Uncategorized
Dublin’s National Concert Hall scraps fundraiser for Israeli emergency service, igniting outcry
(JTA) — The National Concert Hall in Dublin has drawn condemnation from the head of Israel’s emergency medical service, Magen David Adom, after it canceled a planned fundraiser for the organization.
The event, which was slated for May 11, was set to include a play featuring testimonies from survivors and first responders of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. It was organized as a fundraiser for Israel’s national emergency medical service by Magen David Adom Ireland, an Irish charity that raises funds for the organization.
Arrangements for the event were made in early February and have since been canceled and reinstated once before, according to Magen David Adom Ireland.
After initially cancelling the event last month, the National Concert Hall told Irish outlet Hot Press that it had been dropped because the venue “does not host political events,” but that it was later reinstated following what it described as a misunderstanding.
The National Concert Hall said in response to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency inquiry that “the proposed event with MDA Ireland on 11 May will not proceed.” The organizers did not respond to a request for comment on the reasoning behind the cancellation.
Irish pro-Palestinian groups had urged their followers to protest the reinstatement, alleging that Magen David Adom was “complicit in genocide.”
Magen David Adom, recognized as the International Red Cross’ affiliate in Israel, is staffed by and serves Israeli Arabs as well as Jews. In 2023, Ireland’s National Ambulance Service sent a delegation to Israel to study the organization’s operations of Magen David Adom.
Last November, the nonprofit hosted another fundraiser at the Chabad house in Dublin, which focused on “positive relations between Arabs and Jews in Israel, including examples of cooperation and solidarity following the October 7 attacks,” according to Nadav Matzner, a spokesperson for Magen David Adom.
The cancellation drew swift condemnation from Gilad Erdan, the global president of Magen David Adom and the former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, who called it “antisemitic” and an example of “censorship tainted by bad faith and ignorance.” He called on the venue to reverse the decision again.
“By canceling and censoring the event, NCH has made a political decision to stop a presentation of a factual depiction of the atrocities of October 7 in the words of survivors and responders and is also depriving Israelis of all backgrounds of the benefit of vital aid for humanitarian life saving services,” Erdan said in a statement.
The cancellation was also decried by Alan Shatter, the chair of Magen David Adom Ireland, who wrote in a post on X that the decision was “truly disgraceful and shocking.”
“A private fund raising event for an independent humanitarian organisation dedicated to life saving & emergency medical response connected to the Jewish community should not be a cause of difficulty or controversy,” Shatter wrote. “I am calling on the Board of the NCH to reinstate our event and for the resignation of those who saw fit to cancel it. The lack of insight and understanding is truly shocking.”
Shatter said the decision also added to an “escalating global perception of Ireland as one of the most antisemitic countries in Europe.”
Ireland has historically supported Palestinians in their conflict with Israel, a stance that can be traced to the country’s own history of British imperial rule. Last month, Ireland’s Jewish community, which numbers roughly 2,200, reported that there had been 143 antisemitic incidents within six months of launching a new communal reporting system.
Ann McElhinney, the co-writer of the play, “October 7,” which was slated to be performed during the event, also criticized the decision, writing in a post on X, “It seems there is no room in Ireland for the truth about Israel.”
“This is hugely damaging to Ireland’s reputation as a home for art and artists,” Mcelhinney continued. “What a statement this makes! OCTOBER 7 has Jewish and Arab voices. The National Concert Hall has told them: we don’t want to hear your stories. It’s shameful but will not be allowed to stand. We will bring the OCTOBER 7 play to Ireland.”
The cancellation of the event comes months after Amsterdam’s Royal Concert Hall called off a planned Hanukkah concert featuring Shai Abramson, the IDF’s chief cantor, in November. The venue initially canceled the performance, citing the “IDF’s active involvement in a controversial war,” before later reversing course and allowing Abramson to perform in separate private concerts.
In October, Irish voters elected Catherine Connolly, a left-wing politician who has sharply criticized Israel in parliament and faced backlash for comments defending Hamas, as president.
In May 2023, Connolly questioned Ireland’s minister of health about the decision for Ireland’s National Ambulance Service to visit Israel to meet with Magen David Adom, asking “whether such a visit was appropriate” in context to reports of “repeated attacks by Israeli forces on Palestinian emergency relief rescuers and health personnel as well as numerous attacks by illegal Israeli settlers on Palestinian ambulance cars with the acquiescence and support of Israeli security forces.”
The Irish minister of health at the time defended the meeting, writing in response that it “does not in any way run contrary to Ireland’s principled position on the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
The post Dublin’s National Concert Hall scraps fundraiser for Israeli emergency service, igniting outcry appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
With a Kennedy Center honor under Trump, David Mamet enters his final, tragic act
There was a time when David Mamet being honored at the Kennedy Center wouldn’t have raised eyebrows.
His contributions to American theater and film transcend an affinity for four letter words (let’s call them “the F— Variations”). His tough-talking, desperate men gave splenetic voice to the indignities of a capitalist system in Glengarry Glen Ross, evolving sexual mores in Sexual Perversity in Chicago and, in a movie like The Verdict, the justice system.
Cut to 2026 and Mamet’s scripts are but an afterthought to his grievance. When he makes headlines now, it’s for his reactionary conservative streak and his role as a partisan in the culture war. Together with a run of flops, numbering a Harvey Weinstein #MeToo comedy and a Broadway show not even Al Pacino could save, his esteem has cratered among the liberal circles that once embraced him, and to which he once belonged but now prefers to eviscerate.
He has made the transition from dramatist to pundit, first at HuffPost, lately at The Free Press. Reading too much into Oleanna, perhaps, he has called teachers pedophiles on Fox News, written screeds on cancel culture and, a prerequisite for the Kennedys at this moment, praised President Donald Trump.
In the honor, there is a strain of tragedy. Mamet has strayed so far from where he started — what he called his “brain-dead liberal” era — that he makes perfect sense for this appointment, under a regime that tried to slap its leader’s name onto a tribute to a slain president meant as a bipartisan shrine to art. (Due to the Center’s closure amid turmoil and legal battles, the ceremonies will take place at the Capital One Arena, which is only too perfectly bleak.)
A younger Mamet would have looked askance at such a figure as our current Commander-in-Chief, a character who is on the make with all sorts of half-baked schemes. The Iran War may be his latest play on a Buffalo nickel.
It’s enough to make one wonder if we’ve been misreading Mamet all along. Are the men breaking-and entering to steal the Glengarry leads meant to be admired? Are the Hollywood sleazes in Speed-the-Plow aspirational? Is Al Capone the real hero of The Untouchables?
Perhaps the evening, which tends to include career retrospectives, will elucidate. But if the Kennedy Honors could once be said to be for closers, it may now be only for a particular kind of sellout.
The post With a Kennedy Center honor under Trump, David Mamet enters his final, tragic act appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Why is Britney Spears studying Hebrew?
It’s Britney, Yitz!
Continuing a curious social media trend that has previously seen appreciation for the beards of chess-playing Chabadniks and the Zohar hidden among baby clothes, Britney Spears took to Instagram Sunday to post a Hebrew Book of Psalms and the Lekutei Amaraim, or Tanya, a Hasidic book of sayings.
The caption reads: “I’m extremely bored !!! Learning Hebrew reading right to left !!! Beautiful language !!!” (A previous caption, posted Sunday, was more cryptic, concluding “God speed little man !!! I love u !!!,” perhaps indicating the presence of a havruta or someone in her life who keeps his mitzvot.)
What exactly is happening here? Is Spears, like Marilyn before her and Sydney Sweeney now, about to dip her toe into the mikveh?
The best clue we have isn’t from Spears’ page, but from Israeli model Natalie Dadon, who tagged the “Hit Me Baby One More Time” singer in a selfie with the Tanya. “Finally, it’s possible to tell,” Dadon posted, in a gallery with Hebrew language news coverage of the posts. Dadon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Dadon’s social media presence involves Tanya study, which itself is a cornerstone to Lubavitch philosophy (so perhaps is connected to the Chabad chess players whose beards Spears so admired) and adjacent to Kabbalah.
Spears is no stranger to Jewish subjects. Around the time she locked lips with Madonna at the 2003 VMAs, she started, like so many others, to look into Kabbalah, as this handy timeline from Hey Alma notes. She has a Hebrew tattoo of letters that signify healing in kabbalistic texts and was apparently once attached to star in a Holocaust-time-travel-romance film called The Yellow Star of Sophia and Eton, which now that I’ve heard of it I will never shut up about.
She has credited Kabbalah with helping her through a difficult time in her life and has been spotted wearing a star of David.
But we should approach Spears’ dalliance with Judaism, now sandwiched on her Insta page between a call-out of her sister Jamie Lynn and a NSFW video of her dancing with a rose Emoji as a fig leaf, with some healthy skepticism.
Her Instagram bio currently reads “Pray Every Day” with a prayer hands emoji next to a Bible emoji with a cross. She’d still appear to be Christian — or, at the very least, waiting for the new iOS update with the Tanya emoji.
The post Why is Britney Spears studying Hebrew? appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Haley Stevens cheered at Jewish day school after endorsing GOP Senate candidate
(JTA) — Democratic Michigan U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens was given an extended ovation at a fundraising gala for a Detroit-area Jewish day school Sunday, hours after her endorsement of Republican Mike Rogers for Senate.
Stevens, a longtime pro-Israel stalwart, was celebrated at the Yeshiva Beth Yehudah annual dinner as many members of her party across the country spoke out against her decision to break with Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed.
Video of Stevens’ minute-long standing ovation was shared on social media by representatives of Agudath Israel of America, a major Orthodox advocacy group. Strongly pro-Israel Jews have largely lauded her move to Rogers, which she said came about in part because of her objections to El-Sayed’s past relationship with anti-Israel streamer Hasan Piker.
Also on Sunday evening, Stevens struggled to explain the timing of her decision in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. One consistency in her response was her belief that she was helping Democrats beat back antisemitism within their own party.
“I’m trying to help the Democratic Party. I felt the same way about Graham Platner and his Nazi tattoo,” Stevens said, referencing the Maine Senate candidate who ultimately stepped down from the nomination. Asked if she believed El-Sayed is antisemitic, she responded, “I think some of the actions have certainly been antisemitic, Anderson, but I’m just sick of who he stands with.”
She named Piker and “the uncle,” referring to Piker’s uncle Cenk Uygur, whose PAC produced an ad supporting El-Sayed that blamed Israel for the price of groceries. After Stevens publicly pressured El-Sayed to condemn the ad’s contents, the candidate appeared to do so on Saturday night, which Stevens celebrated in a statement — hours before endorsing Rogers.
To Cooper, Stevens suggested that many other Democrats felt the way she did.
“I’ve been hearing from a ton of Dems, Anderson, who have said, ‘Thank you. This is how we felt.’ They haven’t liked this campaign. It’s painful,” she said. A growing number of Michigan Jewish Democrats have pledged to vote for Rogers, though more than 1,000 have also signed a letter pledging to vote for El-Sayed.
Yeshiva Beth Yehudah is spread across multiple suburban Detroit campuses and is the largest Jewish day school in the state. Its annual fundraising dinner, “An Evening of Unity,” is known for drawing big national names in politics and the media, usually from both major parties.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, was the evening’s keynote speaker, and the gala program also featured personal letters from President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
But it was Stevens, a regular supporter of the school, who turned the most heads. She was also presented with what the emcee called “a specially designed, illuminated book of the five scrolls of our prophets, which remind you all of our heartfelt esteem and appreciation for who you are.”
The yeshiva’s leadership also extended warm wishes to Stevens’ Jewish fiancé, Democratic megadonor Jason Turkish, whom the yeshiva’s emcee described as “our dear friend.” Turkish’s own endorsement of Rogers came days before the congresswoman’s.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Haley Stevens cheered at Jewish day school after endorsing GOP Senate candidate appeared first on The Forward.
