Uncategorized
How I learned to laugh at neo-Nazis
I write about a lot of Jewish movies and TV across a big range — shows that examine different valences of Jewish identity, like Long Story Short, or that explore Hasidic life, like Shtisel. But there’s one common genre that ticks me off: The dire warning.
This is a common form of Jewishly-inflected media that crosses my desk. Maybe it’s a Holocaust movie or TV show. Maybe it’s about modern antisemitism. Maybe it’s about neo-Nazis. But the intent of all of them is clear, namely, to warn the public about the rise of extremist ideology. “We should all be very worried!” they scream at the audiences. “Nazis are everywhere!”
In Nuremberg, characters observe, in serious tones, that even seemingly normal people can be capable of great evil. Americans, they say, should watch out lest the German hatred arrive on their shores. In shows like A Little Light, about Miep Gies’ heroism in hiding the Frank family, the obvious message is about how everyday people must step up to fight evil Nazis. It’s all painfully heavy-handed.
I agree: We should learn from history, and we should be on alert for rising antisemitism. But this message also gets old. We grow numb to it. If the most effective way to prevent the return of fascism or Nazism was simply telling people “Nazi bad!” then there would never be any issue.
That’s why I was so fascinated when I finally watched One Battle After Another, after it won Best Picture at the Golden Globes and got a slew of Oscar nominations. Much of the movie is in fact a satire of Christian nationalism and its connection to Nazi ideology. And that satirical lens gives it a sharper, and more compelling, take than most of the movies on that topic I’ve covered.
The movie opens with the French 75, a leftist group whose exact commitments are hazy beyond a vague stance for immigration and against The Man. After some politica
l actions — freeing immigrants at a detention center while whooping “Viva la revolución!” — they end up disbanding when a raid goes wrong. The movie picks back up years later with former French 75 explosives expert Pat (DiCaprio) and his now-teenage daughter Charlene (Chase Infiniti), who are living under the assumed identities of Bob and Willa, fearing that an old agent of The Man, Colonel Steven Lockjaw — played to perfection by Sean Penn at his most blusteringly punctilious — might be after them.
As it turns out, he is. See, Lockjaw is trying to join the Christmas Adventurers Club, a group of elite white supremacists and Christian nationalists — each member seems to be part of the billionaire class — dedicated to making the world “safe and pure.” Part of the interview process for Lockjaw involves swearing that he is “American-born by gentile” and never had an interracial relationship. But he has — he had an affair with Willa’s mother, a Black revolutionary member of the French 75. He suspects Willa may be his daughter, not Bob’s, and if she is, she could give away Lockjaw’s past sins to the Christmas Adventurers Club, who already suspect him of being “soft” in his “duty to racial purification.”
Much of the rest of the movie is a slapstick, absurdist chase. Bob, who has spent the last decade smoking weed and impotently lecturing his daughter, barely remembers his days as Pat the explosives expert. He can’t keep up with the new generation of activists, faceplanting into an alley when he tries to join three teens doing parkour across rooftops.
There’s a lot going on — examinations of masculinity in the military industrial complex, ego and political idealism, aging and activism. And, of course, the Christian nationalism and genteel racism woven into our elite institutions.
But One Battle After Another does not make a didactic parallel to the Christian nationalists in our current government; we don’t see a character, for example, brushing off praise for Hitler, as JD Vance did, or pleading for Norway to send us immigrants instead of “shithole countries” like Somalia, as Donald Trump just did. Instead, the Christmas Adventurers Club is simultaneously dizzyingly malevolent and completely ludicrous. Their solemn greeting is, “All hail Saint Nick.” A motherly figure offers banana pancakes to members as they march off to their clubhouse, as though they’re going to an adult Boy Scouts meeting not planning a murder. The secret knock to their underground bunker is tapped to the rhythm of “Jingle Bells.” Their statement of belief feels both true to the core of white supremacy, and completely, obviously unhinged: Members of the club are, they say, “superior to other human beings.”
The power of a movie or a book is that it lets someone explore and inhabit ideas through the story and characters. If you’re so worried that an audience will miss the intended message that you rush to tell them what it is, you end up preventing them from having the chance to really understand what the work is saying, or consider the questions it’s posing and come to their own conclusions. It rushes viewers to the finish line without giving them a chance to engage with the art.
It was a relief to watch One Battle After Another skewer the extremism of its villains, making them palpably freakish instead of just menacingly evil. It’s more effective to undermine an ideology by making it laughably strange than by scolding anyone who dares to agree with it.
Still, in case you missed the idea that the Christmas Adventurers were neo-Nazis, the end of the movie makes it pretty hard to miss. (Here’s your spoiler alert.) Lockjaw is told he has finally gotten approval to join the club, and is given a corner office. As he kicks his feet up on the desk and proudly leans back in his chair, a hissing noise begins; in fact, the club found out about his crime of interracial sin, and, like any good Nazis, they’re gassing him for it.
After all, there’s really no winning with Nazis.
The post How I learned to laugh at neo-Nazis appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Providence voters pass ballot initiative that could lead to divestment of city funds from Israel
(JTA) — Voters in Providence, Rhode Island, have approved a ballot measure that could result in the city divesting public funds from Israel, according to local media, in a major victory for the Israel boycott movement.
In a major victory for the Israel boycott movement, voters in Providence, Rhode Island, have approved a ballot measure that could result in the city divesting public funds from Israel, according to local media.
With 81 of 82 polling locations partially reported, the Rhode Island Board of Elections tallied 75% voting to approve the measure versus 25% rejecting. Both the Rhode Island Current and the Boston Globe report the measure was approved.
“We are overjoyed that the city of Providence has voted — by more than a 3 to 1 margin — to divest our collective dollars from support for genocide and ethnic cleansing,” Lex Rofeberg, who runs the alternative Jewish engagement network Judaism Unbound and was an organizer with the Providence divestment initiative, told JTA. “This historic moment can serve as an example for other cities around the country hoping to align their investments with their values.”
The ordinance calls for the capital city to refrain from investing in “foreign countries conducting ethnic cleansing, apartheid, illegal military occupation, or genocide.” Though the ballot language does not mention Israel by name, it was heavily supported by local pro-Palestinian groups and opposed by some Jewish and pro-Israel groups.
A representative for the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island previously told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the group would explore legal options to challenge the ballot measure in the event that it passed.
The vote makes Providence the largest municipality yet to vote in favor of some form of Israel divestment, following the lead of Somerville, Massachusetts, whose voters approved a nonbinding divestment measure last year. Providence is home to an estimated 15,000 Jews, or around 7% of its population. Progressive Jewish groups, including the local chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, were among the ballot measure’s advocates.
The city’s mayor, Brett Smiley, a pro-Israel Democrat who converted to Judaism while in office, lost his primary to a democratic socialist, an early indicator of which way the divestment vote would go.
Activist initiatives to challenge U.S. financial aid to Israel have picked up steam in the years since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks and ensuing Gaza war. On the morning of Election Day, President Donald Trump, who described aid to Israel as a political liability, announced the U.S. would end nearly $4 billion in annual military aid to Israel by the end of the year.
The post Providence voters pass ballot initiative that could lead to divestment of city funds from Israel appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Republican Lawler concedes to Democrat Conley in fierce battle for Jewish vote in NYC suburbs
(JTA) — Republican congressman Mike Lawler has conceded to Democratic challenger Cait Conley, a former national security official, after competing fiercely for Jewish voters in the lower Hudson Valley of New York.
Lawler has been a staunchly pro-Israel member since joining Congress in 2023, and was endorsed by the Republican Jewish Coalition and the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC.
Conley was endorsed by the pro-Israel group Democratic Majority for Israel, and has said she supports Israel while opposing the Benjamin Netanyahu government.
Lawler, who is Catholic, has deep ties to the district’s large Orthodox Jewish population, and touted their support recently when asked about the neck-and-neck polling.
Both Lawler and Conley have tried tying their opponent to polarizing figures in their respective parties. Lawler has asserted that Conley, a moderate, will not separate herself from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and particularly New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has a lower favorability rating outside the city. Conley denounced Mamdani’s statement on the three-year anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023 attack after Lawler challenged her to do so during a debate.
Conley, meanwhile, has tied Lawler to President Donald Trump, accusing him of being a rubber stamp for Trump’s legislative priorities.
The post Republican Lawler concedes to Democrat Conley in fierce battle for Jewish vote in NYC suburbs appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
In early LA mayoral results, Karen Bass holds slim lead over Nithya Raman, who sparred with DSA on Israel
Early returns in the Los Angeles mayoral election showed incumbent Karen Bass with a slim lead over Councilmember Nithya Raman, whose comments on Israel became a flashpoint in the race.
The first batch of results — totaling about 500,000 votes — showed Bass leading Raman, 50.8% to 49.2%.
The final outcome may not be known until Wednesday or later, a common occurrence in tight California races due to the preponderance of mail-in ballots. Nearly 90% of California voters did so by mail in the June primary.
But if the primary results are any indication, Bass’ lead may evaporate as more votes are counted.
In the June 2 open primary — a system in which the top two vote-getters from any party advance to a runoff — Raman trailed a Republican, Spencer Pratt, by eight points for second place behind Bass. She won the ensuing batches of mail-in ballots, but did not pass Pratt until June 7. She ultimately surpassed him by more than four percentage points.
Raman, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, has clashed with the organization — and frustrated many of her Jewish constituents — while trying to strike a balance on Israel. She has called the war in Gaza a genocide, but declined to adopt the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions platform — a stance that led the DSA to consider expelling her.
Bass, a mainstream Democrat who served six terms in Congress before running for mayor in 2022, entered the race as a historically unpopular incumbent, largely thanks to her response to the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires. Raman endorsed Bass prior to declaring her own candidacy on the last day to enter the race, a move Bass has characterized as a personal betrayal.
The polls swung back and forth in the weeks leading up to the election. Bass, who won most labor endorsements, was leading until September, when one poll sponsored by the Los Angeles Times showed Raman ahead by 11 points with a third of voters still undecided. A follow-up poll by the Times last week showed the two in a dead heat.
Unlike many other DSA candidates up for election across the country on Tuesday, Raman, an urban policy wonk who immigrated to the U.S. from India when she was 6, never made Israel a focal point of her campaign. Instead, she focused more on housing, homelessness and budget policy.
But her membership in the DSA, an interview she granted Hasan Piker during the primary and the genocide comments dogged her anyway, especially among Jewish Angelenos.
Raman, after publicly condemning the DSA’s anti-Israel statements after Oct. 7, sponsored a resolution for a ceasefire and return of hostages in March 2024, disappointing mainstream Jewish groups who called the motion one-sided. Then, during the primary, Raman told Piker she believed the Gaza war was a genocide and that Israel was an apartheid state. She also said she would not seek the endorsement of pro-Israel Democratic party groups as she had in 2024.
Her record on Israel seemed likely to come up when Raman participated in the candidate forum for Jewish voters Sept. 29. But Raman struggled to get through answers about the DSA, Piker and especially genocide and BDS — which she called a “legitimate form of peaceful protest” — leading to loud audience groans. During Bass’ turn on stage, the mayor said she did not support BDS and did not believe the war in Gaza was a genocide.
Mail-in voters historically skew to the left, and the primary vote may offer a preview of the margin Raman might need.
In that election, about 58% of the total votes were tallied election night, when Bass led Raman 36.5% to 21%. Raman got the biggest share of the ensuing ballot batches, beating Bass by about five percentage points.
The post In early LA mayoral results, Karen Bass holds slim lead over Nithya Raman, who sparred with DSA on Israel appeared first on The Forward.
