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On Israel’s 75th Independence Day, its flag has taken on new meaning as a protest symbol
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Avigail Arnheim has been protesting Benjamin Netanyahu for years, starting with the demonstrations in Jerusalem that began in 2020, calling on him to resign as Israel’s prime minister.
When Netanyahu returned to office in December, Arnheim again took to the streets — this time to protest Netanyahu’s attempt to sap the Israeli Supreme Court of its power. And now, she comes armed with what she sees as a potent symbol: an Israeli flag emblazoned with the words of the country’s Declaration of Independence.
“I feel that the people of Israel woke up, and finally understands that life needs to come with values, with morals and with caring,” she said at a mass protest Tuesday night in Tel Aviv, as Israel began celebrating its 75th Independence Day. Arnheim believes those ideas are reflected in the declaration, which was signed on the day of Israel’s founding, traces the connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel, and pledges democracy and human rights.
She added, “I think that the meaning of the flag has received a place in a society that wasn’t aware of it for a long time.”
Seeing the streets of Israel festooned with flags is one of the hallmarks of the country’s Independence Day, called Yom Haatzmaut in Hebrew. It’s common for flags to line streets and hang from balconies. A popular children’s song sung on the holiday begins, “The whole land is flags.”
But this year, Israel’s quintessential national symbol has taken on a different meaning for some, as the hundreds of thousands of anti-government protesters have, for months, made the flag the icon of their cause. The flag has become so associated with the protests that Zichron Yaakov, a city north of Tel Aviv, briefly banned the flag and images of the Declaration of Independence from its Independence Day parade.
Voices on the right have chafed against the idea that the flag now indicates opposition to the government. But there was little, if any, skepticism about that idea on the streets of Tel Aviv on Tuesday night, where protesters enthusiastically adapted a range of Independence Day traditions to express their opinions.
Thousands of Israeli protesters wave flags during a rally against the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul bills in Jerusalem, March 27, 2023. (Gili Yaari/Flash90)
Some protesters viewed their embrace of the flag as a corrective that now allows the flag to represent what they see as Israel’s founding aspirations, following years during which it was perceived as a symbol of Israel’s right wing. Before this year’s protests, another prominent political association for the flag was with religious nationalists who hold an annual “flag march” in Jerusalem’s Old City that has stoked Israeli-Palestinian tensions.
“It’s a symbol that had been hijacked for way too long by the right,” said Roy Rob, a graphic designer at the Tel Aviv rally who splits his time between Israel and Brooklyn. “It’s the same in the States: The American flag has really been hijacked and pigeonholed.”
Regarding the Israeli flag, he added, “Now it’s being democratized again. It makes sense that the people who really care about the origin of Israel, what Israel is all about, use the original symbols of it.”
Some right-wingers aren’t ready to yield Israel’s national symbols. Gideon Dokov, an editor at the right-leaning newspaper Makor Rishon, called the idea that the flag represents opposition to the judicial overhaul “absurd.”
“By mistake or intentionally, it seems that in recent months, there are those who are trying to take ownership of the national symbols — the flag and the Declaration of Independence — on behalf of the protests, just as they’re trying to take ownership of [the concept of] democracy,” Dokov wrote earlier this month. “Both are incorrect.”
In any case, flags were ubiquitous at Tuesday night’s protest. When asked where they got theirs, several protesters made a perplexed face that seemed to ask, “Where have you been all this time?”
The flags, they said, aren’t hard to get. Many were distributed for free at earlier protests, along with black T-shirts that read, “De-mo-cra-cy” in Hebrew block letters, copying the central chant of the demonstrations. Other shirts, like Rob’s, which read, “There’s no democracy with occupation,” were also distributed by activist groups at earlier protests. Many flags included the phrase “Free in our land,” which comes from Israel’s national anthem.
Others already had flags at home, and some bought them recently. At the protest, a man who was selling the flags and other assorted tchotchkes out of a stuffed shopping cart said the flag itself, without a pole, costs around $5.50. He said he bought his merchandise from stores and was reselling it, but would not provide further details.
A flag vendor stands with his wares during a Yom Haatzmaut celebration and anti-government protest in Tel Aviv, April 25, 2023. (Ben Sales)
The flags with the Declaration of Independence text, Arnheim said, went for about $13.75 and were sold by their creator via group chats used to organize the protests. Nati Hochberg, who traveled from a town north of Tel Aviv to demonstrate, said he bought his flag (with pole) for some $11 at a hardware store, after someone stole a previous flag of his from his motorcycle.
“We’ve taken back what belongs to us,” Hochberg said of the flag. His friend Tal Vardi, who traveled with him and has had his flag for years, added, “This population for many years ceded these symbols and now it’s taking them back. … I don’t know if it happened coincidentally, but it’s a feeling that it also belongs to us.”
That the flag has turned into a protest symbol, said one woman from northern Israel who declined to give her name, elicits a mixture of “pride and sadness” regarding the political conflict raging in the country.
“It’s clearly preferable for this not to be,” she said while holding a flag identical to Arnheim’s. “But if it is like this, at least the flag should have meaning.”
The protesters didn’t shy away from adapting other Independence Day pastimes, either. A white, foamy spray traditionally blasted by children on the holiday was being rebranded at the protest as “democracy snow” (one big can for about $2.75).
At a less crowded area of the protest, someone used the spray to spell out “democracy” in large letters on the ground. On a nearby bicycle path, the word “Leave,” used as a chant against Netanyahu, was also written in the spray. A cyclist stopped short before running it over.
A Tel Aviv protest at the start of Yom Haatzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, featured a sea of flags, April 25, 2023. (Ben Sales)
Soft plastic hammers, another holiday mainstay, were also visible throughout the crowd. And a DJ blasted classic Israeli dance music in the middle of the demonstration, including the American Jewish summer camp favorite “Zodiac,” sung by Yaron Hadad.
In general, signs of the protests freckle Tel Aviv, which has been the nerve center of the demonstrations and the bastion of Israel’s left-wing minority. Municipal bus stops bear signs playing on the words of the national anthem and implying that the protests will keep Israel “Free from racism,” “Free from repression of women” and more. Graffiti supporting the protests — such as “Bibi is a traitor” — also isn’t hard to find, though there is also a smattering of pro-overhaul graffiti such as one message calling Israel’s Supreme Court a dictatorship.
Some paraphernalia at the demonstration trumpeted specific causes, like an LGBTQ pride flag, a flag that spelled out “democracy” in the colors of the Israeli and Palestinian flags, or a T-shirt, given out by an self-styled “moderate majority” activist group, that read “I [heart] Bagatz,” the Hebrew acronym for the Supreme Court.
Some participants got more creative. At a table in a sparse area, a few people offered free alcohol to passersby while a young man using a megaphone sang “Democracy and arak” to the tune of the famous riff from the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army.”
The idea, his colleague Ron said, was to give people free drinks to celebrate the country and the protests — which they hope will preserve the possibility for young people to get an education and find dignified work.
“In general, this is our last shot to save democracy, so everyone who wants to save democracy gets a shot as a gift from us,” said Ron, 23, who declined to give his last name. ”We love everyone, and we love democracy.”
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Jewish and Muslim comedians team up to turn tension into titters
Comedian Gibran Saleem had never met a Jewish person until starting his graduate studies at New York University more than a decade ago. The child of Pakistani immigrants, Saleem was raised in a Muslim household in northern Virginia where, he said, he was mostly surrounded by people with a similar cultural background.
“I knew about the Holocaust, and that was it,” Saleem said. “I didn’t know anything about the [Jewish] religion, culture, any of that until I moved to New York [City], which is pretty wild to me.”
Things have changed drastically since then. Today, Saleem is part of a loose collective of about a dozen comedians known as Comedy for Peace, an international, interfaith comedy project that brings together Jewish, Muslim and Christian comedians. On Saturday, Saleem, along with four other comics, will perform a one-night-only show, “Comedy for Peace,” at the Upper East Side’s Comic Strip Live as part of the New York Comedy Festival.
“It’s a very simple idea,” said the group’s founder, Jewish Israeli comedian Erik Angel, who is also performing Saturday. “It’s to bring, under one roof, different communities and show how easy it is to have fun.”
A 10-year resident of the Upper West Side, Angel, 50, grew up in Petach Tikvah. He founded Comedy for Peace in 2019, just a few years after he entered the comedy circuit following a career as a musician. After two successful interfaith shows early that year, “Comedy for Peace” became a recurring event that aims to promote tolerance. Since then, the group has played more than 200 shows across North America, where they’ve helped raise money for various causes, including helping nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic and supporting the Parents Circle Families Forum, a joint Israeli-Palestinian group that brings together families who have lost relatives on both sides of the conflict.
And now, the group’s latest gig will take place in a tense New York City, with many local Jews worried about the forthcoming mayoral leadership of avowed anti-Zionist Zohran Mamdani. As such, Angel thinks Saturday’s show will be “very important,” adding that he hopes cross-cultural comedy will help alleviate “all the fear, all the things coming from this separation” between Mamdani’s supporters and detractors.
“Even in Israeli media, people online, and I think the panic is — I understand where they’re coming from, and I also have my concerns,” said Angel. “But on the other hand, it’s democracy.”
Despite their lofty ambitions, Angel sees “Comedy for Peace” as a brief respite from politics. “We say to you, ‘OK, you want to fight before? You want to fight after? With us, we’re gonna chill [for] two hours,’” he said. “’We’re gonna chill.’”
Saturday’s “Comedy for Peace” lineup includes Iranian comedian Tehran Ghasri, who is also Black and whose family is Muslim, Zoroastrian and Jewish; lesbian Jewish comedian Liz Glazer, who recently made her “Tonight Show” debut; and Texas-born Ashley Austin Morris, who is Christian.
“The ultimate goal is just unity and shared compassion,” Saleem said.
“Comedy for Peace” will take place on Saturday at 8 p.m. at Comic Strip Live, 1568 Second Ave. Get tickets, $36.60, here.
Other Jewish shows at the NY Comedy Festival
With more than 100 shows across the five boroughs, the annual New York Comedy Festival runs through Sunday, Nov. 16 this year. Here are a few Jewish highlights from the fest:
Anna Roisman co-hosts “Celebrity Drop-In” on Tuesday at 8 p.m. at The Stand West (407 West 15th St.). Roisman is the creator of the one-woman show “Jewish American Prodigy” and known for her impressions and characters on Instagram and TikTok. Get tickets from $29.
Eli Leonard presents “Good Showbiz,” an experimental show exploring the history of Jewish comedy, on Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at iconic Jewish restaurant Barney Greengrass (541 Amsterdam Ave.). Tickets here from $72.
“Alex Borstein Is Thirsty” plays Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at The Bell House (149 7th St., Brooklyn). The Jewish comedian and actress is best known for her voice work on “Family Guy” and as Susie Myerson in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” and this solo show is part of her national tour. Tickets here from $38.
“The Jackie Mason Musical” will have three showings, on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday at the Triad Theatre (158 West 72nd St.) on the Upper West Side. Mason’s daughter, Sheba, who was not publicly recognized by the late comedian until she was 18 years old, stars in this story about her parents’ relationship. Get your tickets here from $30.
“Good Neighbors: A Fundraiser for Jews for Racial and Economic Justice,” hosted by comedians Orli Matlow and Marcia Belsky, will be performed on Wednesday at 9 p.m. at Brooklyn Art Haus (24 Marcy Ave.). Tickets start at $23.
“Hysterical,” presented by stand-up comedian Hannah Lieberman, will be performed on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at QED Astoria (27-16 23rd Ave.). The one-woman comedy musical is about Lieberman’s experience learning she has the BRCA-1 gene. Get tickets, $10, here.
“Natan Badalov: Chosen Fam” will be performed Friday at 8 p.m. at Astoria’s Grove 34 (31-83 34th St.). Badalov, a Bukharian comedian, debuted his first stand-up special, “Connect The Dots” at the New York Comedy Festival in 2023. Get your tickets for “Chosen Fam” here from $23.
“Alex Edelman: What Are You Going To Do” will be performed on Saturday at 6 p.m at Carnegie Hall (881 Seventh Ave.). Edelman is the creator of the very Jewish, award-winning special “Just for Us,” and now stars on the Peacock show “The Paper.” (Tickets for this show are sold out.)
“Talia Reese and Friends: Kosher Style” will be performed Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Rodney’s Comedy Club (1118 First Ave.). Reese, an Orthodox Jewish woman and a former lawyer, is known for her insider-y Jewish comedy. Tickets here from $22.
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A Yiddish circus in a suitcase
Imagine aerial acrobatics accompanied by a dreamy melody on fiddle and cimbalom. A juggler maneuvering seven bouncing balls at once to the beat of a klezmer band. A saxophonist charming a suspiciously human-looking snake with a terkisher (a type of klezmer dance) — and all this interwoven with Yiddish songs and poetic stories of distant hometowns and faded Jewish circus traditions. Above all, suitcases, serving as seats, drums, and, of course, containers for circus equipment.
This is just a glimpse of the show “Tshemodan,” performed by what may be Germany’s first Yiddish circus company, Tsirk Dobranotch. The word tshemodan, Yiddish for “suitcase,” is the company’s second production. The ensemble consists of the klezmer band Dobranotch, joined by circus artists Sam Gurwitt and Eliana Pliskin Jacobs.
Jacobs, an aerialist and singer, has been dreaming of creating a klezmer circus ever since she entered the Yiddish scene in Berlin and other cities in Germany around 2018. In 2022, she met Sam Gurwitt, and they soon realized that they shared not only a background as circus artists but also a connection to the Yiddish and klezmer world: Gurwitt is trained both as a clown and as a klezmer fiddler. Creating a klezmer circus together was the obvious next step.
A few months later, Jacobs, a longtime fan of the band Dobranotch, pitched the idea to its members who have long been known for including comedy and stunts in their musical performances. “We like to do entertainment and eccentric, funny things, and with the circus company we tried to put it on another level,” said Mitia Khramtsov, the band’s fiddle player.
Tsirk Dobranotch’s first show, “Das Fliegende Balagan,” (Yiddishized German for “flying bedlam”) premiered in Dresden in 2023. For their second production, the group decided to incorporate a more coherent “thematic glue,” as Gurwitt calls it, focusing on the theme of migration as reflected in the title “Tshemodan” and to use the suitcase as a recurring element.
Migration — whether voluntary, pressured, or forced – is an experience that runs through all the ensemble members’ family histories or personal biographies. Jacobs and Gurwitt both grew up in the United States as grandchildren of German and Eastern European Holocaust survivors and moved to Germany in their twenties. Dobranotch members Mitia Khramtsov, Germina Gordienko, Ilya Gindin, and Evgenii Lizin are from St. Petersburg and fled to Germany after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. They were joined by Paul Milmeister, who was born in Ukraine and migrated to Germany as a teenager. Some of the Tshemodan shows feature Bertan Canbeldek, an acrobat who was born in Germany to Turkish parents, as a guest artist.
Aside form the overall theme of migration and wandering, the company’s mission is to recall the almost forgotten history of Jewish circuses in pre-Holocaust Europe. In one of Jacobs’s solo acts, she tells the story of Jewish families, among them the Blumenfeld, Lorch, and Straßburger families, who had been running circuses in German-speaking Europe since the 17th century. She then asks herself whether her German-Jewish grandmother might have seen one of the pre-war Jewish circuses.
Comparing herself to “a ghost connecting the living with the dead, the past with the present,” Jacobs swings on a trapeze in a pensive, elegant aerial performance to the delicate sound of a slow hora played by Khramtsov and Gordienko.
Tsirk Dobranotch is aware, however, that these German and Western European Jewish circuses were historically not closely related to Eastern European Yiddish culture or klezmer music. This incongruence makes it difficult to justify why klezmer and circus would go together, Gurwitt admitted. On the other hand, as Jacobs pointed out, “the theme of wandering works well with both circus and klezmer.”
In fact, there is evidence that the klezmer musicians who played at weddings in different shtetls may have been accompanied by jugglers and acrobats. In fact, Khramtsov said, the old tradition of badkhonim (wedding jesters), certainly had historical connections to medieval Jewish jesters known as leytsonim.
While these links between Yiddish culture and the circus world did exist, Jewish culture and religion didn’t play much of a role in the Jewish circuses traveling throughout the German-speaking regions. As Jacobs put it: “They were normal circus performers who happened to be Jewish.”
According to Jacobs and Gurwitt, Jews joining and running important German circuses was evidence of their assimilation into the broader society, even though it eventually failed. Under the Nazi regime, Jewish circus artists were boycotted and persecuted; forced into hiding or exile, and many were eventually murdered.
But there was one circus performer that did not try to hide his Jewish identity. That was Siegmund “Zishe” Breitbart, also called the Iron King and allegedly the “strongest man on Earth.” Born in 1897 and raised in the Yiddish-speaking community of Lodz (at that time part of the Russian Empire), Breitbart overtly expressed his Jewishness on stage. Many of his advertisements and costumes, and even the chariot on which he entered the arena, were adorned with Magen David decorations.
In “Tshemodan,” Gurwitt brings Breitbart’s heroic figure to life by wittily constructing an entire mime act around a muscleman displaying his physical strength. Accompanied by a klezmer march, using only a kitchen towel as a prop, he keeps the audience in laughter and suspense, throwing an imaginary elephant up in the air.
As Tsirk Dobranotch celebrates its third year, it’s clear that audiences have come to love the show, as seen by their cheers and standing ovations. Many audience members even join in the dance leading the troupe offstage after the show.
As the company plans a new show for 2026, their fans can only guess what they’ll continue to unpack from their suitcases.
The post A Yiddish circus in a suitcase appeared first on The Forward.
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Turkey Said to Be Mobilizing Troops for Gaza ‘Peacekeeping,’ Sparking Tensions With Israel
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan attends a press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, Oct. 30, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Turkey is reportedly advancing plans to send thousands of soldiers to the Gaza Strip as part of an international peacekeeping force, pushing forward despite US hesitation and Israeli resistance, as Ankara seeks to secure a role in the enclave’s post-war future.
The Turkish government has mobilized more than 2,000 troops from across the country for a potential deployment in Gaza as part of the US-backed peace plan alongside other participating countries, the Middle East Eye news outlet and Turkish media reported.
Last week, Washington sent a draft resolution to members of the United Nations Security Council, proposing the creation of an International Stabilization Force (ISF) in Gaza that would remain for at least two years.
Under US President Donald Trump’s peace plan, such a force will oversee the Gaza ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas and train local security forces.
Based on the proposed draft resolution, the ISF would include troops from multiple participating countries and would be responsible for securing Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt, while also protecting civilians and maintaining humanitarian corridors.
In addition, the ISF would seemingly be expected to take on the responsibility of disarming Hamas — a key component of Trump’s peace plan to end the war in Gaza, which the Palestinian terror group has repeatedly rejected.
In recent weeks, Washington has been working closely with regional powers to determine the composition of the peacekeeping force, with Turkey seeking to play a central role in the enclave.
However, Israel has consistently opposed any involvement of Turkish security forces in post-war Gaza.
On Sunday, the Israeli government reiterated that Turkish troops would not be allowed to enter the war-torn enclave.
“There will be no Turkish boots on the ground,” Shosh Bedrosian, a spokesperson for the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, said during a press conference.
As Turkey moves to secure a role in Gaza’s post-war reconstruction efforts, experts have warned that Ankara, as a key backer of Hamas, could shield the Islamist group or even strengthen its terrorist infrastructure.
In the past, Turkey has provided refuge to Hamas leaders, granted diplomatic access, and allowed the group to fundraise, recruit, and plan attacks from Turkish territory.
US officials have confirmed that any participating countries in the international task force will be selected in close coordination with Israel, ensuring that no foreign troops will be included without Israel’s consent.
During the two-year Gaza conflict, relations between Turkey and Israel deteriorated rapidly, with Ankara adopting an openly hostile stance, seeking to undermine the Jewish state internationally.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly praised Hamas while falsely accusing Israel of committing genocide.
This week, the Turkish government issued arrest warrants for 37 Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing them of “genocide” in Gaza.
Israeli leaders have strongly rejected such accusations, emphasizing that the Jewish state has been targeting terrorists who use civilians as human shields in its military operations.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar condemned Turkey’s latest move, describing the warrants as “the latest PR stunt by the tyrant Erdogan.”
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also denounced such accusations, calling them “ridiculous.”
“Take those ridiculous arrest warrants and get the hell out of here,” the Israeli official said in a post on X. “They’re more fitting for the massacres you’ve committed against the Kurds. Israel is strong and unafraid. You’ll only be able to see Gaza through binoculars.”
.@RTErdogan, şu gülünç tutuklama emirlerini al ve buradan defol. Onlar, Kürtlere yaptığın katliama daha uygun. İsrail güçlü ve korkmuyor. Gazze’yi sadece dürbünle görebileceksin. pic.twitter.com/dWhU0IVym4
— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) November 9, 2025
Meanwhile, Turkey reportedly tried to secure a side deal to allow 200 Hamas terrorists trapped in the tunnels of the southern Gaza city of Rafah to escape, allegedly using the body of Israeli Lieutenant Hadar Goldin — who was killed during Operation Protective Edge in 2014 — as leverage. However, Hamas returned Goldin’s body on Sunday, marking the latest deceased hostage to be released to Israel as part of the US-brokered ceasefire.
Hamas has reportedly demanded that the 200 terrorists be released into the part of Gaza it still controls, rather than into Israeli-held territory.
Under the first phase of Trump’s plan, Israel withdrew to a boundary dubbed the “yellow line,” still controlling 53 percent of the enclave’s territory. Within the other 47 percent, where the vast majority of Gaza’s population is located, Hamas has launched a brutal crackdown to impose full control.
However, the Israeli government announced Monday that any decision concerning the 200 terrorists would be made in coordination with the Trump administration.