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‘The Sims’ video game adds Jewish foods, a longtime request of Jewish players
(JTA) — Players of the video game “The Sims” can now bake a challah or dish up a bowl of matzo ball soup, after updates made by the game’s creator that are designed to increase Jewish representation.
The new updates add traditional Jewish foods to the expansive menu available to users of “The Sims,” a best-selling life simulation game in which players customize characters and build homes and communities. The game’s developers periodically release expansion packs offering additional items for use in the role-playing.
On Tuesday, the developers released an update focused on one family of characters, the Calientes. But it also added Jewish foods that some users had mounted an extended campaign to secure.
“Get ready to dig in because today’s Sims Delivery Express adds matzah ball soup & challah bread to The Sims 4 recipe book for the whole family to enjoy,” the game announced on Twitter. An accompanying GIF showed a table with four loaves of challah, two covered by a tree-motif cover. The table is surrounded by diners scooping soup and speaking with their hands.
The announcement elicited gratitude from the community of players, known as Simmers, who had been pushing for Jewish additions to the game.
“The Sims team HAVE LISTENED and have finally brought Jewish food to The Sims 4!” tweeted a user who goes by HufflePom on social media. “Thank you to everyone who has liked, retweeted, commented and supported my posts over the last 462 days. We did it!”
Later, HufflePom tweeted a picture of a multicolored challah and thanked a programmer who had been working on the addition “for doing such a beautiful, thoughtful and respectful job.”
After 462 days tweeting for rep for #SimJews. Yesterday we got it! Thank you for your support it means so much to me. A massive thank you to @SimGuruBat & the rest of @TheSims team for doing such a beautiful, thoughtful, & respectful job. I share this Challah with all of you. pic.twitter.com/d9JSsM8Udf
— HufflePom (@HufflePom) May 17, 2023
HufflePom was the leader of a movement to press “The Sims” and its parent company, Electronic Arts, to add more Jewish options to the game.
“Sims” players have long come up with creative workarounds to permit Jewish practice in the game, such as letting their Sims keep kosher by changing their characters’ traits to “vegetarian.” Some players let their Sims celebrate Shabbat by baking bread and setting it on a table and lighting decorative candles. Players who use “custom content” modifications not created or endorsed by the game developers have also long created Jewish content for The Sims, such as kippahs, other versions of menorahs, chuppahs, Torahs, shofars, mezuzahs and dreidels. Some have Sims performing Jewish rituals, such as stomping on a glass at a wedding.
But other than a menorah that permitted players to light individual candles for each night of Hanukkah, there was no Jewish content provided by the game’s creator. HufflePom and others had noted gaps in other additions over time: An expansion set aimed at providing culturally diverse wedding options, for example, did not include a chuppah, or Jewish wedding canopy.
Neither HufflePom nor the programmer responded to requests for comment on Wednesday.
An online petition launched last year by another Sims user noted HufflePom’s advocacy. “For over a year, Simmer HufflePom has been asking for Jewish representation in The Sims 4 by adding Jewish head coverings and food like challa, babka, hamantashen and brisket,” said the petition, which drew nearly 800 signatures. “This has been done for other cultures like Muslims and it’s important for all cultures to feel represented in their beloved life simulation game.”
Some people who signed the petition said they were Jewish and wanted to have more true-to-life options when they played the game.
“I am Jewish and am tired of not being able to have Jewish Sims,” wrote a signer named Michelle Jackson. “Stuck eating just turkey or fish during grand meals.”
But others said their support for the Jewish expansion was less about their own identity than about an abiding belief that their favorite game should offer flexibility for users of all backgrounds.
“Everyone deserves representation. We need more cultural items and gameplay so people from anywhere can play their own lives because that has always been what the Sims is about,” a signer named Madison Graham wrote in November. “We did it with skin tones and pronouns, we can do it for Jewish rep too. No rep is too much or needless.”
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The post ‘The Sims’ video game adds Jewish foods, a longtime request of Jewish players appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Netanyahu Applauds Eurovision Runner-Up Noam Bettan: ‘Everyone Is Very Proud of You’
Noam Bettan, representing Israel, performs “Michelle” during the dress rehearsal 2 of the Grand Final of the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest, in Vienna, Austria, May 15, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Lisa Leutner
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Israeli singer Noam Bettan on finishing in second place in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday, despite boos and anti-Israel protests in the audience and boycotts from several countries due to Israel’s participation.
“Noam, what an amazing victory, what an achievement, and how much pride, strength, confidence, and artistry,” Netanyahu told the 28-year-old singer during a phone call. “You are on a path to greatness. In any case, you have the gratitude of the entire nation. Everyone is very, very proud of you.”
The prime minister also applauded the singer for standing “tall against those hollow verbal potshots.”
“You did it exactly as it should be done,” Netanyahu told Bettan. “You did a wonderful job. And I saw that the audience, as usual, was more supportive than the judges. Well done to you. Keep moving forward, rise and succeed, and many blessings.”
During their call, Bettan thanked Netanyahu for his kind words and said it was “a great privilege” to represent Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest, “to bring honor, to represent us in a positive light, and to bring some light and goodness into this world.”
“And I have a certain hope, because I felt there was a very great unity tonight, and I hope so much that it stays with us and continues in two days, in a year, and in 50 years,” Bettan noted. “I want unity so much, and I truly hope it continues.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with singer Noam Bettan, who represented Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest and won an impressive second place in the competition > >https://t.co/dxTAe2NiRQ pic.twitter.com/lVMZYl2JlQ
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) May 17, 2026
The 2026 Eurovision Song Contest took place at the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna, Austria.
Bulgaria won with the upbeat dance track “Bangaranga,” performed by Dara. The victory marked the first ever Eurovision win for the Balkan nation, which will host next year’s competition. Bettan finished second with “Michelle,” a trilingual song in Hebrew, French, and English that is about putting oneself first when in a toxic relationship.
Anti-Israel protesters who disrupted Bettan’s performance during the semifinals last week were removed from the audience inside Vienna’s Wiener Stadthalle after chanting “stop, stop the genocide” and “Free, free Palestine.”
“One audience member, close to a microphone, loudly expressed their views as the Israeli artist began his performance, and during the song, which was heard on the live broadcast,” Austrian national broadcaster ORF and the European Broadcasting Union, which organizes the Eurovision, said in a joint statement about the incident. “They were later removed for continuing to disturb the audience. Three other people were also removed from the arena by security for disruptive behavior.”
Bettan told Reuters he also heard boos from a few pro-Palestinian protesters in the audience when he first went on stage for the semifinals.
Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Iceland refused to participate in this year’s Eurovision because of Israel’s inclusion, in protest of the country’s military operation in the Gaza Strip targeting Hamas terrorists who orchestrated the deadly attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israel also finished second in the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest.
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Harry Styles Responds ‘Correct’ to Fan Shouting ‘Long Live Palestine’ at Amsterdam Concert
Harry Styles poses on the red carpet during for the BRIT Awards at the Co-op Live Arena, in Manchester, Britain, Feb. 28, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Temilade Adelaja
British pop star Harry Styles on Saturday night interacted with a fan who shouted a slogan in support of Palestinians during the kickoff of his “Together, Together” world tour in Amsterdam.
The “Aperture” singer was performing in Amsterdam’s Johan Cruijff Arena on the opening night of his tour and stopped to adjust his earpiece on stage when an audience member shouted, “Viva, Viva Palestina!” which means “Long Live, Long Live Palestine” in Spanish. The former One Direction singer replied to the comment saying, “Correct.” A clip of the interaction was posted on social media.
One of the charity partners for the “Together, Together” tour is Choose Love, which provides humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including food and medical treatment.
The tour will include more than 60 performances around the world, including in The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Australia, Mexico, and Brazil. Styles’ only shows in the United States will be 30 consecutive nights at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. The singer’s fourth solo album, “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally,” was released in March.
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Israel Warns of Escalating Terror Threat in West Bank as Iran, Turkey, Hamas Seek to Stoke Extremism
Israeli soldiers walk during an operation in Tubas, in the West Bank, Nov. 26, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman
Israeli security officials have warned of a rapidly deteriorating security situation in the West Bank, citing deepening Iranian and Turkish involvement alongside Hamas efforts to expand terrorist infrastructure and orchestrate attacks across the territory.
According to the Israeli news outlet Walla, defense officials point to a growing role by Iran, Turkey, and Hamas in financing, directing, and sustaining terrorism, while also leveraging Gaza-linked networks to expand coordination, incitement, and operational activity across the West Bank.
With Israeli communities in the West Bank steadily expanding, the local military command is under significant strain, operating with 22 battalions while confronting a wide range of security challenges, including dismantling terrorist infrastructure, disrupting terrorist financing channels, locating weapons caches, protecting settlements, and stopping arms smuggling from Jordan.
Israeli officials have previously warned that large-scale terrorist attacks targeting local communities could serve as a destabilizing flashpoint amid the wars in Gaza and Iran.
Last year, Israeli forces uncovered documents suggesting Hamas is actively preparing plans for raids on settlements in the area.
Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, arrested six Arab Israeli citizens last month suspected of transferring millions of shekels from Hamas’s Turkish branch into the West Bank as part of an underground terrorist financing network believed to have smuggled more than three million shekels to fund attacks against Israel.
Experts also point to a growing threat from the Jenin Brigades in the northern West Bank — an alliance of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas operatives that has transformed refugee camps into bases for shootings, bombings, and ambushes.
The group’s operations are reportedly sustained by a complex financing system that moves Iranian funds through Palestinian banking channels, siphons off Israeli-collected tax revenues, and makes use of international facilitators.
“By sustaining this West Bank front through Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad networks, Tehran forces Israel to fight simultaneously across multiple fronts, drains resources that could otherwise consolidate gains in Gaza, and keeps the Palestinian issue politically radioactive enough to sabotage broader Arab-Israeli alignment,” Jose Lev Alvarez, a writing fellow at the Middle East Forum think tank, explained in a recent article.
“Tehran [then] advances its axis-of-resistance doctrine at minimal cost — no Iranian boots, no direct missile exchanges, just calibrated chaos designed to obstruct any credible day-after plan for Gaza and derail normalization agreements with Saudi Arabia or Gulf states demanding Palestinian stability,” he continued.
Last year, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) warned that Iran was driving a growing terrorist threat in the West Bank, with concerns that Iranian-backed arms smuggling could enable an Oct. 7-style attack.
Israeli intelligence and security forces have since intensified operations across the territory amid fears that Iranian-supplied weapons are increasingly reaching Palestinian terrorists and escalating the risk of a large-scale assault.
Israeli intelligence assessments have also warned that terrorists operating in the West Bank are believed to possess weapons capable of breaching Israeli defenses, including what officials described as “standard Iranian weapons.”
According to Joe Truzman, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based think tank, Israeli officials should be closely monitoring the West Bank as Hamas regroups and rearms in the Gaza Strip after more than two years of war.
“Hamas and its allied factions understand that igniting violence in the territory would divert Israel’s attention during a critical time of rebuilding the group’s infrastructure in Gaza,” Truzman told The Algemeiner last year.
“The release of convicted terrorists to the West Bank under the [Israel-Hamas] ceasefire agreement may be a factor in the resurgence of organized violence in the territory,” he continued.
As of last February, Israeli security forces foiled nearly 1,000 terrorist plots over the past year, with senior military officials increasingly worried that the volatile situation in the West Bank could lead to a large-scale attack similar to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, onslaught against Israeli settlements and communities near the security barrier.
According to a survey released last year by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, 70 percent of all respondents — and 81 percent of Jewish respondents — expressed fear of an Oct. 7-style attack coming from the West Bank. In contrast, 53 percent of Arab respondents said they were not worried about such an attack.
In response to these concerns, the IDF has established a special command to address potential threats in the West Bank and launched a nearly unprecedented counterterror operation in the northern part of the territory.