, entering the White House through a side door rather than through the West Wing main door.
Syria has experienced spurts of violence since Sharaa assumed power, including deadly attacks against minority groups such as the Alawites and Druze, allegedly carried out in part by government forces.
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Hootenanny will bring Jewish camp song and spirit to Manhattan temple at Nov. 13 event
Elana Arian has always associated Jewish music with summer camp.
From the time she was a little kid at Kutz, a summer camp affiliated with the Union for Reform Judaism where her parents were on faculty, to when she was a camper at URJ Camp Harlam, Arian liked singing songs, playing guitar and, eventually, leading music for the entire camp.
“I can’t remember a time when I didn’t connect to Judaism through song sessions in the dining hall,” Arian said. “As a kid, that’s what being Jewish meant to me.”
Now an accomplished composer, prayer leader and faculty member at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Arian tours full-time to congregations across North America. She is also the music director behind a special event: a hootenanny, a communal sing-along of Jewish music taking place at Congregation Rodeph Sholom in Manhattan.
Tickets are on sale now for the Nov. 13 event, both for in-person attendance and via livestream.
“In a moment when fear and division too often drown out harmony, the hootenanny reminds us that song can still unite what the world tries to tear apart,” said Rabbi Ben Spratt, senior rabbi at Rodeph Sholom. “Judaism is strongest when every voice is lifted together — in joy, in resilience, in hope. We’re proud to carry forward the courage of past generations and to shine as a beacon of Jewish pride and belonging.”
The event is a benefit for Eisner Camp and Crane Lake Camp, two URJ camps in the Massachusetts Berkshires. Proceeds from the event will benefit the camps’ scholarship fund, making it possible for more families with financial need to give their children a transformative Jewish summer experience.
The hootenanny will feature a who’s who of Jewish musicians who not only have become regulars on summer camp playlists, but whose work is familiar to tens of thousands of Jews across North America. In addition to Arian, the event will feature Noah Aronson, Michelle Citrin, Dan Freelander and Jeff Klepper (Kol B’Seder), Alan Goodis, Jacob Spike Kraus, Joanie Leeds, Naomi Less, Dan Nichols, and Julie Silver. The artists are donating their time for the hootenanny, and the musicians will be on stage together for the entire show.
“The spirit of this is a group of friends and musicians who are playing together and enjoying themselves,” Arian said.
The is the second hootenanny that Rodeph Sholom, a congregation of approximately 1,900 members, has hosted. The first, in late 2022, came as COVID restrictions were being lifted. More than 650 people attended the concert in person, with roughly 300 more watching online.
“People wanted to sing with each other and wanted to come together,” recalled Shayna De Lowe, Rodeph Sholom’s senior cantor. “Being in that room was pure magic. It reminded us why music mattered so much in that moment — and how much it still matters now.”
Those two ideas form the basis of the hootenanny, which has its roots in American folk music. The legendary singer Woody Guthrie led hootenannies — open-mic-style communal singalongs — in the 1940s, and they were further popularized in the 1960s by such folk luminaries as Joan Baez and Pete Seeger.
Many of the songs to be performed at this hootenanny will stem from the Jewish music revival launched by the late Debbie Friedman, who began writing melodies in the late 1960s and early 1970s at Jewish camps. Friedman’s songs, including her setting for “Mi Shebeirach,” the Jewish prayer for healing, are staples in synagogues across America.
The spirit Friedman ignited still resonates today, carried forward by a new generation of Jewish musicians.
The upcoming hootenanny will feature both the camp-inspired sacred music Friedman popularized — some played by Friedman’s contemporaries — as well as newer Jewish music. In addition, a group of New York-area teens will take the stage as songleaders after participating in a master class the previous evening with Goodis and cantor Rosalie Will.
Watch parties are also planned at congregations in Albany, N.Y., and Boston. At Rodeph Sholom, an in-person after party will follow for those in their 20s and 30s.
The presenting sponsor of the event is the Off-Broadway one-man play “Other,” with New York Jewish Week as media sponsor and numerous congregational partners across New York and New England serving as co-sponsors.
Debby Shriber, executive director of URJ Camps, said the importance of Jewish music at URJ camps cannot be overstated.
“The music is the soundtrack of our lives,” Shriber said. “It’s embedded in everything we do at camp.”
(Tickets for the Nov. 13 hootenanny at Congregation Rodeph Sholom, for the livestream, and for the after party are available.)
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