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Spielberg’s ‘Fabelmans’ earns 7 Oscar nods, WWII epic with anti-Nazi past gets 9
(JTA) – “The Fabelmans,” Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical drama about his Jewish upbringing, had an expected strong haul of Oscar nominations, picking up seven nods Tuesday morning.
A remake of a movie once targeted by the Nazis, a blockbuster embroiled in a lawsuit with an Israeli family and a documentary by the program director of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival also got recognized in a list jam-packed with Jewish characters, stories and artists.
Spielberg’s movie overcame an anemic box office showing to score nominations in the major categories of best picture, director and screenplay, for Spielberg and celebrated Jewish playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner. The directing nomination brings Spielberg’s total nominations in the category to nine, tying him with Martin Scorsese for the second-most directing nominations in Oscar history.
The film also scored acting nods for Judd Hirsch, who is Jewish, and Michelle Williams, who recently said she is planning to raise her two children with Judaism.
“The Fabelmans” was the best picture nominee with the strongest Jewish themes, but it wasn’t the only one. The psychological drama “Tár,” starring Cate Blanchett as a problematic conductor, picked up six nominations, including for picture, actress and director; the film weaves Jewish mysticism into its storytelling.
“All Quiet On The Western Front,” Netflix’s new German-language adaptation of the classic 1929 novel about the horrors experienced by German soldiers during World War I, was also nominated for nine Oscars, including best picture, international feature and adapted screenplay. The film’s source material was once banned and burned by the ascending Nazi Party, which believed its anti-war stance made the German military look weak and constituted a threat to their plans for world domination.
When the book’s initial 1930 film adaptation, directed by Jewish filmmaker Lewis Milestone, was released in Germany, Nazis led by Joseph Goebbels set off stink bombs, released mice into the theaters and called the movie a “Judenfilm” (or “Jewish film”). Germany and Austria banned the film from being shown in their countries, and the public censorship campaign led the novel’s author, Erich Maria Remarque, to renounce his German citizenship (Nazis were erroneously labeling him as a Jew).
In response, Jewish studio head Carl Laemmle Sr., agreed to heavily edit the movie and remove material deemed objectionable to the Nazis in order to improve its commercial prospects in Germany. One possible silver lining for the remake’s producers: The 1930 film went on to win best picture that year.
Tom Cruise at a “Top Gun: Maverick” premier at Leicester Square in London, May 19, 2022. (Neil Mockford/FilmMagic via Getty Images)
Back to this year’s Oscars: “Top Gun: Maverick,” the action blockbuster sequel, picked up four nominations, including for best picture. The film’s distributor, Paramount, is currently embroiled in a copyright lawsuit with the family of Israeli journalist Ehud Yonay, whose magazine article about a Navy fighter pilot school was the basis for the original “Top Gun” in 1986. In November, a judge dismissed Paramount’s attempts to throw out the suit and ruled the Yonay family could proceed with their claims.
The writer, director and actress Sarah Polley also scored a nomination for best adapted screenplay for her drama “Women Talking,” about a group of abused women in an isolated Mennonite community, which was also nominated for best picture. Polley has a Jewish biological father, whose secret parentage she explored in her 2013 documentary “Stories We Tell.”
The Jewish film producer Gail Berman also scored her first Oscar nomination for producing best picture nominee “Elvis,” while Jewish producing partners Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel scored their own best picture nomination for “The Whale.” The movie, which Aronofsky directed, stars Brendan Fraser (also nominated) as a morbidly obese English professor.
In the performing categories, one actor was nominated for playing a real-life Jewish convert: Ana de Armas received a best actress nomination for her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in Netflix’s “Blonde.” Monroe converted to Judaism in the 1950s and remained devoted to the religion even after divorcing her husband, Jewish playwright Arthur Miller.
Also, veteran actress Jamie Lee Curtis — whose father, Golden Age Hollywood actor Tony Curtis, was Jewish — picked up her first-ever Oscar nomination for her supporting role as a sinister tax officer in the multiverse sci-fi comedy “Everything Everywhere All At Once.”
Curtis is nominated in the category alongside her co-star Stephanie Hsu, who is also known to fans of the very Jewish TV series “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” as Mei Lin, a Chinese restaurant owner who gets together with co-lead Joel Maisel. Early buzz on the upcoming fifth season of “Maisel” says that Hsu’s character will convert to Judaism.
Another “Everything Everywhere” co-star, Jewish actress Jenny Slate, helped a different film score an Oscar nomination in the best animated feature category: the stop-motion mockumentary “Marcel The Shell With Shoes On.” Slate co-wrote the feature with her ex-husband Dean Fleischer-Camp, who directs; Slate also voices the lead role of Marcel. However, she is not one of the nominated producers on the film.
“All The Beauty And The Bloodshed,” a portrait of the outsider artist Nan Goldin and her years-long activism campaign against opioid manufacturers the Sackler family, was nominated in the best documentary feature category and is favored to win. The film documents how Goldin was born to Jewish parents but had an emotionally abusive family life and left home in her teens. The Sacklers are also Jewish.
The documentary short category saw the second nomination in a row for Jewish filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt, whose documentary “How Do You Measure A Year” chronicles many years of his daughter Ella’s birthdays. Rosenblatt is the program director of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
Veteran Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski was also nominated in the international feature category for his drama “EO,” told from the perspective of a donkey. Skolimowski’s father was a member of the Polish Resistance and his mother hid a Jewish family in their house during World War II.
Jewish composer Justin Hurwitz, who won an Oscar for his work on “La La Land,” was nominated again for the score for “Babylon,” a follow-up production with that film’s director, Damien Chazelle.
And in the original song category, Jewish songwriter Diane Warren extended her nomination streak to 14 for the number “Applause,” from the feminist documentary “Tell It Like A Woman.” Warren has never won a competitive Oscar but did receive an honorary Academy Award last year.
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The post Spielberg’s ‘Fabelmans’ earns 7 Oscar nods, WWII epic with anti-Nazi past gets 9 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Trump announces deal with Iran is ‘now complete’
(JTA) — President Donald Trump announced Sunday that a deal to end the war with Iran and reopen the Strait of Hormuz is “now complete.”
“Congratulations to all! I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!”
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who has played a key mediating role in talks between the U.S. and Iran, also announced that a deal had been reached minutes before Trump made his post, adding that an official signing ceremony would take place Friday in Switzerland.
“Both sides have declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” Sharif wrote in a post on X.
The announcement comes more than three months since Israel and the U.S. launched its joint strikes on Iran in February. While the deal’s details have not yet been publicly announced, it is expected to extend a ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. for 60 days, during which the countries will negotiate a broader agreement addressing Iran’s nuclear program.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu did not immediately put out a statement following the announcement, but earlier Sunday he had posted a message on X celebrating Trump’s birthday.
Also earlier Sunday, Israel launched strikes on Hezbollah targets in Beirut, prompting Iran to vow retaliation and drawing a sharp rebuke from Trump, who said the strikes had “delayed the signing by a few hours.”
“Why did Bibi have to do a f–cking attack? I was so pissed off. I let him know. He has no fucking judgement. I let him know that,” Trump told Axios Sunday.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Trump announces deal with Iran is ‘now complete’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Jane Yolen, children’s book author whose ‘The Devil’s Arithmetic’ became a Holocaust classic, dies at 87
(JTA) — Jane Yolen was already an award-winning author and illustrator of more than 100 titles for young readers when her editor suggested she write a Jewish children’s book.
At first, she resisted the idea. Sure, she was Jewish. But she didn’t grow up in a religiously observant family, and she insisted she didn’t know enough about Judaism to take on the project.
Finally, she relented. Drawing on a spark of an idea about a Holocaust time-travel fantasy, Yolen turned in the first draft of what would become “The Devil’s Arithmetic,” her 1988 young adult novel. “I thought, ‘OK, I’m going to try this,’” Yolen recalled to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency years later.
The book won immediate acclaim and garnered multiple awards. Today, it’s seen as a classic of the genre — and one that remains caught up in banned-book lists.
For Yolen, who died Thursday at 87 in her home in Western Massachusetts, “The Devil’s Arithmetic” became her signature title. Still in print, the book was also made into an Emmy Award-winning Showtime feature starring Kirsten Dunst. It was the cornerstone of a titanic legacy in children’s literature, her family said in a statement.
“It is with profound sadness that I, along with my brothers, Adam Stemple, and Jason Stemple, share the news of our mother, Jane Yolen’s passing,” her daughter Heidi Stemple wrote on Facebook, adding that Yolen had “passed gently with no pain or stress” and her family by her side, reading one of her books to her.
Yolen was born on Feb. 11, 1939, in New York City. Her father was a journalist and her mother was a psychiatric social worker until Yolen was born.
An alumna of Smith College, where she won poetry and journalism awards, she worked first as an editor in New York City, writing at her breaks and time off. Her first published book, “Pirates in Petticoats,” a nonfiction work about women on the high seas, was published when she was 22.
She soon pivoted to children’s literature, becoming one of the most prolific authors in the genre. She went on to publish 450 children’s books, including more Jewish titles, and was known as “the Hans Christian Andersen of America.” She won the prestigious Caldecott Medal for her 1987 picture book, “Owl Moon,” and her “How Do Dinosaurs …” series is a staple in many preschool classrooms. (It includes one Jewish title: “How Do Dinosaurs Say Happy Chanukah?” Her 450th title was published just this year, her children said.
But it was “The Devil’s Arithmetic,” scholars have said, that cemented her legacy as a leading author for young Jews. The novel was a trailblazer for its blending of time-travel with historical veracity, according to the late Norman H. Finkelstein, a National Jewish Book award winner who was a children’s librarian himself.
“It was a different Holocaust book,” Finkelstein told JTA in 2018, on the occasion of the title’s 30th anniversary. “It was not strictly factual, it was not a memoir. Jane did a superb job in taking the story of the Holocaust down to a level that ordinary American kids could understand. The characters were realistic, not paper cutouts.”
Other titles of hers included “Meet Me at the Well: The Girls and Women of the Bible,” with Barbara Diamond Goldin, and “Jewish Fairy Tale Feasts,” with her daughter Heidi, who developed and illustrated the hands-on recipes.
Yolen relished the collaborations with her daughter. They lived next door to each other, along with Stemple’s family, with two grandchildren who were taste-testers of Stemple’s recipes.
“Jane was a treasure, and it is difficult to think of the world of books — indeed the world itself – without her,” Richard Michelson, an award-winning author of Jewish children’s books and Yolen’s friend and neighbor, wrote on Facebook. Describing her as a cherished mentor of younger writers, he added, “Jane created classics as if it were as easy as breathing.”
While often assigned in schools as part of lessons on the Holocaust, Yolen’s titles are not without controversy. In 2025 a Texas school district, using artificial intelligence, flagged “The Devil’s Arithmetic” for removal as a title containing “DEI,” or diversity, equity and inclusion content. The book became one of several well known Holocaust titles to be pulled from schools in the last few years.
Though she had initially resisted the idea of being a Holocaust author, Yolen would go on to publish a trilogy of unconventional young-adult novels about the subject. She incorporated elements of “Sleeping Beauty” into 1992’s “Briar Rose.” “Mapping the Bones” followed in 2018 as a riff on “Hansel and Gretel.”
“Whenever we think of the Holocaust, we think of remembering,” Yolen told JTA in that same 2018 interview. “We think of never forgetting. Soon all we will have are the stories.”
In addition to her children, Yolen is survived by six grandchildren. Her husband, David Stemple, to whom she was married for 44 years, died in 2006.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Jane Yolen, children’s book author whose ‘The Devil’s Arithmetic’ became a Holocaust classic, dies at 87 appeared first on The Forward.
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Hebrew Union College claims Ohio’s charity-law suit violates its First Amendment rights
(JTA) — The Reform movement’s central rabbinical seminary filed a motion to dismiss the state of Ohio’s lawsuit against the school Friday, claiming the suit violates “foundational Jewish religious doctrine.”
It was the latest escalation in a pitched battle between Hebrew Union College and the state attorney general’s office, which has accused HUC of violating nonprofit law by shuttering degree-granting programs on its historic Cincinnati campus.
The suit, HUC argues, “violates the First Amendment by entangling government and religion.”
The suit was originally filed in April by then-Ohio AG Dave Yost — his second against the college related to its controversial plan to wind down its Cincinnati operations in favor of its New York and Los Angeles campuses. Yost claimed HUC’s actions in Cincinnati misled its donors by leaving a city where they were actively fundraising to support operations, and also violated its charter, which states that the school would “permanently maintain” a residence there.
The state seeks to seize HUC’s assets in Ohio and redirect them to a new, yet-to-be-decided nonprofit with a similar mission; an upstart rabbinical school founded by HUC alums says it wants them.
Such a move “is an unconstitutional and illegal governmental assault upon religion,” HUC’s strongly worded motion reads.
It continues, “The Attorney General has no role in dictating the religious affairs of institutions like HUC. The Court should reject his overreach into religious matters and should dismiss the Complaint because it is unconstitutional and unlawful.”
HUC also argues its vote to shutter the Cincinnati campus was done in full compliance with the law, adding that it intends to maintain the campus’s other assets, including the Klau Library, the American Jewish Archives and the Skirball Museum. In addition, citing a passage in the Torah that states “God will come to his people wherever they welcome him,” the school argues that considering “Jewish demographic realities” is part of its religious mission.
“These decisions were made thoughtfully and responsibly to ensure the long-term success of the institution and our ability to continue graduating strong Jewish leaders,” HUC president Andrew Rehfeld said in a statement accompanying the motion. The lawsuit, he added, “improperly seeks to interfere in the decisions of a religious organization, and this cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.”
Yost himself resigned as AG this week to join the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group that, in 2022, represented a Tennessee adoption agency that refused to foster a child to a Jewish couple. The suit against HUC continues under the state AG’s office.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Hebrew Union College claims Ohio’s charity-law suit violates its First Amendment rights appeared first on The Forward.
