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Jonathan Safran Foer’s online flirtation with Natalie Portman inspires a new play
(New York Jewish Week) — When Jewish literary power couple Jonathan Safran Foer and Nicole Krauss divorced in 2014 — amid rumors that he was in love with his longtime friend Natalie Portman — it captivated the nation.
Well, maybe not the nation, but certainly the literary and media worlds, as well as the hipster set in brownstone Brooklyn. Safran Foer and Krauss were rare literary megastars, whose “extremely loud and incredibly expensive” Park Slope brownstone was the subject of numerous articles (and a hefty dose of envy) when it hit the market for $14.5 million in 2013.
Portman, of course, was an actual megastar, and when the confessional correspondence between the celebrated actress and the “Everything Is Illuminated” writer was later published in 2016 in the New York Times, it elicited a fresh round of jealousy, speculation and eye-rolls from the masses, as well as numerous journalistic “takes” on the topic.
I was a teenager at the time, and had only a vague idea of why any of this mattered. But apparently it stayed with me for nearly a decade, because when I saw “The Wanderers,” a new Off-Broadway play running at the Roundabout Theatre Company, it didn’t take long for me to make the connection between this fictional production and the very real but mysterious drama that occurred between these famous Jewish writers.
“The Wanderers,” directed by Barry Edelstein, follows two couples in two different timelines. In the present day are Abe and Sophie, secular Jews and writers who live in Brooklyn and have been together since they were teenagers. The other storyline, set in the 1970s, centers around Esther and Schmuli, a Hasidic couple living in Satmar Williamsburg. The latter are introduced to the audience on the eve of their wedding, one of the first times they’ve ever been alone together.
Throughout the play, the couples, seemingly from different worlds, try to balance their careers, personal lives, internal desires and family obligations.
Abe (Eddie Kaye Thomas) is a writer who boasts a Pulitzer Prize and several other literary awards. But he struggles with certain aspects of his life — his frayed relationships, mostly — and is hamstrung by an immense ego that is tempered only by a hefty dose of insecurity. As I watched the play, I began to feel like I knew the man, but I couldn’t quite place him. Was he just a stand-in for every genuinely talented, semi-pretentious, self-important male writer living in Brooklyn?
Abe eventually finds an outlet for his woes by striking up an email correspondence with fictional Hollywood actress Julia Cheever (Katie Holmes, the real Hollywood actress), whom he met when she came to a reading of one of his novels. Eventually, he declares his love for her — a pronouncement that essentially goes ignored by the actress. (In the play, Holmes sports a chic brunette bob not unlike a Jewish actress near and dear to our hearts.)
It became pretty clear who served as the inspiration for this play — and when I asked playwright Anna Ziegler about it, she said I was one of the few she had spoken with who had made the connection.
“In the summer of 2016, when I was writing, Natalie Portman and Jonathan Safran Foer were writing to each other in a correspondence they published in the New York Times,” she said. “She was promoting a new movie of hers, and I guess they had a previous relationship — that sparked the idea for one of the storylines in the play.”
What’s funny, Ziegler said, was that most audience members haven’t made the connection. “We haven’t really been talking about [Safran Foer and Portman] as one of the inspirations, and not many people have raised it,” she said. “I assumed that that resonance would be there for a certain percentage of the audience but, to be honest, I don’t think it’s there for the vast majority of people.”
At one point in the play, after learning his father died, Abe even says the line “Hineni, here I am,” to ground himself and calm his emotions. It’s a phrase in the Torah that usually translates to “I am ready,” which Abraham says to God before being asked to sacrifice his son, Isaac, as well as a prayer of humility chanted on Rosh Hashanah. But it’s also, possibly, a nod to Safran Foer’s 2016 novel “Here I Am.”
Neither Krauss nor Safran Foer responded to requests for comment on the play. “For people in my generation and younger, the recognition might be there, but it was also so many years ago now,” said Zielger, 44. “So I guess the only people who remember it are the people on whom it made an impact.”
Which is fine — “The Wanderers” stands on its own even if you don’t know the backstory. Plus, the themes of the play stretch far beyond infidelity: It also explores loneliness, free will and inherited family trauma.
Originally, Ziegler set out to write something about arranged marriages, specifically within the Jewish community. “I had always been kind of fascinated and beguiled by the idea of arranged marriage — thinking about what it would be like spending that first night together, that notion always kind of haunted me,” she said.
“I had these two different plays [one about Portman and Safran Foer and the other about arranged marriages], and they seemed thematically related,” she added. “At some point, I concluded that they really were two strands at the same play and so I started weaving them together.”
Ziegler chose to write about the Hasidic Jewish community in particular because she was “somewhat familiar with that culture and community,” she told me.
Still, as a secular Jew, it’s a topic she approached delicately. She hired a cultural consultant and an accent coach for the actors who were both from the community. Ziegler herself, who lives in Brooklyn, spent time in Williamsburg, and read memoirs and watched documentaries.
In the play, the Hasidic wife Esther (Lucy Freyer) struggles to be seen by her community and to feel in control of her life. She doesn’t know where to turn and wonders if she’s fulfilled her potential — as a parent, wife, human and Jew. “One of the great joys of being an actor is being able to learn and dive head first into a community that you ordinarily wouldn’t get to know,” Freyer said.
As the story unfolds, it’s revealed that Esther left the community with her infant son, who grows up to be the renowned Jewish author Abe, who marries his childhood friend Sophie (Sarah Cooper, the comic and actress who broke big with videos mocking Donald Trump). The younger couple is almost entirely secular, yet they grapple with the same search for meaning and belonging, the same doubt as to whether they’ve chosen the right path for themselves — or if it had been chosen for them.
“All five characters, not just Schmuli and Esther, are trying to figure out how can you be happy with what you have, with where you stand in your own skin,” said Dave Klasko, who plays Schmuli.
“We say in the play the Hebrew phrase, ‘Ein ba’al hanes makir b’niso,’ which [Ziegler] poetically translates to ‘We are never aware of the miracles, especially when we are inside them,’” Klasko added. “How can I, in my own life, realize the miracle that I’m living in before I’m on the other side of it?”
For Ziegler, these are very Jewish questions — and the questions of the “Xillennial” generation. “We’re left [with] the complex heritage of feeling chosen, but also self-hating,” said Ziegler, whose previous plays include “Photograph 51,” about Rosalind Franklin, the Jewish X-ray crystallographer who helped Watson and Crick crack the DNA model. “I think this is the most Jewish of my plays, and it’s funny because I’m not that religious, but I have found in my career that there seems to be a hunger for plays about Judaism.”
“At some point in my career, I began to be thought of as a ‘Jewish writer’ — for better or for worse,” she added.
Safran Foer, 46, and Krauss, 48, have also wrestled with the “Jewish writer” term, as well as the play’s big questions of identity, self-doubt and complicated family relationships. In fact, as Ziegler and the actors point out, issues of the play are universal, and have nothing to do with how famous you are, how expensive your home may be, or how strictly you adhere to religious law. The celebrity allusion — plus the chance to see an actual celebrity, Holmes — may be a reason to buy a ticket to see “The Wanderers,” but the timeless message is what will keep you in your seat.
“The Wanderers” is playing at the Roundabout Theatre Company (111 West 46th Street) through April 2. Find tickets and more information here.
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Israeli tourists could soon be required to show 5 years of social media history to enter the US
(JTA) — Israelis seeking to visit the United States could soon be required to submit five years of social media history, according to draft regulations published by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security this week.
The regulations would apply to tourists from 42 countries, all allies of the United States, that are enrolled in the government’s Visa Waiver Program that allows passport holders to visit for up to 90 days without a visa.
Israel was first designated into the Visa Waiver Program by DHS in September 2023. The same year, Israeli tourism to the United States reached 376,439, followed by 417,077 in 2024, according to Statista.
The proposed regulations come as the Trump administration seeks to tighten borders. In April, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that it would scrutinize the social media accounts of people applying to immigrate and international students for “antisemitic activity.” But the regulations mark a shift toward examining the records of people who are trying to visit, not move to, the United States.
In response to a question from a reporter Wednesday about whether the new requirement would cause a “decline in tourism,” President Donald Trump demurred.
“No. We’re doing so well,” Trump said. “We just want people to come over here, and safe. We want safety. We want security. We want to make sure we’re not letting the wrong people come enter our country.”
The new regulations would overhaul the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, or ESTA, an online application that tourists included in the Visa Waiver Program have recently been required to submit before entering the country.
It was not immediately clear how tourists would submit their social media history under the proposed regulations, or even what such a request could constitute in an era when people maintain many social media accounts and post prolifically on them.
The DHS notice began a 60-day period for public comment on the regulations this week. A spokesperson from Customs and Border Protection told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a statement that the notice was preliminary.
“Nothing has changed on this front for those coming to the United States. This is not a final rule, it is simply the first step in starting a discussion to have new policy options to keep the American people safe,” the statement read. “The Department is constantly looking at how we vet those coming into the country, especially after the terrorist attack in Washington DC against our National Guard right before Thanksgiving.”
The Nov. 26 shooting of two National Guard members by a suspect who is an Afghan national triggered several restrictions on immigration by the Trump administration. The suspect entered the country legally and has not been publicly alleged to have had a social media track record that might have elicited alarm.
The potential regulation comes as Israeli soldiers have faced scrutiny for their posts on social media during the war in Gaza, with some soldiers fleeing countries they have visited that are less friendly than the United States to Israel over the threat of potential war crime inquiries.
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6 hostages murdered in Gaza lit Hanukkah candles in captivity, newly released footage shows
(JTA) — Two months after they were taken hostage, and eight months before they would be murdered, the Israelis who would later be known as the “Beautiful Six” were herded into a new section of the Hamas tunnel where they had been held.
There, their captors took hours of video of the young adults as they lit a makeshift menorah, sang traditional Hanukkah songs and, after being prompted, offered holiday greetings to the camera.
“Where are the sufganiyot?” asked Eden Yerushalmi.
“We’re waiting for Roladin in the land [of Israel],” joked Hersh Goldberg-Polin, referring to one of the most prominent purveyors of Hanukkah donuts in Israel.
The other hostages — Ori Danino, Almog Sarusi, Alex Lubanov and Carmel Gat — sit with their fellow captives. Sarusi appears visibly distressed as he makes the blessing over the candles, and the cameraman captures wrenching comments as the six young adults sing the song “Maoz Tzur.”
Goldberg-Polin explains that there are six verses in the song, “one for each time they tried to kill us and failed.” Yerushalmi responds, “We need to add another verse.”
In another video, Lubanov is instructed to shave the heads of his fellow male hostages. While shaving Danino, he recalls the movie “The Pianist,” set during the Holocaust, and says he is like a barber in that setting.
“This situation is not that far from the Holocaust,” Danino replies, looking at a mirror that a third person, possibly from Hamas, is holding up.
Some of the footage appeared intended to fuel the kind of hostage videos that Hamas released intermittently during the war, but Hamas never put it out. Instead, the footage was recovered by the IDF about three months ago during a raid on a hospital in Khan Younis and was delivered to the families of the hostages about six weeks ago, according to YNet News. It was released publicly on Thursday.
The video adds to accounts that many of the hostages sought to maintain Jewish practices and traditions while in captivity, though it is the first to suggest that such practices might at times have been facilitated or coerced by their captors.
“Lighting Hanukkah candles in that dark place captures the essence of the Jewish spirit: light prevailing over darkness,” the hostages’ families said in a statement released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
“Hamas filmed these videos as propaganda, but the humanity of the beautiful six shines through this footage. It is stronger than any terrorist organization. These videos bear witness to evil and failure. The entire world must see our loved ones in these moments, their unity, strength, and humanity even in the darkest times. They were taken alive, they survived in captivity, and they should have come home alive,” the statement continues. “Nothing will bring our loved ones back to life. Only bringing the truth to light, only genuine accountability at the national level, can bring justice and healing to all our hearts.”
We will never forgive and we will never forget how our hostages were treated by Hamas in Gaza.
Despite the horrific torture and humiliation, our brave and courageous hostages never lost hope, and even continued to light Hanukkah candles to bring light into a world of darkness. pic.twitter.com/wv3PSnbQZk
— Danny Danon 🇮🇱 דני דנון (@dannydanon) December 11, 2025
The release of the footage has renewed grief over the murder of the hostages, which closely followed the collapse of ceasefire negotiations in July 2024. Some of the hostages, including Goldberg-Polin, who lost an arm on Oct. 7, had been on the list for release had a deal come together. Since then, Israeli officials have counted the hostages, whose bodies were retrieved soon after they were killed, among those rescued by the Israeli military.
“What heroes,” Goldberg-Polin’s mother, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, told Channel 12, according to the Times of Israel. “Six young luminous people who did everything right and they stayed alive and they did their part, and for us to claim we brought them back, in bags, bags of children to their parents, please don’t count Hersh among the people you saved.”
News of their deaths triggered mass protests in Israel opposing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to reach a deal the month before. In September 2024, Netanyahu issued an apology to the hostages’ families.
The video comes as the body of the last remaining hostage in Gaza, Ran Gvili, has yet to be returned to Israel, two months after a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas that required the release of all of the remaining hostages. Twenty living hostages and 27 deceased hostages, most but not all killed on Oct. 7, have since been returned.
The video appeared to be taken months before the group of six were killed in Hamas captivity in Rafah on August 29, 2024, shortly after the collapse of ceasefire negotiations with Hamas that could have led to the release of some of them.
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How Montana teachers use a Hanukkah kit to teach students who’ve never met a Jew
In Montana, students across the state — from Hutterite colonies to Native American reservations — are learning about Hanukkah in school: playing dreidel, lighting candles, and reading a picture book that tells the true story of Billings residents who united against antisemitism.
That’s thanks to the Montana Jewish Project, which is in its third year of distributing 50 “Hanukkah curriculum boxes” to public school teachers around the state, many in rural areas with few to no Jewish students in their classrooms. Teachers who sign up for the box receive it free of charge.
“A teacher at a school with a large Mennonite population went out of her way to email us and say, Thank you so much. This resonated so much with my students,” said Rebecca Stanfel, executive director of the Montana Jewish Project. “It makes a lot of sense, because the lesson plan is really about accepting everyone in your classroom, whatever their faith tradition.”
Montana, home to the most hate groups of any state and a Jewish population of a few thousand, tends to be the subject of alarming headlines: “Neo-Nazis urge armed march to harass Montana Jews” and “Jewish man attacked in Montana by self-proclaimed Nazi on Oct. 7,” most recently.
But the state has also been a national model for how to effectively push back against hate. In 1993 in Billings, neo-Nazis threw a brick through a 6-year-old Jewish boy’s bedroom window, which was displaying a menorah. In response, the Billings Gazette printed a full-page picture of a menorah for readers to cut out and tape to their windows. Thousands posted the menorahs to show solidarity.
So when it came to teaching Montana’s students about Hanukkah, Stanfel knew she wanted to go beyond the Maccabees and include that local story — one that counters common stereotypes about Montana as a white Christian nationalist safe haven. Each Hanukkah box includes a copy of The Christmas Menorahs: How a Town Fought Hate, which recounts the Billings story, along with suggested discussion questions.
One prompt asks students: “What would you have done if you were in Billings at the time? Would you have encouraged your family to display a menorah? Why or why not?”
Heather McCartney-Duty, a fifth grade teacher at an elementary school in the city of Choteau, population 1,700, knows of three Jewish students at her school — and they’re all siblings. That made it all the more important to teach about Hanukkah, she said, both to educate non-Jews and help her Jewish students feel included.
With the help of Montana Jewish Project’s box, she read her students the picture book, taught them to play dreidel, lit candles, decorated the classroom in blue and white, and even displayed a “mensch on the bench.”
“The news stories that hit out of Montana are, Oh, the Unabomber. Oh, the Freemen. What crazy thing has Montana done today?” McCartney-Duty said. “So to have this massive effort towards pushing back against hate and pushing back against bullies, it’s very significant to kids that it happened in Montana.”
Another teacher using the Hanukkah box, Courtney Hamblin, is adapting the lesson for her older students at a high school in Billings. She’s coupling the story with watching the PBS documentary Not in Our Town and reading newspaper archives about the display of solidarity.
That lesson will prepare her students to read Night by Elie Wiesel in the coming months, she said, helping them become more familiar with Jewish references in the book.
To her, the Billings story shows students “that something local can become national,” Hamblin said. “I’m trying to teach them that little acts of kindness can balloon into these big things.”
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