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Documentary traces Idina Menzel’s rise from bat mitzvah performer to Broadway icon
(JTA) — Before becoming one of the most iconic vocal performers of her time, appearing in Broadway shows such as “Rent” and “Wicked” and voicing Queen Elsa in “Frozen,” Idina Menzel got her start singing as a teenager on the wedding and bar and bat mitzvah circuit near where she grew up on Long Island and other parts of the New York area.
“It was everything to me, formatively,” Menzel told JTA in an interview, of her early singing experiences. “I believe… that that had a lot to do with my education in music and genres, but also as a performer. I was so young when I did it… I would lie about my age, I would be 15 or 16 years old and I’d dress all mature and go in in high heels. I would usually be the only woman in a group of six guys.”
In the new documentary “Idina Menzel: Which Way to the Stage,” which had its world premiere in mid-November at the DOC NYC film festival and lands on Disney+ on Friday, Menzel discusses those experiences, even returning to the main venue where she used to perform at weddings and bar mitzvahs (the Inn at Fox Hollow in Woodbury, New York). The film also shows Menzel in Pittsburgh in the immediate aftermath of the Tree of Life massacre and shows her sharing her thoughts on it as a Jewish person.
The film, directed by Anne McCabe, follows Menzel’s 2018 arena tour, along with Josh Groban, which culminated in Menzel fulfilling her lifelong dream of headlining Madison Square Garden. It combines concerts with intimate behind-the-scenes moments, as well as archival footage from Menzel’s early life and throughout her career.
“When I heard that the tour was going to culminate at Madison Square Garden, I realized that it was a dream come true — it was a place that I’d always wanted to play, growing up on Long Island, and living in New York City, at NYU and beyond that,” Menzel said. “The fact that I was going to be playing there was a big deal, and I wanted to film it, no matter what I did with the footage, I know I just wanted to document it for myself, so I could take that in and really just appreciate the moment.”
As is often the case with documentaries, the film evolved a bit from its original purpose.
The film follows Menzel during a 2018 tour. (Eric Maldin/Walkman Productions Inc.)
“In the process of filming it… it revealed itself in a different way. It became not just a tour documentary going city to city, but more about motherhood, and how we balance trying to pursue our passion and our dreams and also being there for our family,” she said. “That was a welcome surprise in the process.”
The documentary shows Menzel with her then-preteen son — from her previous marriage to Taye Diggs — and her husband, actor Aaron Lohr, while going through the process of in vitro fertilization.
The tour that the film follows arrived in Pittsburgh about two weeks after the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue massacre, and Menzel is shown singing the “Rent” number “No Day But Today” to a crowd at Pittsburgh’s PPG Paints Arena. (Menzel more recently wrote and performed a song called “A Tree of Life,” which was featured in the closing credits of a recent HBO documentary about the tragedy and its aftermath.)
In that part of the film, Menzel wears a shirt with a Jewish star that says “Stronger Than Hate.”
“That show was all about tolerance,” Menzel says of “Rent” in the film, while on stage in Pittsburgh. “It was about love, it was about community… I’m sitting here in this beautiful city, a Jewish girl from Long Island. I thought about how we light candles in the Jewish religion, sort of choosing light over darkness, choosing love over bigotry.”
“That particular concert is now tragically defined but what had happened in Pittsburgh, and I felt like I couldn’t ignore that, and I felt like that song was the right song for the moment, and that there was any way I could use my music to help heel then I wanted to do it,” she told JTA.
The documentary also looks back at Menzel’s entire career, from breaking through in the original production of “Rent” in the mid-1990s (the “which way to the stage” subtitle, as “Rent”-heads will know, is a reference to what was Menzel’s very first line in that musical), to an ill-fated run at a pop career, to her second big musical smash, “Wicked,” which landed on Broadway in 2003. Viewers also get the story of the “Frozen” phenomenon and its Menzel-performed torch song “Let it Go,” as well as other notable episodes — such as the time John Travolta mispronounced her name at the Oscars in 2014. (Menzel finds the whole thing hilarious.)
The COVID-19 pandemic was not the only obstacle in getting the documentary, which was mostly filmed four years ago, to the finish line. Menzel said in a post-screening Q&A at DOC NYC that because the documentary ended up on Disney+ and she is the voice of Queen Elsa, some curse words had to be taken out, as did a scene where she clutches a bottle of wine.
“I lost the funding at one point, and so I bought [the film] back,” Menzel said. “I wanted to find people that really believed in it and were going to creatively do right by it. I gambled on myself, which I try to do, and try to make a point of it. I’m just so happy that it’s come to fruition.”
The singer has spoken often about her admiration for another prominent Jewish singer and actress, Barbra Streisand. In her JTA interview, she praised the way Streisand “embraces her Judaism.” In the film, Menzel sings “Don’t Rain on My Parade” from “Funny Girl, the 1968 movie version that starred Streisand.
“I love her because she’s her. There’s no one else like her, and always aspired to be her unique true self. She didn’t change herself for anyone else. I also feel like, from a vocalist’s perspective, her talent is insurmountable. The way she sings, it feels like it’s just coming directly from her soul, it feels effortless. The way she tells the story through her singing, that I don’t think anyone else has.”
Menzel’s career is about to come full circle, with another bar/bat mitzvah-related performance: she is set to co-star in “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” a Netflix movie adapted from the young adult novel by Fiona Rosenbloom and directed by Sammi Cohen. The film will reunite Menzel with Adam Sandler, who played her husband in 2019’s “Uncut Gems” and will do so again in the new movie. (Menzel also brought up her character’s bat mitzvah in that very Jewish-themed film by the Safdie brothers.)
“We were much more dysfunctional in that movie,” Menzel said of “Uncut Gems”.
“You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah” does not have a release date but is expected to arrive sometime in 2023. For now, she’s reveling in the documentary.
“It was just such a joy because I got to look back on it… I got to see myself as a little girl again,” Menzel said. “How I always believed in myself, even more so than maybe I do now. There was no one who was going to tell me that I wasn’t going to live my dream one day. I believed that I had something to offer the world, and so it was really emotional for me to see.”
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US Officials Tell i24NEWS Israeli Concerns About Gaza Board of Peace Are ‘Unfounded’
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump is interviewed by Reuters White House correspondent Steve Holland (not pictured) during an exclusive interview in the Oval Office in the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 14, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo
i24 News – Amid the criticism in Israel over the composition of the “Board of Peace” and the bodies set to govern the Gaza Strip, as well as concerns that Hamas could continue to threaten Israel under the new plan, officials in Washington suggest these concerns are unfounded, i24NEWS understands.
A Senior US official tells i24NEWS: “Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt were instrumental in achieving the ceasefire, securing the return of the living hostages, and bringing back the deceased. They have co-signed commitments that Hamas will follow through on its part of the plan, and the Board of Peace will work with them to ensure compliance.”
The underlying message is clear: President Trump will make the calls, and the US will ensure full implementation of all objectives of the plan, first and foremost the demilitarization of Gaza, regardless of the positions or hostile statements towards Israel coming from Turkey and Qatar.
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One Person Killed, 14 Hurt in Blast in Iranian Port of Bandar Abbas, Iranian Media Reports
FILE PHOTO: An aerial view of the Iranian shores and Port of Bandar Abbas in the strait of Hormuz, December 10, 2023. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo
At least one person was killed and 14 injured in an explosion in the southern Iranian port of Bandar Abbas on Saturday, a local official told Iranian news agencies, but the cause of the blast was not known.
The semi-official Tasnim news agency said that social media reports alleging that a Revolutionary Guard navy commander had been targeted in the explosion were “completely false.”
Iranian media said the blast was under investigation but provided no further information. Iranian authorities could not immediately be contacted for comment.
Separately, four people were killed after a gas explosion in the city of Ahvaz near the Iraqi border, according to state-run Tehran Times. No further information was immediately available.
Two Israeli officials told Reuters that Israel was not involved in Saturday’s blasts, which come amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington over Iran’s crackdown on nationwide protests and over the country’s nuclear program.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
US President Donald Trump said on January 22 an “armada” was heading toward Iran. Multiple sources said on Friday that Trump was weighing options against Iran that include targeted strikes on security forces.
Earlier on Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian accused US, Israeli and European leaders of exploiting Iran’s economic problems, inciting unrest and providing people with the means to “tear the nation apart.”
Bandar Abbas, home to Iran’s most important container port, lies on the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway between Iran and Oman which handles about a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil.
The port suffered a major explosion last April that killed dozens and injured over 1,000 people. An investigative committee at the time blamed the blast on shortcomings in adherence to principles of civil defense and security.
Iran has been rocked by nationwide protests that erupted in December over economic hardship and have posed one of the toughest challenges to the country’s clerical rulers.
At least 5,000 people were killed in the protests, including 500 members of the security forces, an Iranian official told Reuters.
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How a law used to protect synagogues is now being deployed against ICE protesters and journalists
After a pro-Palestinian protest at a New Jersey synagogue turned violent in October, the Trump administration took an unusual step — using a federal law typically aimed at protecting abortion clinics to sue the demonstrators.
Now, federal authorities are attempting to deploy the same law against journalists as well as protesters against Immigration and Customs Enforcement amid the agency’s at times violent crackdown in Minneapolis.
Former CNN anchor Don Lemon, a local journalist, and two protesters were arrested after attending a Jan. 18 anti-ICE protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, Justice Department officials said Friday. Protesters alleged the pastor at Cities Church worked for ICE.
The federal law they are accused of violating, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE, prohibits the use of force or intimidation to interfere with reproductive health care clinics and houses of worship.
But in the three decades since its passage in 1994, the law had almost entirely been deployed against anti-abortion protesters causing disruptions at clinics.
That changed in September of last year, when the Trump administration cited the FACE Act to sue pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Congregation Ohr Torah in West Orange, New Jersey.
It was the first time the Department of Justice had used the law against demonstrators outside a house of worship, Harmeet Dhillon, an assistant attorney general for the department’s civil rights division, said at the time.
The novel legal strategy — initially advanced by Jewish advocacy groups to fight antisemitism — is now front and center in what First Amendment advocates are describing as an attack on freedom of the press.
“I intend to identify and find every single person in that mob that interrupted that church service in that house of God and bring them to justice,” Dhillon told Newsmax last week. “And that includes so-called ‘journalists.’”
How the law has been used
The FACE Act has traditionally been used to prosecute protesters who interfere with patients entering abortion clinics. Conservative activists have long criticized the law as violating demonstrators’ First Amendment rights, and the Trump administration even issued a memo earlier this month saying the Justice Department should limit enforcement of the law.
But in September, the Trump administration applied the FACE Act in a new way: suing the New Jersey protesters at Congregation Ohr Torah.
They had disrupted an event at the Orthodox shul that promoted real estate sales in Israel and the West Bank, blowing plastic horns in people’s ears and chanting “globalize the intifada,” a complaint alleges.
Two pro-Israel demonstrators were charged by local law enforcement with aggravated assault, including a local dentist, Moshe Glick, who police said bashed a protester in the head with a metal flashlight, sending him to the hospital. Glick said he had acted in self defense, protecting a fellow congregant who had been tackled by a protester.
The event soon became a national flashpoint, with Glick’s lawyer alleging the prosecution had been “an attempt to criminalize Jewish self-defense.” Former New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy pardoned Glick earlier this month.
The Trump administration sued the pro-Palestinian protesters under the FACE Act, seeking to ban them from protesting outside houses of worship and asking that they each pay thousands of dollars in fines.
At the time, Nathan Diament, executive director of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, told JNS he applauded the Trump administration “for bringing this suit to protect the Jewish community and all people of faith, who have the constitutional right to worship without fear of harassment.”
Diament did not respond to the Forward’s email asking whether he supported the use of the FACE Act against the Minneapolis journalists and protesters.
Mark Goldfeder, CEO of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, a pro-Israel group that says it uses legal tools to counter antisemitism, did not express concern over the use of the FACE Act in the Minnesota arrests — and emphasized the necessity of protecting religious spaces from interference.
“The idea that ‘you can worship’ means nothing if a mob can make it unsafe or impossible,” Goldfeder wrote in a statement to the Forward. “So if you apply it consistently: to protect a church in Minnesota, a synagogue in New Jersey, a mosque in Detroit, what you are actually protecting is pluralism itself.”
Goldfeder has also attempted to use the FACE Act against protesters at a synagogue, citing the law in a July 2024 complaint against demonstrators who had converged on an event promoting Israel real estate at Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles. That clash descended into violence.
The Trump administration Justice Department subsequently filed a statement of interest supporting that case, arguing that what constituted “physical obstruction” at a house of worship under the FACE Act could be interpreted broadly.
Now, similar legal reasoning may apply to journalists covering the Sunday church protest in Minneapolis. Press freedom groups have expressed deep alarm over the arrests, arguing that the journalists were there to document, not disrupt.
The arrests are “the latest example of the administration coming up with far-fetched ‘gotcha’ legal theories to send a message to journalists to tread cautiously,” said Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation. “Because the government is looking for any way to target them.”
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