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Antisemitism-themed ‘Leopoldstadt’ and ‘Parade’ are big Tony Awards winners

(JTA) – Broadway made a statement about antisemitism Sunday evening, as two high-profile shows on the subject this season — the play “Leopoldstadt” and the musical revival “Parade” — pulled in multiple major Tony awards.

Some of the shows’ honorees, in turn, made statements of their own linking hatred of Jews with other forms of hatred, including homophobia and anti-transgender sentiment at a time when trans inclusion is under attack in many places.

“Leopoldstadt,” Tom Stoppard’s epic semi-autobiographical play about three generations of a Viennese Jewish family before and after the Holocaust, won four of the six Tonys for which it was nominated, including best play. (It was Stoppard’s fifth Tony, coming 55 years after his first, for “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.”)

The “Leopoldstadt” actor Brandon Uranowitz, the only member of the play’s large cast to receive an acting nomination, won for featured actor in a play and thanked Stoppard for writing a show about antisemitism and “the false promise of assimilation.” He noted that members of his family were murdered by the Nazis in Poland.

Uranowitz, who is gay, ended with a plea to parents: “When your child tells you who they are, believe them.”

“Parade,” about the 1915 lynching of American Jew Leo Frank, won two prizes, including best revival of a musical. Alfred Uhry, who wrote the book to the original 1998 production of “Parade,” wore a Star of David lapel pin when he came up to accept the award for best revival.

Michael Arden, the show’s director, noted in his speech that Leo Frank had “a life that was cut short at the hands of the belief that one group of people is more or less valuable than another,” which he noted is “at the core of antisemitism, of white supremacy, of homophobia, of transphobia, of intolerance of any kind.”

Arden warned the crowd to learn the lessons of the show, “or else we are doomed to repeat the horrors of our history.” He concluded his speech with an expletive, bleeped out by the telecast, as he voiced his support of trans and nonbinary youth.

While “Parade” took the top prize, as well as best director of a musical, its Jewish stars Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond both lost out in their categories — Platt to “Some Like It Hot” star J. Harrison Ghee, and Diamond to “Kimberly Akimbo” star Victoria Clark. But Platt and Diamond did share a moment onstage, performing the “Parade” number “This Is Not Over Yet” in character as an imprisoned Frank and his wife Lucille.

The non-Jewish actor Sean Hayes won best actor in a play for his role as Oscar Levant, the real-life Jewish concert pianist, actor and entertainer who had lifelong struggles with mental illness, in “Good Night, Oscar.”

“This has got to be the first time an Oscar won a Tony,” Hayes quipped, adding that Levant’s “wit and irascibility and virtuosity is not only inspirational but a true original.”

There were several other Jewish moments at the show. Jewish Broadway legends John Kander (96 years old) and Joel Grey (91 years old) received the evening’s lifetime achievement awards, with Grey’s actress daughter Jennifer Grey presenting him with his honor. Among the pair’s many achievements: Kander composed and Grey starred in “Cabaret,” a musical set in Weimar-era Germany, and Grey mounted the recent successful Yiddish-language revival of “Fiddler on the Roof.” Kander is also the composer behind “New York, New York,” a new show whose musician characters include a Jewish refugee from Nazi-occupied Poland.

Miriam Silverman won the featured actress in a play award for her role in “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window,” a revival of a long-overlooked Lorraine Hansberry play about a Jewish bohemian couple in 1960s Greenwich Village.

Lea Michele, despite not being eligible for a Tony for taking over for Beanie Feldstein in “Funny Girl,” performed her signature tune from the show about the Jewish comedian Fanny Brice. “A Beautiful Noise,” a biographical jukebox musical about chart-topping Jewish pop crooner Neil Diamond, also snuck in a performance of “Sweet Caroline” despite not being nominated for anything. The crowd gamely sang along.

And an unexpected Jewish shoutout came near the end of the ceremony, when the cast of the musical comedy “Shucked,” a show about corn, performed a song instructing viewers about the many places where the vegetable can be enjoyed. Among the options: “Bring it to a bris!”


The post Antisemitism-themed ‘Leopoldstadt’ and ‘Parade’ are big Tony Awards winners appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Israel’s Netanyahu Hopes to ‘Taper’ Israel Off US Military Aid in Next Decade

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published on Friday that he hopes to “taper off” Israeli dependence on US military aid in the next decade.

Netanyahu has said Israel should not be reliant on foreign military aid but has stopped short of declaring a firm timeline for when Israel would be fully independent from Washington.

“I want to taper off the military within the next 10 years,” Netanyahu told The Economist. Asked if that meant a tapering “down to zero,” he said: “Yes.”

Netanyahu said he told President Donald Trump during a recent visit that Israel “very deeply” appreciates “the military aid that America has given us over the years, but here too we’ve come of age and we’ve developed incredible capacities.”

In December, Netanyahu said Israel would spend 350 billion shekels ($110 billion) on developing an independent arms industry to reduce dependency on other countries.

In 2016, the US and Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems.

Israeli defense exports rose 13 percent last year, with major contracts signed for Israeli defense technology including its advanced multi-layered aerial defense systems.

US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Israel supporter and close ally of Trump, said on X that “we need not wait ten years” to begin scaling back military aid to Israel.

“The billions in taxpayer dollars that would be saved by expediting the termination of military aid to Israel will and should be plowed back into the US military,” Graham said. “I will be presenting a proposal to Israel and the Trump administration to dramatically expedite the timetable.”

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In Rare Messages from Iran, Protesters ask West for Help, Speak of ‘Very High’ Death Toll

Protests in Tehran. Photo: Iran Photo from social media used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law, via i24 News

i24 NewsSpeaking to Western media from beyond the nationwide internet blackout imposed by the Islamic regime, Iranian protesters said they needed support amid a brutal crackdown.

“We’re standing up for a revolution, but we need help. Snipers have been stationed behind the Tajrish Arg area [a neighborhood in Tehran],” said a protester in Tehran speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. He added that “We saw hundreds of bodies.”

Another activist in Tehran spoke of witnessing security forces firing live ammunition at protesters resulting in a “very high” number killed.

On Friday, TIME magazine cited a Tehran doctor speaking on condition of anonymity that just six hospitals in the capital recorded at least 217 killed protesters, “most by live ammunition.”

Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, Setare Ghorbani, a French-Iranian national living in the suburbs of Paris, said that she became ill from worry for her friends inside Iran. She read out one of her friends’ last messages before losing contact: “I saw two government agents and they grabbed people, they fought so much, and I don’t know if they died or not.”

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Report: US Increasingly Regards Iran Protests as Having Potential to Overthrow Regime

United States President Donald J Trump in White House in Washington, DC, USA, on Thursday, December 18, 2025. Photo: Aaron Schwartz via Reuters Connect.

i24 NewsThe assessment in Washington of the strength and scope of the Iran protests has shifted after Thursday’s turnout, with US officials now inclined to grant the possibility that this could be a game changer, Axios reported on Friday.

“The protests are serious, and we will continue to monitor them,” an unnamed senior US official was quoted as saying in the report.

Iran was largely cut off from the outside world on Friday after the Islamic regime blacked out the internet to curb growing unrest, as videos circulating on social media showed buildings ablaze in anti-government protests raging across the country.

US President Donald Trump warned the Ayatollahs of a strong response if security forces escalate violence against protesters.

“We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” Trump told reporters when asked about the unrest in Iran.

The latest reported death toll is at 51 protesters, including nine children.

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