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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!”
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Qatari PM Meets Iran’s Larijani in Tehran, Discusses Easing Regional Tensions
Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani speaks after a meeting with the Lebanese president at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon February 4, 2025. REUTERS/Emilie Madi
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani met with top Iranian security official Ali Larijani in Tehran and reviewed efforts to de-escalate tensions in the region, Qatar’s foreign ministry said on Saturday in a statement.
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Tesla Receives Approval to Test Autonomous Driving in Israel
March 12, 2025, Seattle, Washington, USA: A row of brand-new Tesla Cybertrucks stands in a Tesla Motors Logistics Drop Zone in Seattle, Washington, USA, on Wed., March 12, 2025. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
i24 News – The Ministry of Transport announced on Sunday that it has granted Tesla official approval to conduct trials of its autonomous driving system on Israel’s roads. The move comes as part of an effort to examine how the car manufacturer’s advanced technology can be integrated into the local driving environment, with full support from the ministry.
The trials will focus on Tesla’s Fully Self-Driving (FSD) system, a supervised autonomous driving platform. Under the terms of the approval, a driver must remain present in the vehicle at all times to supervise the system, despite its autonomous capabilities. This ensures safety while allowing the technology to be tested in real-world conditions.
The Ministry of Transport described the approval as a significant step toward advancing vehicle regulation in Israel. Officials said the initiative aims to create a regulatory framework that will allow for the routine, supervised use of autonomous driving systems in the future, safely and efficiently.
Tesla will use the trials to assess how the FSD system interacts with Israel’s road infrastructure, traffic patterns, and local driving behaviors. Data collected during the experiment will help refine the system and inform potential regulatory updates to accommodate autonomous vehicles.
The ministry emphasized that the pilot program is limited in scope and strictly monitored. It noted that all necessary safety protocols are in place and that public safety remains the top priority throughout the testing period.
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Reopening of Gaza’s Rafah Crossing Expected Monday, Officials Say
An aid truck moves on a road after entering Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, February 1, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Gaza’s main border crossing in Rafah will reopen for Palestinians on Monday, Israel said, with preparations underway at the war-ravaged enclave’s main gateway that has been largely shut for almost two years.
Before the war, the Rafah border crossing with Egypt was the only direct exit point for most Gazans to reach the outside world as well as a key entry point for aid into the territory. It has been largely shut since May 2024 and under Israeli military control on the Gazan side.
COGAT, the Israeli military unit that oversees humanitarian coordination, said the crossing will reopen in both directions for Gaza residents on foot only and its operation will be coordinated with Egypt and the European Union.
“Today, a pilot is underway to test and assess the operation of the crossing. The movement of residents in both directions, entry and exit to and from Gaza, is expected to begin tomorrow,” COGAT said in a statement.
A Palestinian official and a European source close to the EU mission confirmed the details. The Egyptian foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
STRICT SECURITY CHECKS
Israel has said the crossing would open under stringent security checks only for Palestinians who wish to leave the war-ravaged enclave and for those who fled the fighting in the first months of the war to return.
Many of those expected to leave are sick and wounded Gazans in need of medical care abroad. The Palestinian health ministry has said that there are 20,000 patients waiting to leave Gaza.
An Israeli defense official said that the crossing can hold between 150-200 people altogether in both directions. There will be more people leaving than returning because patients leave together with escorts, the official added.
“(The Rafah crossing) is the lifeline for us, the patients. We don’t have the resources to be treated in Gaza,” said Moustafa Abdel Hadi, a kidney patient in a central Gaza hospital, awaiting a transplant abroad.
“If the war impacted a healthy person by 1 percent, it has impacted us 200 percent,” he said, sitting as he received dialysis treatment at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. His travel request, he said, has been approved.
Two Egyptian officials said that at least 50 Palestinian patients will be processed on Sunday to cross Rafah into Egypt for treatment. In the first few days around 200 people, patients and their family members, will cross daily into Egypt, the officials said, with 50 people returning to Gaza per day.
Lists of Gazans set to pass through the crossing have been submitted by Egypt and approved by Israel, the official said.
NEXT PHASE OF TRUMP’S GAZA PLAN
Reopening the border crossing was a key requirement of the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the Israel-Hamas war.
But the ceasefire, which came into effect in October after two years of fighting, has been repeatedly shaken by rounds of violence.
On Saturday, Israel launched some of its most intense airstrikes since the ceasefire, killing at least 30 people, in what it said was a response to a Hamas violation of the truce on Friday when militants emerged from a tunnel in Rafah.
The next phases of Trump’s plan for Gaza foresee governance being handed to Palestinian technocrats, Hamas laying down its weapons and Israeli troops withdrawing from the territory while an international force keeps the peace and Gaza is rebuilt.
Hamas has so far rejected disarmament and Israel has repeatedly indicated that if the Islamist terrorist group is not disarmed peacefully, it will use force to make it do so.