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Meet the real-life sister act behind the two new ’90s Jewish American Girl dolls
(JTA) — As children in upstate New York, twin sisters Julia DeVillers and Jennifer Roy went to Hebrew school three days a week, spent their summers at a JCC summer camp and got to know local Holocaust survivors through their father, who survived the Nazis as a child in Poland. They also celebrated Christmas with their mother’s family.
Aware of their dual religious and cultural backgrounds from a young age, DeVillers and Roy personally sent their public elementary school principal a letter asking to place a menorah next to the school Christmas tree. The girls gathered a couple of the other Jewish students together to present the letter to the principal, to resounding success: A real menorah was added to the school’s holiday display.
It was something straight out of an American Girl story. And as of this week, in a sense, it is one.
On Wednesday, American Girl released its first twin dolls, Isabel and Nicki Hoffman, who are also the first characters from an interfaith family. Their stories take place in the late 1990s and were written by DeVillers and Roy, inspired by the sisters’ own childhood experiences. The twin dolls’ parents are, respectively, Jewish and Christian, and their mother, Robin, is named after the authors’ own mother.
“It’s incredibly special to us that the twins bring this Jewish and interfaith representation that so many kids will relate to,” DeVillers told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Roy added, “People are not necessarily one thing or another these days. And while we are Jewish, we did grow up with both holidays and both cultures in our family. And that’s how we wanted our characters to be and to feel.”
Isabel and Nicki’s stories are loosely based on the childhood experiences of authors and real-life twins Julia DeVillers and Jennifer Roy. (Courtesy of American Girl)
The dolls are a milestone in how the lived experience of many American Jews is reflected in popular culture. Recent surveys of Jewish Americans consistently note high rates of interfaith marriage, and show that a significant portion of those couples raise their children either fully or partly Jewish.
Isabel and Nicki are the second and third historical Jewish American Girl dolls, joining Rebecca Rubin. Rebecca’s story reflected an earlier generation’s perception of normative American Jewish identity: Her family immigrated from Russia and lives in New York’s Lower East Side in 1914, while navigating issues of assimilation and religion.
Stories of joint Hanukkah-Christmas celebrations are not exactly new. A TV episode Isabel and Nicki’s character’s might have watched as teenagers, “The Best Chrismukkah Ever” from the drama “The O.C.,” aired nearly two decades ago. But the dolls and their stories are “super innovative and relevant for 21st-century Jewish interfaith families,” said Keren McGinity, the interfaith specialist for the Conservative movement of Judaism and a professor of American studies at Brandeis University.
“Anytime there’s cultural representation that depicts real life, it’s a good thing,” McGinity said, though she added that some depictions of interfaith families are more robust than others.
“On the one hand, it’s terrific that they’re reflecting contemporary American Jewish life by depicting an interfaith family through these characters and reinforcing the fact that it only takes one Jewish parent to raise Jewish children,” she added. “And it remains to be seen how they are Jewish beyond celebrating the December holidays, and how they’re interfaith beyond celebrating the December holidays, plural.”
The new twin dolls are the latest in American Girl’s iconic series of dolls, which hail from different eras of American history and come with novels about their lives. American Girl has historically aimed to present a diverse set of dolls. Other recent offerings include Evette Peeters, a biracial girl who cares for the environment, and Kavi Sharma, an Indian-American girl who loves Broadway musicals.
The new historical characters, Isabel and Nicki, retail for $115 each. Their stories are written by DeVillers and Roy, respectively, and begin on Dec. 11, 1999, when they receive their journals as a gift for the last night of Hanukkah.
They have their own distinct personalities, which the authors say somewhat resemble what they were like as kids: Isabel has a preppy style and loves dancing, and is advertised wearing a pink cable-knit sleeveless sweater over a pinstripe shirt, with a plaid skirt, platform shoes and a beret. Nicki likes skateboarding and writing song lyrics, and appears on the American Girl website wearing a backwards baseball cap, choker necklace, blue T-shirt dress and sneakers, with a flannel shirt tied around her waist.
Isabel’s book begins with a nod to a late-1990s fad: “Hi, New Journal! You’re my present for the last night of Hanukkah!! I was going to save you for after Christmas and New Year’s, but we also got NEW GEL PENS!”
In Nicki’s book, her interfaith identity is mentioned two weeks later: “Did I mention my family celebrates Hanukkah AND Christmas? Well, we do.”
The two journals, “Meet Isabel” and “Meet Nicki” are filled with text and sold with the dolls. The stories take place during the same time frame, as the girls celebrate the winter holidays, face their fears, make new friends and worry about Y2K. A longer novel, “Meet Isabel and Nicki” is set for release in August as the first in the Isabel and Nicki historical series. It will take place during the same month as the shorter journals, but will delve further into the time period. Readers will get to spend the last night of Hanukkah with the Hoffmans, lighting the menorah and playing dreidel.
“Meet Isabel and Nicki,” the first novel in the series about the Hoffman twins, will be released in August. (Photo courtesy of American Girl. Design by Jackie Hajdenberg)
McGinity said she would have to wait until the new book comes out to see what the girls’ representation looks like, given that the journals are so short.
“I feel like we don’t have enough intel other than ‘OK, the authors are Jewish, the characters are Jewish, they grew up in an interfaith household,’” she added.
The crowded flagship American Girl store in New York City has already begun promoting Isabel and Nicki by showcasing the twins’ different outfits and bedroom and accessory collections, with dozens of the dolls positioned throughout the store.
“While we’re not able to provide specific sales information, I can say we’ve been happy to see the positive response for the new characters,” a representative for the company said.
Roy and her sister have previously written a series of children’s novels about twins, and Roy also authored “Yellow Star,” a 2006 children’s book about her aunt’s remarkable survival as one of the only children to be liberated from the Lodz Ghetto. Roy said she and her sister are grateful for the chance to tell their family’s story in a new way.
“So we don’t know what cultures, faiths, religions are coming beyond this,” said Roy, referring to future American Girl products. “But what we did know was that if we were writing in the holiday season, we really wanted to include parts of ourselves and that’s what American Girl editors all said: ‘We’d love to have you remember from your childhood.’ And this was our childhood.”
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The post Meet the real-life sister act behind the two new ’90s Jewish American Girl dolls appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Deborah Lipstadt has second thoughts about tying Jackson synagogue arsonist to ‘Globalize the Intifada’
(JTA) — As news broke over the weekend of an arson attack that heavily damaged the only synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi, a few prominent individuals connected the culprit to pro-Palestinian activism.
“This is a major tragedy. But it’s more than that,” Deborah Lipstadt, formerly the State Department’s special envoy to combat antisemitism, wrote on the social network X. “It’s an arson attack and another step in the globalization of the intifada.”
Later, upon learning that the arsonist appeared to have been motivated by a strain of antisemitism associated with the far right, not the pro-Palestinian movement, she walked back her comments — to a degree. But Lipstadt’s initial comments about the arsonist’s motives reflect a larger sense of disorientation among diaspora Jews as they face increased levels of antisemitism from across the spectrum of left-wing, right-wing and Islamist extremism.
Jewish activists and communities have been engaged in fierce debate over which corner poses the greatest threat, and reports of new incidents are often met with immediate speculation over the attacker’s motivations. Lipstadt, an Emory University professor who had served in the State Department under President Biden, has herself criticized the politicization of antisemitism charges. “When you only see it on the other side of the political transom,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 2024, “I have to ask: Are you interested in fighting antisemitism, or was your main objective to beat up on your enemies?”
“Globalize the Intifada” is a term commonly used in left-wing, pro-Palestinian protests. Most of the perpetrators of the large-scale antisemitic attacks in the diaspora since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks in Israel — including in Washington, D.C.; Boulder, Colorado; Bondi Beach, Australia; and the arson attack on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home — have made their pro-Palestinian and/or Islamist affiliations public.
But when the identity of the Jackson arsonist was revealed and the suspect appeared in court, his comments and social media presence betrayed no obvious link to the pro-Palestinian movement.
Instead the suspect, 19-year-old Catholic school graduate Stephen Spencer Pittman, used language —including “synagogue of Satan” and “Jesus Christ is Lord” — popular among leading figures of the online far right who peddle antisemitism, including Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens. (“Synagogue of Satan” also has deeper roots; it was popularized by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.)
An Instagram account appearing to be Pittman’s also contains references to a “Christian diet” and a clip from “Drawn Together,” an adult animated series, referencing an antisemitic “Jew crow.” (One of the show’s creators is Jewish.) Neither Pittman’s public statements in court, nor his Instagram account, referred to pro-Palestinian activism.
In hindsight, was Lipstadt right to preemptively link the fire to “globalize the intifada”?
“It may have been inopportune of me to say that,” she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about her invocation of the phrase.
Lipstadt insisted, “I was not saying this was a leftist attack. Clearly it’s not.” Nor did she “mean to suggest that this was an Islamist attack.”
She offered that the phrase, which uses the Arabic word associated with the violent Palestinian uprisings of the late 1980s and early 2000s, could be interpreted as hatred toward Jews coming from all sides.
“If ‘globalize the intifada’ means ‘attack Jews everywhere,’ then it certainly fits,” she said. “So it depends on how you want to interpret the sentence.”
Lipstadt wasn’t the only prominent figure linking the arsonist to “globalize the intifada” and other pro-Palestinian phrases before his identity was revealed.
“It began with BDS. Some said, it’s just words,” Marc Edelman, a Jewish law professor at the City University of New York, wrote on X over the weekend.
He continued, “CUNY Law speech: ‘globalize the intifada.’ Still, just words? Recent pro-Hamas chants. Words again? And now the violence in Pittsburgh, Washington D.C., Sydney, Jackson, Mississippi and more. As the Left used to say, words matter!”
Even a pro-Palestinian politician condemned the arson while also addressing recent hard-line pro-Palestinian activism in her own city.
“Mississippi’s oldest and largest synagogue, and two of their Torah scrolls, were burned yesterday on Shabbat in a horrific antisemitic attack—days after protestors chanted ‘We support Hamas’, here in NYC,” Shahana Hanif, a New York City council member from Brooklyn who won re-election in a race that pivoted largely on Israel, wrote on X.
She was referencing recent pro-Hamas protesters outside synagogues in New York, who have been denounced by progressives who are critical of Israel including Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Hanif added, “These chants are antisemitic and deeply harmful. You can oppose land sales in the West Bank without supporting violence against Jews. Yesterday’s arson in Mississippi is a stark reminder of the consequences of hate.”
She attracted some criticism from the pro-Palestinian movement for her statement — including from the group that organized the pro-Hamas New York synagogue protests, which took offense at the comparison.
“Linking chants at a Palestine protest that support a resistance movement of occupied people to the klan bombing of a synagogue is absolutely irresponsible and disgusting,” PAL-Awda NY/NJ, a radical group, wrote to Hanif.
In the group’s Telegram channel viewed by JTA, PAL-Awda added, “We see you, politicians who claim to support Palestine but then follow the hasbara playbook to link people resisting colonial oppression with white supremacists bombing synagogues in Mississippi.” “Hasbara” is a Hebrew term used to describe Israeli public relations efforts.
Pro-Israel groups, meanwhile, claimed hypocrisy, with some sharing a screenshot of Hanif previously retweeting a pro-Palestinian activist’s post that included the phrase “Globalize the Intifada.” JTA was unable to verify the post.
Unlike Lipstadt, Edelman, the CUNY law professor, told JTA he stands by his initial assessment of the arson.
“Nothing changes the fact that the actions taken in Washington, D.C. and Sydney, Australia, coalesced with an extreme left anti-Israel position,” he said, referring to the mass shootings at the Capital Jewish Museum and Bondi Beach — the former by a declared pro-Palestinian activist, the latter by declared Islamists. (Edelman noted that he recently undertook a Fulbright scholarship in Australia.)
Edelman added, “It is also not surprising that far-right rhetoric, much as it has for generations in this country, has also led to increased violence against minority groups including Jewish Americans.”
But there’s a key difference between the two sides, in Edelman’s eyes.
“The big distinction here, and I say this as a member of the Democratic Party, is that the left has historically been better than this,” he said. “And now, perhaps, they are not.”
For Lipstadt, the incident has largely taught her that Jews shouldn’t spend time trying to determine which kinds of antisemitic attacks, whether from the left or right, are worse.
“It’s all horrible,” she said. “Much of it is lethal. It’s toxic and it’s dangerous.”
The post Deborah Lipstadt has second thoughts about tying Jackson synagogue arsonist to ‘Globalize the Intifada’ appeared first on The Forward.
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In Jordan’s pick for the Oscars, a contradictory message about ethnonationalism
There’s a disagreement in public discourse about how to understand the First Intifada, the nature of the violence, the scale of destruction, and who is responsible. Even the date it began is a source of controversy — foreign-policy analyst Mitchell Bard points to an Israeli being stabbed to death in Gaza in December 1987; the Institute for Middle East Understanding says it was the killing of four Palestinians by an Israeli truck driver days later — but All That’s Left of You, Jordan’s entry for the Best International Feature Film at the Academy Awards, makes the claim that the real beginning was far earlier.
The film, directed by Cherien Dabis, opens in 1988 with a confrontation between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians in a refugee camp in the West Bank. Stones are thrown, shots are fired, and a teenager, Noor Hammad, is shot in the head. Suddenly, the film cuts to an old woman’s face looking straight into the camera.
“I’m here to tell you who is my son,” the woman, Hanan (played by Dabis), says. “But for you to understand, I must tell you what happened to his grandfather.”
We flash back to 1948, where the film marks the origins of the discontent that led to the First Intifada, just as a Zionist paramilitary unit descends on Jaffa. Noor’s grandfather, Sharif — then a young father — sends his family someplace safer as he faces the Israeli soldiers and is eventually imprisoned for refusing to cede his land. The second part of the film takes place after a 30-year time jump, and shows Sharif instilling a sense of Palestinian nationalism in his grandson Noor.
Noor’s father Salim instructs him to obey the laws of Israeli occupation, believing this will keep Noor out of harm’s way. But then we return to 1988 and the day Noor is shot.
All That’s Left of You is strongest in its moving portrayal of the intergenerational differences that can exist in a single family when it comes to dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even though the 1948 and 1978 sections occasionally meander, the timeline helps viewers understand the pressures in the region and within the Hammad family that led to a boiling point in 1988.
But the culmination of the film’s trauma-filled journey lands as a poor lesson in nationalism.
Towards the end of the film, we see an older Hanan in 2022 in a cafe in Tel Aviv — Jaffa. Hanan debates an Israeli about whether or not an organ can have a nationality, particularly in the context of an organ transfer. Ari, the Israeli, says no. Hanan asserts that yes — a Palestinian heart is always Palestinian no matter what body it occupies.
It’s a not so subtle metaphor for the belief that the land of Israel remains Palestinian in its soul, no matter who occupies it. But that feels like a case for embracing ethnonationalism to try and combat…ethnonationalism. Historically, no matter what name you call it, that patch of earth has always been home to many different people and an important marker of different cultural identities.
All That’s Left of You depicts Palestinian resilience in the face of great oppression but the message seems to be that this abuse is inherent to certain identities. Throughout the film, the characters make blanket statements about Zionists and Israelis as a monolithic force of evil. When these characters are dealing with being imprisoned, barred from their own homes, and humiliated at gunpoint, these angry generalizations are not surprising, especially if that is all they have known for three generations. But the ending argument, that an organ cannot exist without a nationalistic sentiment, does not offer a hopeful message. Up until this point, the film has demonstrated the destructive and dehumanizing effects of ethnocentric possessiveness, but it struggles to disentangle itself from the ideology it seeks to condemn. Instead, it ends up replicating it.
The post In Jordan’s pick for the Oscars, a contradictory message about ethnonationalism appeared first on The Forward.
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VIDEO: Chatting in Yiddish during an Iraqi Jewish meal
אין 2022 האָט דער פֿאָרווערטס אַרויסגעלאָזט אַ ווידעאָ, וווּ דער ייִדישער אַקטיאָר מײַק בורשטיין און זײַן פֿרײַנדינע פּערלאַ קאַרני שמועסן אויף ייִדיש בעת זיי עסן אין „פֿאַקטאָרס פֿיימאָס דעלי“ אין לאָס־אַנדזשעלעס.
עטלעכע לייענער האָבן דעמאָלט געזאָגט אַז זיי האָבן הנאה געהאַט פֿונעם ווידעאָ ווײַל, ווי איינער האָט געשריבן: „ס׳האָט מיך דערמאָנט אין די קינדעריאָרן ווען איך פֿלעג זיך אונטערהערן ווי מײַנע קרובֿים רעדן ייִדיש צווישן זיך.“
זינט דעמאָלט זענען אַרויס עטלעכע אַנדערע ווידעאָס, וווּ זיי עסן אין פֿאַרשידענע לאָקאַלן און שמועסן בשעת־מעשׂה אויף מאַמע־לשון.
איצט האָט מען זיי פֿילמירט בעת אַ סעודה פֿון איראַקישע פּאָטראַוועס צוגעגרייט פֿון אַ יונגערמאַן, ניקאָלאַס ניסים, וואָס רעדט אַליין ייִדיש.
דער ווידעאָ, וואָס ווערט באַגלייט מיט ענגלישע אונטערקעפּלעך, איז פּראָדוצירט געוואָרן פֿונעם ייִדישן טעלעוויזיע־קאַנאַל JBS
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