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Sundance documentary ‘Under G-d’ details the Jewish legal response to the Dobbs decision
(JTA) — Last summer, in the days after the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that protected the right to an abortion, Paula Eiselt was doing press work for her acclaimed documentary “Aftershock.”
The film — which documents how the American healthcare system disproportionately fails to keep women of color healthy during and after giving birth — kept her busy with interviews as it earned a wide audience on Hulu and in theaters. But Eiselt felt pulled into thinking about a project tied to the Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe.
Staying true to her Jewish roots, Eiselt found a Jewish angle: the rabbis and Jewish organizations who are helping lead the charge in bringing lawsuits against the Dobbs decision.
“As a Jewish woman, a Jewish mother, to see that there are Jews, rabbis, organizations, standing up to these bans, to the Dobbs decision, and finding ways to flip the script on many of these laws was very inspiring,” said Eiselt, whose first film focused on an Orthodox female emergency responder service in Brooklyn.
Her new short documentary “Under G-d,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Sunday and plays there throughout the week, shows how Jewish people and institutions are using state laws called Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRAs) — often used in the past by religious organizations on the opposite side of the abortion issue — to argue that Dobbs violates their religious freedom as American Jews. Traditional Jewish law permits (and even requires) abortion in some circumstances, particularly when the life or health of the pregnant person is at stake.
Among the first lawsuits aimed at Dobbs came from Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor in Boynton Beach, Florida. Its rabbi, Barry Silver, is a figure in Eiselt’s film, alongside Elly Cohen, an Indiana activist and mother who is part of the Hoosier Jews for Choice group; Jeremy Wieder, a leading rabbi at the theological seminary of Yeshiva University; and Rachel K. Laser, who in 2018 became the first woman, Jew and non-Christian to lead Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
A woman named Elly shown in film at a protest in Indianapolis with the Hoosier Jews for Choice group. (Courtesy of “Under G-d”)
“The test is this: Are you going to use RFRA only to protect fundamentalist Christians and their intolerance,” Silver asks in the 24-minute film, “or do Jews get to use it too?”
Cohen’s group led a lawsuit that led to a judge issuing a preliminary injunction in December against Indiana’s abortion ban, blocking its enforcement for now. Laser’s group joined a lawsuit filed in Missouri just last week. And three Jewish women filed a lawsuit alleging infringement of their religious freedom in Kentucky in October.
“The fact that Jews were leading this tactic and this battle, really no other group was thinking about it this way,” Eiselt said. “But as Jews, we know what it’s like when there is no separation between church and state, and this is the prime example of that.
“Of course, now there are many communities joining in with Jews, but Jews are kind of the one who started this,” she added. “I think that’s really true to Jewish involvement in civil rights and human rights, and it was inspiring.”
She noted that people from across the Jewish spectrum were included in the film — which ends with a rally that includes a Havdalah, or post-Shabbat service — and that the overwhelming majority of American Jews favor abortion rights, more than any other religious group, according to studies.
“Diverse Jews, different denominations,” the director said of her interview subjects. “The vast majority of Jews agree on this, from Orthodox to non-observant. There are very few Jews who will say that these bans are in line with values and law.”
Wieder, from Yeshiva University, says in the film that a minority view within Orthodox Judaism believes that “life begins at 40 days after conception,” while the majority says life begins at birth, and seemingly no Jewish religious tradition states that life begins at conception.
Eiselt, a mother of four, identifies as a Modern Orthodox Jew and is a board member of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, where she focuses on reproductive justice issues. She describes the group as “a feminist organization within the Orthodox space that uplifts women’s leadership and participation in Jewish ritual.”
Her first film, “93Queen,” told the story of Ezras Nashim, a female ambulance corps that had to fight for acceptance in the Borough Park haredi Orthodox community.
Funding for the new film came from various film companies and philanthropic organizations, including Concordia Studios and the Sundance Institute, as well as Jewish Story Partners, the foundation backed by Steven Spielberg that launched in 2021.
The film debuted Jan. 22 — on the 50th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling — and is showing in competition at Sundance. After that there are other plans: A “large impact campaign,” as Eiselt described it, will include screenings around the country, including with “Jewish groups, political groups, and reproductive rights groups.”
“Whatever communities you’re in, women are having abortions,” Eiselt said. “Whether they’re mothers, not mothers, whether they have five children, no children. This is part of women’s health care, so it affects everybody and in certain communities, such as more Orthodox communities where I come from, people don’t really talk about it, but it happens commonly.”
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Israeli and diaspora Jews live in different realities. The Israel Day parade proved it
If Sunday’s Israel Day Parade in New York City had been held in Israel, with the same Israeli leaders in attendance, there is no way that so many people would have shown up — unless it was to protest.
The fact that tens of thousands of American Jews seemed to have no problem marching alongside far-right Israeli ministers — including Bezalel Smotrich and Amichai Eliyahu — is a clear indication of the ever-widening gap between Israelis and diaspora Jews, whose support for Israel is, for the most part, conceptual. And that gap isn’t exclusively, or even primarily, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Yes, there are many Israelis who oppose the messianic, anti-Palestinian rhetoric and policies pushed by Smotrich, Eliyahu and the rest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right cabinet — although not nearly enough, if you ask me. But the broad disdain for this government has more to do with domestic issues.
Israelis are furious over the ongoing Haredi draft exception; the government’s effective abandonment of citizens on the northern border; its refusal to take any accountability for the failures surrounding the Oct. 7 attack; a collapsing education system; a narrowing of religious freedoms; soaring murder rates in Arab communities; an epidemic of violence among Israeli teenagers; and police ineptitude and brutality.
From Israel, it seems clear that diaspora Jews have been unwilling to confront just how much damage Smotrich and his fellow coalition partners have done inside Israel.
Which is perhaps why Israel Day in New York City felt so disconnected from Israeli life.
The discourse around Israel’s delegation to the parade, at least on my algorithm, seemed to involve two contrasting beliefs: Either the ministers’ presence invalidated the legitimacy of the entire event and no one should have participated, or the parade was not a show of support for the Israeli government but a celebration of culture and heritage — and therefore these politicians should not be allowed to define it.
That debate largely took place around Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s decision not to attend the parade. To some pro-Israel Jews, his choice read as a rebuttal of Israel’s right to exist. In response, they spoke in the sweeping language of Jewish self-determination. This is nothing new: pro-Israel diaspora Jews often find themselves defending Israel against those who call for its destruction.
And yet, when it comes to the people who are actually destroying it, many are remarkably silent.
The full list of problematic statements and behaviors from members of Israel’s political the delegation is too long to detail in full. Among the most shocking items: Eliyahu, a member of Itamar Ben-Gvir’s far-right Jewish Power party, has publicly called for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and suggested that dropping a nuclear bomb on the strip was a possibility. His fellow party member, Negev and Galilee Development Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf, who also attended the parade, has led several provocations at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, in violation of Israel’s own clear norms regarding the holy Muslim site.
And Smotrich — whose attendance organizers said they had not been told about in advance — has doggedly worked to enable the de facto annexation of the West Bank.
Obviously, diaspora Jews have a different relationship with Israel than those of us who live here. We exist in completely different contexts, with different needs, fears and responsibilities. I do not believe our concerns need to be exactly identical. I am not telling anyone it was wrong to go to the parade.
But the question is what happens after.
How will the thousands who poured out to celebrate Israel in Manhattan on Sunday use their voices and energy to fight not just for Israel’s right to exist, but also for it to have a better future? After mainstream Jewish institutions have taken apart their floats, what resources will they allocate to protecting Israeli democracy, supporting the communities this government has abandoned and opposing the extremists dismantling the country from within?
After the parade, I kept seeing a brief clip of Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer speaking from the dais. He ended his speech with the popular refrain “Am Yisrael Chai,” which he then translated into English.
Except he stumbled a bit over the words. Instead of saying, “The people of Israel live,” it came out as “the People Israel live.”
His flub inadvertently captured a deep truth. Israel, as a peoplehood, as an idea, is alive and kicking. Despite what some online ideologues want you to believe, our ancestral homeland is not going anywhere.
Nor do we need to fight quite as hard as we seem to think for the right to self-determination, seeing as we already have it and are not in any real danger of losing it.
But the people of Israel — the ones who actually live inside the country — are suffering. We are at the mercy of the most extreme government this country has ever seen.
We want to raise our children in security: real, long-lasting, diplomatically achieved security. We want to send them to decent schools in the morning and get them back in one piece at the end of the day. We want to live in a democracy, with a free press and an independent judiciary, where our daughters can read from the Torah if they want to and our sons can marry men if they want to.
The people of Israel do not need you to stand with Israel in a show of blanket solidarity.
We would much rather you stand with us, in active opposition to our government.
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North Carolina Democrats reject Gaza genocide resolution following campaign by Jewish caucus
(JTA) — For weeks, Jewish Democrats in North Carolina worked to block the state’s Democratic Party from passing a resolution declaring Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide.
On Saturday, they narrowly prevailed.
The measure, titled the “Genocide Accountability Resolution,” was struck down by members of the North Carolina Democratic Party’s State Executive Committee with a vote of 163-130.
For Amy DeLoach, the first vice chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party Jewish Caucus, the victory marked a sign that Jewish Democrats still have a place in the party, even as debates over Israel have roiled Democratic politics across the country.
“Most Jews vote Democratically, and we were feeling abandoned, and now we feel like we have a home again,” said DeLoach, who also sits on the party’s international subcommittee.
The defeat of the resolution comes as support for Israel has dropped dramatically among Democrats, and the U.S.-Israel alliance has increasingly emerged as a third rail within the party.
While resolutions condemning the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC and calling to halt arms sales to Israel have been blocked by the Democratic National Committee over the past year, last June, the North Carolina Democratic Party passed a resolution calling for an immediate arms embargo on Israel.
Joel Wanger, the chief political officer of the Democratic Majority for Israel, welcomed the outcome of the genocide resolution in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency Tuesday.
“This resolution would have divided Democrats at a time when we should be united in opposing Donald Trump, while doing nothing to advance peace between Israelis and Palestinians,” he said.
The resolution was introduced earlier this year by a member of the progressive, Arab and Muslim caucuses of the North Carolina Democratic Party. It advanced from the precinct level through county, district and state bodies before reaching the State Executive Committee for a final vote Saturday.
The resolution would have added language to the state party platform calling for the “prosecution” and “vetting” of individuals and entities in the United States who “may have participated in or enabled genocide.” The resolution also cited a United Nations Commission of Inquiry that concluded for the first time in September that Israel had committed a genocide in Gaza.
The resolution’s defeat Saturday followed an extensive campaign by the party’s Jewish Caucus to block its adoption.
In a May 27 letter to members of the executive committee, leaders of the Jewish Caucus urged them to reject the resolution, arguing that state parties “should not adopt contested international policy positions” and that its timing would hurt 2026 Democratic candidates and divide voters.
“Jewish, Muslim, Palestinian, Christian, and secular Democrats are united on affordability, public education, healthcare, voting rights, and reproductive freedom,” the letter said. “This resolution forces them to take sides on something most did not join the party to fight about.”
The letter cited “serious factual and legal problems” with the resolution and said Jewish Democrats would support a substitute “affirming NC Democrats’ commitment to ending civilian suffering in Gaza, supporting humanitarian aid, and opposing antisemitism, Islamophobia, and political violence in all forms.”
But the Jewish Caucus was not the only group within the party invested in the outcome of the vote.
Last month, the leaders of the Muslim, Arab, interfaith and progressive caucuses of the North Carolina Democratic Party issued its own a letter calling on members of the State Executive Committee to support the resolution in order to “affirm our party’s commitment to human rights and the protection of civilian life.”
“All too frequently, the burdensome narrative of genocide denial has been heard from those persons and organizations who have 1) either acquiesced to genocide or 2) feared the worst reprisals from those who have supported it,” the letter read. “This silence compromises the faith of many voters in our party.”
The letter, which cited a recent study that found 80% of Democrats have an unfavorable view of Israel, was undersigned by the head of the state party’s Jewish Democrats, a non-Zionist Jewish subgroup within the Interfaith Caucus.
Mark Bochkis, the communications chair of the Jewish Democrats, told JTA that his group and the Jewish Caucus “fundamentally disagree about the divisiveness” of the resolution.
“We believe this is actually an issue that galvanizes the younger base of the party and other other important key voting blocks for the Democratic party,” Bochkis said. “We believe not speaking out on something like this is actually holding the party back.”
Paul McAllister, the chair of the Interfaith Caucus, told JTA that “we don’t want to see anything happen to any member of any community, Jewish or otherwise, but we do want accountability.”
While McAllister said that the language concerning “prosecution” in the resolution could have been “clarified,” he said the Jewish Caucus’ suggestion of an alternative to the resolution attracted little support because he felt it “waters down the need to hold a nation accountable for what it is doing to another people.”
“My major concern is that we have a faction within the party that wants justice for all people equally, Jews and Palestinians, and that there’s some in the party, namely members of the Jewish caucus, who do not comprehend how critical it is that we not only look after our own interest or our own group’s interest, but the interest of others, and this is the struggle,” McAllister said.
DeLoach said the scheduling of the vote last week on Shabbat had bothered members of the Jewish caucus. But she said they had “let that one go” to focus on fighting the resolution.
“We talk about that amongst ourselves, but we’re in a war right now,” she said. “We’re going to pick and choose the battles we fight.”
DeLoach said her group viewed the resolution as a political liability that could potentially force Democratic candidates in the state to either distance themselves from the party or embrace a “difficult divisive issue” on the campaign trail.
“No politician is going to want to run on a platform that includes this,” DeLoach said. “Platforms don’t win elections, and this is going to risk us losing an outrageously important election.”
DeLoach pointed to the campaigns of Roy Cooper, the state’s former governor who’s running for a Senate seat, and Anita Earls, who is running for reelection to the North Carolina Supreme Court.
“Most Democrats in North Carolina really are more concerned about their electric bill right now, and the cost of food,” DeLoach said. “As the vote shows, you know, nobody likes what’s going on in the Middle East. We don’t like what’s going on in the Middle East, but we know that’s not where our focus should be right now.”
Looking ahead, DeLoach said she hoped that the resolution’s defeat would serve as a warning against rhetoric she saw as “adding to a drumbeat of antisemitism that is so prevalent in the country.”
“There’s war crimes on both sides here, but it’s not a genocide, and y’all pounding this drum is making it more and more dangerous for Jews to live in this country,” DeLoach said. “We see the defeat of this resolution not only as a chance for us to start just electing Democrats, but as a hopeful pause, at least, if not a stop to this horrible rhetoric.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post North Carolina Democrats reject Gaza genocide resolution following campaign by Jewish caucus appeared first on The Forward.
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Tidbits: For the first time, a kosher restaurant has won a Michelin star
Tidbits is a Forverts feature of easy news briefs in Yiddish that you can listen to or read, or both! If you read the article and don’t know a word, just click on it and the translation appears. Listen to the report here:
צום ערשטן מאָל געווינט אַ כּשרער רעסטאָראַן אַ „מישעלין־שטערן“
ייִט״אַ. — ווען מע האָט באַשאָטן דעם ישׂראלדיקן קוכער רז שבתי (ראַז שאַבטײַ) מיט קאָנפֿעטי האָט ער זיך ממש צעוויינט — און זײַנע מיטאַרבעטער האָבן אים וואַרעם אַרומגענומען.
מיט עטלעכע מינוט פֿריִער האָט מען געמאָלדן, אַז זײַן רעסטאָראַן אין מיאַמי, וואָס הייסט „מוטראַ“, איז געוואָרן דער ערשטער כּשרער רעסטאָראַן צו באַקומען אַ „מישעלין־שטערן“ — דעם גרעסטן כּבֿוד אין דער רעסטאָראַן־אינדוסטריע.
„דאָס איז אַ מאָמענט פֿון שׂימחה און פֿון שטאָלץ,“ האָט שאַבטײַ געזאָגט דער ייִדישער טעלעגראַפֿישער אַגענטור. „דעם שטערן באַקומט נישט בלויז ׳מוטראַ׳, נאָר דאָס גאַנצע ייִדישע פֿאָלק.“
שבתי, וואָס האָט שוין געאַרבעט אין אַ צאָל קיכן איבער ניו־יאָרק און ישׂראל, האָט געעפֿנט „מוטראַ“ אין פֿעברואַר 2025, געבנדיק דעם רעסטאָראַן אַ נאָמען נאָך זײַן ירושלים־געבוירענער באָבען, וועמעס קאָכן האָט אינספּירירט זײַן מעניו.
„איך האָב ליב צו באַצייכענען דאָס עסן אין דעם רעסטאָראַן ווי ׳ירושלימער מאכלים׳ אַנטקעגן ׳מיטל־מיזרחדיקע אָדער ישׂראלדיקע מאכלים׳ ווײַל די טעמען וואָס איך פּרוּוו ברענגען צום טיש זענען די טעמען וואָס זענען פֿאַרבונדן מיט מײַנע זכרונות און מיט מײַנע עקסקורסיעס אין מאַרק מיט דער באָבען,” האָט שבתי געזאָגט. „איך דאַרף זײַן געטרײַ די פּאָטראַוועס וואָס די באָבע האָט מיך געהאָדעוועט.“
אַ באַשרײַבונג פֿונעם רעסטאָראַן אויף דער „מישעלין“־וועבזײַט לויבט זײַנע „פּרעכטיקע בוריקעס אין ‘אַהאָ בלאַנקאָ’ (אַ קאַלטע זופּ געמאַכט פֿון מאַנדלען, קנאָבל און עסיק)“ און „שאָפֿנפֿלייש־קאָבאַב מיט גערייכערטן פּאַטלעזשאַן־קרעם און פּאָמידאָרן־בוימל“.
אַ דאַנק דער אָנערקענונג איז „מוטראַ“ געוואָרן איינער פֿון די אָנגעזעענסטע רעסטאָראַנען און באַטרעפֿט אַן אמתן ווענדפּונקט פֿאַר דער כּשרער קיך. פֿאַר שבתי, וואָס האָט אָנגעהויבן היטן כּשרות מיט מער ווי 10 יאָר צוריק, איז די פּרעמיע אַ קלאָרער באַווײַז, אַז קולינאַרע אויסגעצייכנטקייט קען בליִען אין די ראַמען פֿון דער כּשרער קיך.
„איך האָף אַז די דערגרייכונג וועט אינספּירירן אַנדערע כּשרע קוכערס,“ האָט ער געזאָגט.
צו זען דעם אַרטיקל אויף ענגליש, גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
To see the article in English, click here.
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