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The ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’ movie is a dated view of intermarriage
(JTA) — After watching “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret” with one of my grandchildren, I’m very concerned that the thousands of tweens and teens who watch the movie will accept, as true, its very negative message about religion in general, and interfaith marriage in particular.
The movie is based on a book Judy Blume wrote in 1970, a long time ago. That date does flash on the screen when the movie begins, but it’s easy to forget that you’re watching a story based on things as they were over 50 years ago. The movie’s treatment of puberty, pre-teens kissing and mean girls ages well, although I’m no expert on those issues.
But the ways people experience interfaith marriage and religion today are very different.
The most dramatic part of the story is how Margaret’s Christian mother’s parents cut off contact with her when she married Margaret’s Jewish father — and had no contact with their granddaughter for 12 years.
It’s true that even today some non-Orthodox Jews react very harshly if their children fall in love with someone who is not Jewish. That definitely happened more in the 1970s, when there was not yet much interfaith marriage and the taboo against it was still high. My mother’s father literally sat shiva when a first cousin of mine intermarried in the 1960s.
When I married in 1974, my parents were unhappy that my wife was Christian, and while my wife’s parents never said anything, we learned much later that her father was unhappy that I was Jewish.
But they all put love of their family over those preferences, and they all had very loving relationships with our Jewish children.
Both of our children married partners from different faith backgrounds; I am pretty sure that our Christian machatunim (their spouses’ parents) were as delighted with these marriage choices as we were. Our grandchildren are adored by their two Jewish grandparents and two from different faith backgrounds.
I am afraid that the tweens and teens who watch the movie will not understand that its depiction of parents cutting off contact with their children for marrying someone from a different religion has fading relevance in our world today. As far back as 2000, an American Jewish Committee study found that 56% of American Jews did not oppose interfaith marriage and 80% said it was inevitable in an open society. The most recent Pew study of Jewish Americans found that only 22% of Jews said it was very important that their grandchildren marry Jews.
Meanwhile, Pew found that the number of Americans who have a spouse from a different religious group than their own rose from 19% who wed before 1960 to 39% who wed after 2010 — suggesting taboos have fallen among non-Jews as well.
Viewers of the movie won’t understand that people realize now that giving up connection with children and grandchildren deprives one of so much love, it’s just not worth doing.
The second largely out-of-date part of the story is how Margaret’s parents do not practice any religion — they don’t celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah — and tell Margaret she can pick a religion when she’s an adult. Margaret is clearly curious about religious matters — after all, as the title says, she’s always trying to talk to God.
I’m afraid that kids who watch the movie will not understand that today it is rare for Jewish-Christian couples to decide not to have any religion in their lives. The recent Pew study found that 57% of interfaith couples raise their children as Jewish only; that may include celebrating Christian holidays in a not-religious way, or it may not. The study found that 12% of parents raise their children partly Jewish and partly another religion. Some 30% do not raise their children Jewish at all; they may be raised Christian only, maybe with or without Jewish holidays, or with no religion at all.
There’s no suggestion in the movie that for Jewish-Christian interfaith families like Margaret’s, engaging in a religious community — whether Jewish, Christian, or both — can be a profound source of meaning and connection. Instead, the message is that religion is boring and confusing. In the movie’s synagogue scene, everything is unfamiliar to Margaret because she had no prior experience, and incomprehensible because all in Hebrew. I’m afraid that kids who watch the movie will have no idea that Jewish worship services can be lively and meaningful — even with lots of Hebrew.
The dramatic climax of the movie is a scene in which the Christian grandparents show up to say that Margaret should be baptized. They’ve had no contact with her for 12 years. The Jewish grandmother’s declaration that Margaret is Jewish because she went to services once is equally ridiculous. In over twenty-five years working with and studying interfaith families, I almost never encountered this kind of conflict. I’m afraid viewers won’t understand that this kind of fighting over a granddaughter’s religious identity — instead of respecting her parents’ decisions about religion — thankfully is very rare.
Fiction seems to need conflict. There is a paucity of positive messaging about interfaith families being happily engaged in fulfilling religious communities with supportive grandparents. Perhaps those stories wouldn’t sell — but they are the reality for so many interfaith families. It is very unfortunate that this movie will leave tween and teen viewers — especially those from interfaith families — questioning that reality.
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Israel becomes first country to recognize Somaliland, drawing condemnation from Egypt, Turkey and Somalia
Israel became the first country to formally recognize Somaliland, a self-declared sovereign state in the Horn of Africa, in a decision that was immediately condemned by Somalia and other nations.
“The Prime Minister announced today the official recognition of the Republic of Somaliland as an independent and sovereign state,” wrote Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in a post on X. “The State of Israel plans to immediately expand its relations with the Republic of Somaliland through extensive cooperation in the fields of agriculture, health, technology, and economy.”
Somaliland’s president welcomed the announcement from Netanyahu in a post on X, adding that he affirmed the region’s “readiness to join the Abraham Accords,” the normalization agreements between Israel and a handful of Arab states that was brokered during President Donald Trump’s first term.
Somaliland proclaimed independence from Somalia in 1991 during the country’s civil war, but has failed to receive recognition from the international community in part due to Somalia’s opposition to its secession. Somalia officially rejects ties with Israel, and has consistently refused to recognize the state of Israel since 1960. Somalia and Somaliland are overwhelmingly Muslim.
“The ministers affirmed their total rejection and condemnation of Israel’s recognition of the Somaliland region, stressing their full support for the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Somalia,” Egypt’s foreign ministry said in a statement following a phone call between Egypt’s foreign minister and his Somali, Turkish and Djiboutian counterparts, according to Reuters.
In November, the Israeli think tank Institute for National Security Studies argued in a report that recognizing Somaliland could be in Israel’s strategic interest.
“Somaliland’s territory could serve as a forward base for multiple missions: intelligence monitoring of the Houthis and their armament efforts; logistical support for Yemen’s legitimate government in its war against them; and a platform for direct operations against the Houthis,” the report read.
It is unclear if the United States will follow suit. In August, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz wrote to Trump urging him to recognize Somaliland.
“Somaliland has emerged as a critical security and diplomatic partner for the United States, helping America advance our national security interests in the Horn of Africa and beyond,” wrote Cruz.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Israel becomes first country to recognize Somaliland, drawing condemnation from Egypt, Turkey and Somalia appeared first on The Forward.
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‘Jesus is a Palestinian,’ claims a Times Square billboard. Um, not quite
“Merry Christmas,” proclaims a billboard in Times Square: “Jesus is Palestinian.”
Countless people will walk by the display or see it on social media, and many will believe it.
So, let’s go through why that statement is such a mistake, once again.
Jesus was a Jew. He was born to Jewish parents, was circumcised under Jewish law — traditionally, on Jan. 1, which is how that day became known as the Feast of the Circumcision — and lived as a Jew. He taught from the Hebrew Scriptures. He worshiped in the Jerusalem Temple. He observed Jewish festivals. He debated Jewish law with other Jews using Jewish modes of argument.
Go back to the Gospels in the New Testament — specifically Luke 4:16: “He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom.” Or, John 4:9, in which a Samaritan woman asks Jesus: “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”
Cross-reference other ancient sources. Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian, refers to Jesus as a Jewish figure executed in Judea. No serious historical study of Jesus elides this basic truth: Jesus was a Jew.
Yet many efforts through history have sought to sever Jesus from his Judaism — often, if not always, in an attempt to denigrate Jews.
In the second century, the theologian Marcion sought to completely sever Christianity from Judaism. For him, the God of Israel was inferior and the God of the Christians was morally superior. Jesus, therefore, belonged to a different moral universe. The early Church condemned Marcionism precisely because it erased Jesus’s Jewish roots, and ultimately dismissed the idea as a heresy that needed to be rejected.
In the twentieth century, Nazi theologians attempted to portray Jesus as Aryan and anti-Jewish, which Susannah Heschel documents in her book The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany.
But it’s not just because of his religion that Jesus shouldn’t be considered Palestinian.
“Why not?” you might ask. “Didn’t he live in Palestine?”
The short answer is: Not yet.
When Jesus lived, the land of Israel was called Judea. It was under Roman rule, and it fell under several administrative districts: Judea, Galilee, and Samaria.
So, what is the source of the name “Palestine” for that area? It comes from the ancient people known as the Philistines, a perennial enemy of the Israelites. After the Romans crushed Jewish independence, they deliberately renamed the province in an effort to sever Jewish historical ties to the land, as well as to humiliate them by naming the land after their ancient foes.
To call Jesus “Palestinian” is therefore anachronistic.
Yet even so, the idea of Jesus as Palestinian appears in some strands of Palestinian liberation theology. Those strands tend to envision the Palestinian people as Jesus on the cross — crucified by Israel and the Jews, in an image that recalls the longstanding and deeply misguided allegation that “the Jews killed Jesus.”
This language appears repeatedly in the writings and sermons of Naim Ateek, the influential founder of the Jerusalem-based Christian organization Sabeel. In his 2001 Easter message, he wrote “as we approach Holy Week and Easter, the suffering of Jesus Christ at the hands of evil political and religious powers two thousand years ago is lived out again in Palestine,” adding that “Jesus is the powerless Palestinian humiliated at a checkpoint, the woman trying to get through to the hospital for treatment, the young man whose dignity is trampled, the young student who cannot get to the university to study, the unemployed father who needs to find bread to feed his family; the list is tragically getting longer, and Jesus is there in their midst suffering with them.”
Yes, of course, Palestinians have suffered and continue to suffer. But illustrations of that suffering should not include the pretense that Jesus was Palestinian. It suggests that Palestinians need to be seen as akin to Jesus to deserve safety and dignity, when in fact they deserve safety and dignity simply because they are human. And casting Israel and the Jews as crucifiers only resurrects medieval theology and hatreds; it adds nothing to the hopes for justice for Palestinians.
Mainstream Christianity has rejected this foul mythology. We have recently celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of the Christian world’s most vociferous denial of that ancient hatred. In 1965, Vatican II’s Nostra Aetate explicitly rejected the charge that Jews are responsible for Jesus’s death. The World Council of Churches issued similar warnings about reviving Passion-based antisemitism — the revival of the ancient accusation that Jewish leaders were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus, and that Jews bear that guilt eternally.
History matters. Theology matters. And words matter — especially when they carry two thousand years of blood-soaked memory.
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82 years after his plane was shot down in China, Jewish WWII pilot Morton Sher is laid to rest at home
An American Jewish fighter pilot whose plane was shot down in the Chinese theater during World War II was given a proper burial 82 years after his plane went down, according to the United States Department of Defense.
The remains of Lt. Morton Sher, identified earlier this year, were buried in Greenville, South Carolina on Dec. 14 — what would have been his 105th birthday.
Sher was a member of the pilot group known as the “Flying Tigers” — formed to protect China from Japanese invasion following the assault on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He was piloting a P-40 Warhawk when he was shot down by Japanese bombers on Aug. 9, 1943. His mother Celia received Sher’s Purple Heart that same year.
Sher’s squadron put up a memorial stone at the crash site in Xin Bai Village, and a postwar army review in 1947 concluded that his remains had been destroyed and were assumed to be unrecoverable.
The remains of Morton Sher were returned to Greenville, North Carolina and buried on Dec. 14, 2025. (Courtesy Department of Defense)
Two attempts were made to locate his remains in 2012 and 2019, but neither was successful. A breakthrough came in 2024 when a Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency excavated a crash site in the province where Sher’s plane fell, and then in April 2025, when DNA analysis was conducted. The match was confirmed in June.
Sher was born in Baltimore, Maryland on Dec. 14, 1920, and his family later moved to Greenville where they became members of the Conservative synagogue Congregation Beth Israel. In high school, he was a member of the aviation club and enrolled in ROTC. Sher was a founding member of B’nai B’rith Youth Organization’s Aleph Zadik Aleph chapter in Greenville, according to the funeral home that organized his burial.
“He dreamed of being a pilot,” Sher’s nephew, Steve “Morton” Traub told Greenville’s local NBC station. “This guy did a lot for his country. He was my hero.”
Traub, who never met his uncle, but heard stories and read his letters, was raised by Sher’s father, David.
“I wish I had known him, but if he had, I wouldn’t have been named after him. I feel like I knew Mason because I knew Papa,” Traub said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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