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David Strathairn plays historic Holocaust witness Jan Karski in PBS’s ‘Remember This’
(JTA) — As a Roman Catholic in Warsaw during World War II, Jan Karski could easily have ignored the horrors unfolding behind the walls of the Jewish ghetto. Instead, as a member of the Polish Resistance, he donned a yellow Star of David and infiltrated the Warsaw Ghetto to report on what was happening to the Jews there.
Karski’s reconnaissance in the ghetto and elsewhere provided the West with some of the first eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust. He even met with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1943 to share what he saw — though the information he provided did not cause Roosevelt to intervene more strongly.
Karski died in 2000 at 86 and posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ top honor. But he is hardly a household name in the country he adopted as a home, despite his singular role in history.
The producers of a one-man show about Karski hope that will change starting Monday night, when a staging of “Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski” airs on PBS as part of the broadcaster’s “Great Performances” series. Karski is played by David Straitharn, an award-winning actor who specializes in portraying historical figures.
“Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski,” by Clark Young and Derek Goldman, first premiered in 2019 at Georgetown University, where Karski was a professor until he retired in 1984. During the height of the pandemic in 2020, the play was turned into a black-and-white film, directed by Goldman and Jeff Hutchens, shot over six days on a soundstage in Brooklyn.
The PBS pickup will give the play its biggest audience yet, and its premiere on Monday night is followed by a companion documentary, “Remembering Jan Karski.” The documentary is produced by WNET Group’s “Exploring Hate,” a multi-platform reporting initiative about the roots and rise of hate in America and around the world.
“We have the artists’ hope that with more visibility and more impact, that at least some kind of awareness can happen, but it’s daunting and the dangers of just preaching to the converted are real,” Goldman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “That’s why I’m hoping that PBS and this ‘Exploring Hate’ series can widen the awareness of Karski.”
Strathairn has portrayed Karski since the play’s first staged reading in 2014 as part of Karski’s centennial celebration.
Straithairn is known for his portrayals of historical figures, including of Edward R. Murrow, the American newsman who broadcast from Europe during World War II, in 2005’s “Good Night, and Good Luck” and as the voice of Roosevelt in 2017’s “Darkest Hour,” about England’s handling of the lead-up to the war.
“The reception far exceeded our expectation, in terms of many people who knew and were close to Karski, feeling that David had tapped something very profound and very deep about Karski,” Goldman told JTA. “People said it was like he had risen from the grave.”
Goldman, who teaches at Georgetown, never met Karski. But the play was informed by hundreds of former colleagues and students, in addition to Karski’s own memoir and interviews.
“Part of why I think the Karski story has been such a gift to explore is that it’s a story about allyship. It’s about bearing witness across difference. It’s about individual responsibility for the world. It’s about our human tendency to deny,” said Goldman.
That relevance is why Goldman considers “Remember This” a current events piece, even though most of it took place 80 years ago. This April is the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the longest sustained battle of resistance against the Nazis that took place in the same location Karski had infiltrated just months earlier.
Even all these years after Karski first sounded the alarm, people still deny the Holocaust happened. Goldman knows those people aren’t likely to tune into Great Performances, but he’s determined to try and reach those who need to hear Karski’s message.
“My interest is always in the immediacy and the present,” Goldman said. “I think one of the things theater does well, and has for thousands of years, is bring us into a communal space to notice and bear witness to things that are happening in the world, but that we might be complacent about or just in denial about, which of course is a major theme of this work.”
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The post David Strathairn plays historic Holocaust witness Jan Karski in PBS’s ‘Remember This’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel, US condemn Belgium over planned prosecutions tied to Jewish circumcisions
(JTA) — A diplomatic spat erupted on Wednesday after Belgian prosecutors moved to charge two Jewish men tied to ritual circumcisions, prompting Israeli and U.S. officials to accuse Belgium of targeting Jews for practicing their faith.
Gideon Saar, Israel’s minister of foreign affairs, lit into the country in a post on X Wednesday morning, calling the indictments a “scarlet letter on Belgian society.”
“With this act Belgium joins a short and shameful list, together with Ireland, of countries that use criminal law to prosecute Jews for practicing Judaism,” Saar wrote, later calling circumcision a “cornerstone of Jewish faith” and urging the Belgian government to “act immediately and to find a solution.”
Saar’s condemnation was quickly joined by the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, Bill White, who had previously called on Belgium to drop the “ridiculous and antisemitic” investigation of mohels in February.
“This is a shameful stain on Belgium,” White wrote in a post on X. “The prosecution of these religious figures (mohels), one of whom is American, is WRONG and won’t be tolerated. Belgium will be thought of now as anti Semitic by world. Until this is resolved – there is no way around it.”
White, a President Donald Trump appointee who faced criticism for amplifying social media posts by a far-right Belgian political activist convicted of racism and Holocaust denial, added that the “Trump Administration condemns this judicial action” and called on the Belgian government to “work with the Jewish leaders and communities to find a certification solution immediately.”
The condemnation by White and Saar comes after the Antwerp Public Prosecutor’s Office announced that it intends to prosecute two Jewish men on charges related to performing circumcisions, a practice that is required by law to be performed by licensed medical professionals in Belgium.
Last year, Belgian authorities raided multiple sites, including two in Antwerp’s Jewish Quarter, at the beginning of an investigation into illegal circumcisions. Investigators also requested lists of children who had recently been circumcised, according to VRT NWS, the Flemish public broadcaster.
But the sharp criticism by the two leaders was later dismissed by Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot, who wrote in a reply to White’s post that it was “inappropriate to publicly criticize a country and tarnish its image simply because you disagree with judicial proceedings.”
“I recall that the proceedings in question were initiated by representatives of the Jewish community themselves,” Prévot continued. “To portray those as a country’s desire to undermine the religious freedom of Jews is defamatory. This freedom has never been called into question and never will be in our country. Our Constitution protects it. And it is not for an ambassador to dictate the government’s agenda.”
In response to Saar’s post, Prévot wrote, “Enough with these caricatures.”
“Since you yourself recently urged against conducting diplomacy via Twitter, I suggest that we discuss all these issues during a meeting in Israel at a time that suits you best, in order to put an end to any misinterpretations,” Prévot continued.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Israel, US condemn Belgium over planned prosecutions tied to Jewish circumcisions appeared first on The Forward.
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Rutgers disinvites commencement speaker over tweet claiming Israelis ‘train dogs to sexually assault prisoners’
(JTA) — Administrators at Rutgers University have canceled a commencement speaker scheduled for next week, citing an “inflammatory claim” the speaker tweeted about Israel.
Rami Elghandour, a Rutgers alumnus and a producer of an Oscar-nominated docudrama about a Palestinian girl who died in Gaza, was set to deliver the speech at the university’s School of Engineering on May 15. But the university, New Jersey’s public flagship, rescinded the invitation on Wednesday.
The Associated Press was the first to report that Elghandour’s invitation had been rescinded and that the university said social media posts about Israel were the cause.
To the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a university representative specifically cited an April 20 tweet by Elghandour that accuses Israel of genocide and says the Israelis are “running dungeons where they train dogs to sexually assault prisoners.”
The tweet was a response to a post from California Rep. Ro Khanna advocating for cutting U.S. aid to Israel, which was itself a response to a post by AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby that has become a bogeyman in U.S. politics. The unsubstantiated claim that Israel trains dogs to assault prisoners has circulated widely in recent weeks among some pro-Palestinian activists.
“The Rutgers School of Engineering was recently informed that some graduating students would not attend their graduation ceremony due to concerns about the invited speaker’s social media posts, including one that shared an inflammatory claim,” Dory Devlin, a representative for Rutgers University, told JTA in an email. “After discussing these concerns with the speaker, the School of Engineering has rescinded the convocation speaker invitation to Rami Elghandour.”
Elghandour, who owns a biotech company and was an executive producer for the award-winning documentary “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” declined through a spokesperson to respond to a JTA request for comment. The spokesperson pointed to his statement on social media, where he disparaged the school’s decision.
“After a ‘few’ students complained about my selection as speaker because of my social media advocacy for Palestine, Rutgers has canceled my speech,” Elghandour wrote. “They decided that the feelings of a handful of students who said that my social media posts ‘opposed their beliefs’, were more important than the experience of the entire graduating class, the reputation of the school, the dignity and belonging of Arab and Muslim students, and the First Amendment.”
In addition to executive-producing “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” Elghandour was also a producer on the film “American Doctor,” about three physicians — including a Palestinian and a Jew — who traveled to Gaza to aid civilians there.
Rutgers University Hillel, the campus Jewish group that also engages students around Israel, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rutgers settled a federal civil rights investigation into its handling of antisemitism in January 2025. It agreed to update its anti-discrimination policies as investigators were poised to find that the school did not protect Jewish students from antisemitism in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.
The incident adds to a string of dustups over Israel at commencements this year and in the past. The University of Michigan’s president apologized after faculty senate chair Derek Peterson praised pro-Palestinian student protesters during his speech on Saturday; Elghandour shared several posts in defense of Peterson’s speech.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Rutgers disinvites commencement speaker over tweet claiming Israelis ‘train dogs to sexually assault prisoners’ appeared first on The Forward.
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London Police Set Up Specialist Jewish Protection Team
A police officer stands at the scene, after a man was arrested following a stabbing incident in the Golders Green area, which is home to a large Jewish population, in London, Britain, April 29, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Hannah McKay
British police are setting up a new team of 100 officers including counter terrorism specialists to help protect Jewish communities across London after a series of antisemitic attacks including the stabbing of two men.
The plan announced on Wednesday for a dedicated protection team comes as officers announced more arrests for antisemitism, including detaining a 35-year-old man on Saturday after rocks were thrown at an ambulance belonging to the Jewish community.
London‘s top police boss Mark Rowley said Jewish communities were facing “sustained threats” from hostile state actors as well as extreme right-wing groups, elements of the extreme left, and Islamist terrorists.
Detectives are examining whether the arson incidents have possible Iranian links, after British security officials warned that Iran was using criminal proxies to carry out hostile activity.
Since late March, there have been a number of high-profile arson attacks with four Jewish ambulances burned and synagogues targeted. Last week, two Jewish men were also stabbed. Both victims survived the attack.
Over the past four weeks, police said they had arrested around 50 people for antisemitic hate crimes and charged eight individuals. On top of that, 28 arrests have been made as part of investigations alongside counter terrorism policing for arson and other serious incidents.
“This new team will be primarily focused on protecting the Jewish community, which faces some of the highest levels of hate crime alongside significant terrorist and hostile state threats,” said a statement from London‘s Metropolitan Police force.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer convened a meeting on Monday with business, health and cultural leaders aimed at trying to tackle antisemitism.