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How Judy Blume’s ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’ broke taboos around interfaith marriage
(JTA) — When Judy Blume’s young adult novel “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” appeared in 1970, intermarried families were a small segment of the American Jewish population. Perhaps 17% of Jews were married to someone who wasn’t Jewish; today, 42% of married Jews have a spouse who is not Jewish, and in the past decade, 61% of Jews married non-Jewish partners.
Through the 1960s, middle-grade and young adult fiction rarely acknowledged the existence of these families, reflecting and reinforcing their outsider status. Today it is routine for authors to address the reality of inter-religious and culturally mixed families, portraying them with insight and compassion. (See “Not Your All-American Girl” by Wendy Wan-Long Shang and Madelyn Rosenberg, “Becoming Brianna” by Terri Libenson and “The Whole Story of Half a Girl” by Veera Hiranandani.)
This change was made possible partly by Blume’s story of sixth-grader Margaret Simon and her one-sided conversations with God.
Blume’s status as a pioneer in young adult literature is usually associated with her honest approach to the emotional, physical and sexual milestones of growing up, with her works still attracting readers and still finding an honored place on lists of banned books. That legacy is being celebrated in April with a new documentary, Amazon Prime Video’s “Judy Blume Forever,” and a theatrical release by Lionsgate of a feature film version of “Are You There God?”
Yet her treatment of contested identity in intermarried families is as revolutionary as her openness about bras, menstruation and sexual feelings. Actors Lena Dunham and Molly Ringwald, comedian Samantha Bee and many authors, including Raina Telgemeier, Tayari Jones and Gary Shteyngart, have cited Blume’s influence on both their lives and their work. Book lists for intermarried families frequently list the novel as a resource.
Margaret Simon is 11 years old at the start of “Are You There God?” Her Jewish dad and Christian mom have pointedly ignored the possibility that their daughter might have questions about her identity. Along with other issues of teen angst, she feels compelled to decide if she is Jewish, Christian or neither. Without any guidance, the last alternative leaves her in a frightening void. As she pointedly asks God, in her ongoing series of questions for Him, “I can’t go on being nothing forever, can I?”
Margaret’s parents, Barbara Hutchins and Herb Simon, fell in love and defied their respective parents by marrying out of their faiths. They assure Margaret that she has no religion, but can choose one when she is older, oblivious to the fact that this solution seems more of a burden than a promise of future freedom. Their avoidance of any serious engagement with either religion or culture renders any possible choice unlikely.
Blume situates Margaret’s search within the specific landscape of post-World War II America. When the Simons decide to leave their Upper West Side home in New York City and move to suburban New Jersey, their decision suggests a coded reference to their religious status. Long Island is “too social,” an implied euphemism for “too Jewish.” Living there might have made it harder for their relatively unusual situation to be discreetly ignored. On the other hand, the more affluent Westchester and Connecticut are “too expensive” and “too inconvenient.” Farbrook, New Jersey has enough Jews for it to feel right for Herb, but not so many as to make their mixed family stand out.
Margaret also suspects that her parents’ are determined to put distance between the Simons and Sylvia, her paternal grandmother, who lives in New York City. This gregarious woman shows up at their new home unannounced and toting deli foods, making it clear that Margaret’s one unambiguous connection to Judaism is not going to disappear. While Barbara’s parents utterly rejected her when she married a Jew, Sylvia has pragmatically decided to accept what she cannot change. In the postwar era, more Jews began to abandon or minimize religious practice, while still maintaining ethnically distinct customs. Like holiday observance or synagogue attendance, ethnic Jewish culture is also absent from the Simon home. Sylvia’s Jewish food, her frequent trips to Florida, even her combination of sarcasm and smothering warmth, provide Margaret with markers of the tradition her parents have eschewed.
Still, when Sylvia repeatedly asks Margaret if her (nonexistent) boyfriends are Jewish, the young girl is baffled. Given her own lack of consciousness of herself as Jewish, why would Margaret care?
Rachel McAdams and Abby Ryder Fortson in the forthcoming film adaptation of “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” (Dana Hawley/Lionsgate © 2022)
In the larger world of Farbrook, Margaret’s new friends seem to have more secure identities, conveniently defined by membership either in the “Y” (Young Men’s Christian Association) or the Jewish Community Center. Perfunctory attendance at Hebrew school until after one’s bar mitzvah is the furthest extent of her peers’ Jewishness. Margaret explains that her parents are “nothing” and that, prior to their marriage, they were Jewish and Christian, as if those identities could be cast off like an article of clothing. When Mr. Benedict, her enthusiastic young teacher, distributes a questionnaire, Margaret completes the prompt “I hate” with “religious holidays.” He attempts to draw her out about this troubling answer, and she scornfully observes that her teacher acted as if “he had uncovered some deep, dark mystery.”
On one level, he has. Her mother’s blandly universal definition of God as a “nice idea,” who “belongs to everybody,” is clearly a denial of the fractures in her family members’ lives.
Blume also captures the essence of mid-century non-Orthodox Judaism as comfortably accessible, yet also somewhat empty. On a visit to Grandma Sylvia’s elegant temple, the atmosphere is quietly decorous, the sanctuary filled with well-appointed congregants and beautifully arranged flowers. Sylvia’s rabbi greets Margaret with an enthusiastic “Good Yom Tov,” which he translates as “Happy New Year,” although it is actually a generic holiday greeting.
When Margaret later visits Presbyterian and Methodist churches, she notes the remarkable similarity among all three experiences.
The novel’s one incident of specific religious practice involves Margaret’s brief, unfinished confession in a classmate’s Catholic church. Having participated in bullying, Margaret tries to assuage her guilt through a ritual alien to both her father’s Judaism and her mother’s Protestant Christianity. She even momentarily confuses the priest with the silent God of her conversations. Nothing could be further from her parents’ rejection of religion, or from Grandma Sylvia’s loving assurance to Margaret that “I knew you were a Jewish girl at heart.”
When Margaret’s Christian grandparents decide to resume contact, the suppressed anger in the Simon home finally erupts. Herb is furious, and accuses his in-laws of only wanting to meet Margaret “to make sure she doesn’t have horns!” — a caustic reference to a persistent antisemitic myth. Blume had subtly foreshadowed this disruption of the status quo in a parallel event at school. When a Jewish student, backed by his parents, refuses to sing Christmas carols, the implicit agreement of the town’s Jews to quietly conform is broken. A Christian girl, in what seems an act of retaliation, then refuses to sing Hanukkah songs. These acts of resistance reinforce Margaret’s marginal status. Her intermarried family represents neither conformity with postwar norms nor an assertion of Jewish pride.
Blume appears to tip the scales in her portrayal of Mary and Paul Hutchins, Margaret’s maternal grandparents. Entirely unlikeable, simultaneously pushy and cold, they insist that the granddaughter they had never acknowledged is Christian. After their failed visit, Grandma Sylvia returns, along with her sweet and obviously Jewish new boyfriend, Mr. Binamin (“rhymes with cinnamon”). Readers rooting for the triumph of Margaret’s Jewish roots may breathe a sigh of relief here, but hope for a satisfying ending is illusory. Margaret’s search for a stable sense of self is still unfinished, and will not be satisfied by choosing membership in either the Y or the JCC.
For young readers, the novel’s discussion of religious identity proved as life-changing as its honest portrayal of puberty and menstruation. “I related to that kind of conflict of religion,” the comedian Chelsea Handler, who grew up in a mixed Jewish-Mormon home, told Blume in 2020. “At that time, I just found out my mom was Mormon, on top of thinking she was Jewish, and your books were such a reprieve for me and such a joy.”
More than 50 years ago, Judy Blume tackled a difficult subject, about both changing demographics and the search for authenticity in American Jewish life. Margaret’s conclusion that “twelve is very late to learn” about the essence of who you are still poses a challenge, while her persistent search for a meaningful identity offers a degree of optimism.
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The post How Judy Blume’s ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’ broke taboos around interfaith marriage appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran Soccer Federation President Uncertain on Country’s Participation in FIFA World Cup After US-Israel Strikes
Soccer Football – FIFA World Cup – Trophy arrives in Mexico – Felipe Angeles International Airport, Zumpango, Mexico – February 27, 2026 General view of the FIFA World Cup trophy. Photo: REUTERS/Luis Cortes
It remains unclear if Iran’s national soccer team will participate in the 2026 FIFA World Cup this summer following Saturday’s surprise attacks by the US and Israel on the Islamic Republic, Iran Football Federation President Mehdi Taj admitted over the weekend.
“What is certain is that after this attack, we cannot be expected to look forward to the World Cup with hope,” Taj told the sports portal Varzesh3, according to the Associated Press.
Iran is set to compete in Group G at the World Cup and is scheduled to face New Zealand on June 15 and Belgium on June 21, both in Los Angeles, before going head-to-head against Egypt on June 26 in Seattle.
The World Cup will be held across the US, Canada, and Mexico from June 11 to July 19.
Soccer fans from Iran are already barred from entering the United States for the World Cup as part of a travel ban that the Trump administration announced in June.
FIFA has not commented on Iran’s participation in this summer’s World Cup. Speaking on Saturday at the International Football Association Board’s annual general meeting in Cardiff, Wales, FIFA Secretary General Mattias Grafstrom reportedly said: “We had a meeting today and it is premature to comment in detail, but we will monitor developments around all issues around the world.”
The US and Israel launched joint airstrikes against Iran on Saturday that led to the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several other high-ranking Iranian officials.
Iran has retaliated with strikes against Israel as well as US military bases and civilian areas across the Middle East, including in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain. Israel is also carrying out strikes in Lebanon and the Israel Defense Forces announced that it has eliminated Hussein Makled, the head of Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters.
On Sunday, the Qatar football federation announced that it was suspending all competitions, tournaments and matches “until further notice” following the US-Israel strikes on Iran. It added that “new dates for the resumption of competitions will be announced in due course.”
It remains unclear what will happen to the “Finalissima” match between Spain and Argentina, a friendly game that was scheduled to take place March 27 in Doha with potential well-known players including Lionel Messi and Lamine Yamal.
The Asian Football Confederation has similarly postponed continental club championship playoffs set to take place in the Middle East this week, and the AFC Champions League Elite games will be rescheduled.
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Iran’s Supreme Leader Is Dead. Now What?
A demonstrator lights a cigarette with fire from a burning picture of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei outside the Iranian embassy during a rally in support of nationwide protests in Iran, in London, Britain, Jan. 12, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Toby Melville
The strike that killed Iran’s supreme leader over the weekend has split opinion over whether it speeds a regime collapse, keeps the Islamic Republic intact under a new figurehead, or produces a tougher, security-run version of the same system.
Israeli officials are projecting confidence that the war is not stopping at the killing of Ali Khamenei and several dozen regime leaders under him. “[US President Donald] Trump intends to go all the way with this move,” one senior official told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. “He wants to replace the regime, and he has no intention of taking his foot off the gas.”
US officials familiar with intelligence assessments have voiced a more cautious view, pointing to serious skepticism that even if Iranians took to the streets, the country’s battered opposition would not have the power to topple the regime.
Publicly, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have framed the war as a moment of political opportunity. “I call upon all Iranian patriots who yearn for freedom to seize this moment and take back your country,” Trump said in a video posted on Truth Social. Netanyahu struck a similar note, saying Israel would create the conditions for “the brave Iranian people to liberate themselves from the chains of tyranny.”
Raz Zimmt, an Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said that the success of the US-Israeli strikes so far would not guarantee the end of the regime.
“You cannot topple a regime through aerial strikes alone,” he said during a briefing with reporters on Sunday, adding that “millions of Iranians” were needed to do that.
But after weeks of suppression during last month’s anti-government protests, he said, the Iranian public is “very much traumatized,” and it is hard to imagine mass demonstrations resuming while “missiles and jets are above their heads.” Even if crowds return, he said, a protest movement is still unlikely to succeed as long as the security forces preserve cohesion and the determination to fight.
“The majority of the Iranian people are not organized, have no leaders,” he said, adding that many potential leaders are “in jails and prisons all over Iran.” The security elite, he argued, has every reason to hold the line because many of its members believe that if the regime collapses it will not only destroy their interests but “might actually kill them as well.”
The Islamic Republic “probably enjoys the support of perhaps between 15 to 20 percent” of the population, Zimmt said, adding that that minority is still large enough in a country of roughly 90 million people to sustain a committed base, fill institutions, and provide manpower for coercion.
Zimmt called Khamenei’s death “the end of an era,” describing him as “the last Iranian revolutionary” and, in recent years, a bottleneck blocking real change.
The larger question, in Zimmt’s view, is whether Iran now moves toward constitutional change – of the kind seen after the death of Khamenei’s predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1989 – and a different governing model, that might pave the way for some kind of political transition.
“Perhaps not a regime change as all of us would like to see but perhaps some kind of a change from within the regime,” he said.
Zimmt said that after the 12-day war with Israel and the US in June, pragmatic voices in Iran argued the regime should adjust strategic objectives and prioritize domestic problems over regional commitments.
“But at the end of the day, Khamenei made a decision to change almost nothing,” he said.
According to The New York Times, Khamenei made a short list of figures he viewed as acceptable successors in the wake of the June war. It included Ali Asghar Hejazi, his long-serving chief of staff and who Israel said it killed in Saturday’s strike; Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, the head of Iran’s judiciary; and Hassan Khomeini, a grandson of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The younger Khomeini is seen as more moderate than Khameinei’s own son and potential successor, Mojtaba.
Zimmt said that while Mojtaba has support in the security establishment, “a hereditary succession would only deepen the [regime’s] crisis of legitimacy,” because the Islamic Republic was founded against dynastic succession.
Alireza Arafi, a senior cleric who was named to Iran’s interim leadership council after Khamenei’s death, is also in the mix.
But the identity of Iran’s next supreme leader may matter less, Zimmt argued, than who controls power around him.
He singled out the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as “a very, very influential player” not just in security and the military sphere but also in politics and the economy. In that environment, Zimmt suggested, the succession could preserve the appearance of continuity with another senior cleric far weaker than Khamenei as the public face while the IRGC and other security circles are the driving force.
Former Israeli Ambassador to Germany Jeremy Issacharoff, whose work has focused on strategic policy and arms control, cautioned it was too early to know how events would unfold and said Tehran’s next leadership could yet prove “even more fanatical” than the Khamenei-led one but expressed hope the events of the past few days could reshape the region’s long-term trajectory.
“This is an opportunity for Iran, it’s an opportunity for the region, and above all, it’s a major opportunity for Israel,” Issacharoff told The Algemeiner.
He added that, in the near term, he expects the military campaign to keep targeting the pillars of Iranian state power, including missile and nuclear infrastructure, as well as core internal-security nodes such as IRGC headquarters, the affiliated Basij milita, and the Interior Ministry.
“At the end of it we could see a very different type of relationship with Iran, with the Iranian people,” he said.
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At this Dallas synagogue, Purim comes with fog machines, zip lines and Broadway flair
(JTA) — Excited chatter and the rattling of noisemakers echoed throughout the halls of Congregation Shearith Israel as 900 people streamed into its Purim spiel Sunday morning.
But as similar festivities commenced at synagogues around the world, the congregants of the historic Conservative shul in Dallas knew they were in for something far more ambitious than the average holiday festivities.
A Purim spiel, Yiddish for “play,” is the comedic retelling of the Book of Esther for the holiday of Purim. At many synagogues, the production features a costume parade, Jewish parodies of popular songs and the annual megillah reading.
For the past eight years, however, the Purim performance at Shearith Israel has taken the form of a high-octane theatrical performance, featuring intricate set designs, original music, and a yearly stunt that has included its rabbi riding into the sanctuary on horseback and ziplining onto the stage.
This year, the performance featured confetti canons and a mechanical rig that lowered a child onto the stage behind a giant disco ball.
The congregation’s annual performance did not always resemble the elaborate, effects-laden production it is today. The spectacular is the brainchild of one of the synagogue’s senior rabbis, Adam Roffman, whose second act in the clergy followed an earlier stint in a musical theater in New York City.
“The Purim spiel is a love letter to the community,” Roffman said. “I work on this for, you know, close to 200 hours … it’s tedious, it’s difficult, but ultimately, what gets me over the hump of like, okay, it’s 11 o’clock at night, and I’ve been staring in front of my computer for the last five hours making a video, is I love these people.”
Melissa Goldberg, a congregant whose husband’s family had been members of Congregation Shearith Israel for five generations, said the spiel had become her family’s “favorite time of year.”
“I love it because it gives Rabbi Roffman a chance to create, to flex his creative muscles, so we don’t lose him to Broadway, because he can have his moment every year,” said Goldberg.
Roffman grew up in Baltimore attending a Jewish day school where he said he “idolized and worshiped” his rabbis before he was “bit by the bug” of musical theater in high school.
After graduating from Amherst College, Roffman studied musical theater at Circle in the Square Theater School in New York City and began his stint as an actor and director.
But a few years into the scene, Roffman said that he began to question whether the profession suited him.
“In my mid 20s, I found myself kind of realizing, like, it didn’t matter how much talent I had as an actor, the industry was not for me,” said Roffman. “When you’re an actor, you’re the president of Adam Roffman Inc, you have to fight for yourself all the time, and that just isn’t my personality, and what I was missing, I think, was sort of connection and community.”
So Roffman reengaged in the Jewish community, saying he became “addicted in the same way that I was when I started acting in high school.” His rediscovered passion soon inspired him to seek rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City.
After coming to Dallas to join Congregation Shearith Israel’s clergy with his wife, Rabbi Shira Wallach, in 2013, Roffman said the pair soon discovered that the local Jewish community had “tremendous institutional loyalty” and a unique commitment to Jewish life.
“They’re very cognizant of the fact that they are the minority here in the Bible Belt,” said Roffman. “This is a Christian place, and that gives them even more incentive to commit to their Judaism and to commit to being here, being present here.”
Roffman said he spent his first few years adjusting to the role before beginning to think about how to get back on the stage — even though, for him, the parallels between the two professions were endless.
“I think a lot about the overlap between Jewish practice and theater,” said Roffman. “I think of the prayer book as a script. It’s one of the oldest scripts written, I think, in human history, because it is a book of words written by somebody else that you have to open up and personalize and process.”
During his time at Shearith Israel, Roffman has performed two self-written autobiographical one-man-shows at local theaters, including “On Sunday the Rabbi Sang Sondheim” in 2017 and “Songs the Rabbi Shouldn’t Sing,” which he took a sabbatical to write in 2023.
In 2019, Roffman told his fellow rabbis that he would be taking over preparations for the Purim spiel.
It began fairly simple, with Roffman pulling off a Broadway-themed performance that featured him and Wallach singing songs from “Phantom of the Opera” as they rolled into the sanctuary in a canoe surrounded by fog.
Things escalated from there, with Roffman incorporating a “stunt” every year to outdo the last, including standing atop a cherrypicker for a “Lion King”-inspired spiel, riding into the sanctuary on a horse and ziplining above congregants’ heads for last year’s “Wicked” theme.
“We try and do something that nobody’s really ever seen before in a synagogue,” said Roffman. “But there’s a primary goal, really, which is that the people see their rabbis, all four of us on stage, really putting it out there and doing crazy stuff to show that we’re people too, and also to really build a connection between us and the people who are here.”
The buildup to the Purim spiel is a monthslong affair, with Roffman beginning to work on his concept in December. In the weeks leading up to the extravaganza, he said his colleagues rotate him out of leading Shabbat so he can focus his efforts on crafting the performance.
“Starting in January, I start to work on lyrics, and then four weeks out, basically what I do is I do lifecycle events, I teach on Shabbat, and that’s it,” said Roffman. “I’m spending another 40 or 50 hours a week just on Purim.”
Roffman said the performance was largely unconstrained by a budget, noting that “it could cost $20,000, and then it could be a lot more than that, and people would be OK with that.” He and others declined to say what was being spent on this year’s production.
“The people here are just extremely committed to Judaism and Jewish life and Jewish continuity, so the fact that this Purim show costs what it does, and people don’t blink an eye,” said Roffman.
During this year’s spiel, the congregation screamed and applauded as Queen Esther descended onto the stage in a giant disco ball suspended on a mechanical lift, a fog cannon blasting as she made her entrance.
Later in the performance, the clergy danced to Roffman’s parody of the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.,” complete with the lyric “It’s fun to pray to the yud hey vav hey,” a reference to the Hebrew name for God. Audience members lifted coordinated signs to spell out the letters in unison.
Rabbi Ari Sunshine, Roffman and Wallach’s co-senior rabbi, said the attendance to the spiel had more than doubled since the first year Roffman took over.
“We like to joke ‘we take our Purim fun seriously’ because we think that this is a great opportunity,” said Sunshine. “We know it’s one that people look forward to, we know it’s a great community-building experience.”
The spiel is not the only place where the synagogue has seen a surge in participation. Over the past five years, Shearith Israel’s religious school has gone from 60 students to 250.
“When we first came, the shul was kind of in a little bit of a downturn in terms of energy and membership,” said Wallach. “One of the things that was really important to Adam and me when we came is that we changed the culture so that it was really warm and embracing.”
Debbie Mack, who has belonged to Congregation Shearith Israel for 48 years, said the synagogue “wasn’t always as lively and as fun and youthful” as it feels today.
“Our children don’t live here, our grandchildren are not here, but we love coming to see all that the synagogue is now, and remember the difference between how it was and the way it is,” said Mack.
But even amid the spectacle, the story’s darker themes were not lost on congregants.
For Shiva Delrahim Beck, a Persian congregant who has attended the Shearith Israel Purim spiel for 12 years, this year had a special significance in the wake of joint U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran.
“For us, the story of Purim and the way that they did it at the spiel really brought to life the significance of Purim and modern day Purim, as it happened yesterday,” said Delrahim Beck. “So this was great for my family, and I could not be happier to be here.”
During the opening prayers for the performance, Wallach, Roffman’s wife and co-senior rabbi, drew parallels between the story of Purim and the burgeoning conflict in Iran.
“In that same way, our heroes of today are risking their lives so that we can continue to do what we are doing here, showing our love for and pride in Judaism and the Jewish people in Israel and all over the world,” said Wallach.
This year was not the first time that the spiel intersected with heavier themes. Last year, when the spiel’s theme was “Wicked,” Roffman played a montage of images of the Israeli hostages coming out of Gaza as the congregation’s cantor sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
“I think it really moved people,” said Roffman. “They weren’t expecting it, because they were there to laugh, but, you know, that’s the thing about theater. It sort of hits you in places that you don’t expect.”
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