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There’s no beer at the World Cup in Qatar, but there are kosher bagels
(JTA) — Qatar may have caused an uproar by banning alcohol at the World Cup soccer tournament in Doha this month, but for religious Jewish fans, some kosher offerings will be available, thanks to two rabbis.
Rabbi Marc Schneier, from New York, and Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch movement’s emissary to Istanbul, worked with Qatari officials to create a kosher catering program to provide for observant Jews who may attend the games. And despite a report that has echoed around the world claiming that Qatar banned the production of kosher food after promising it would be made available, the rabbis say all is still going as planned.
It won’t involve five-course meals or fine dining, but the duo arranged for kosher bagels to be baked in a catering space provided by Qatar Airways and delivered to those who need them during the World Cup.
“We decided to go with the theme of bagels, because while they are not well known here in Qatar, they are very well known in the U.S. and ethnically identified with Jews,” Schneier told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “They’re probably the first kosher bagels being produced and baked here in Qatar.
The kitchen is under the supervision of Chitrik, who manages kosher certification operations in Turkey — one of the world’s largest food producers — on behalf of the Orthodox Union, the Israeli Rabbinate and the Turkish Rabbinate. He has also helped facilitate kosher operations elsewhere in the Middle East, such as the United Arab Emirates. Chitrik’s son Eli, also a rabbi, will stay in Qatar for the duration of the tournament to supervise the facility.
Neither rabbi said they know how much demand there will actually be for kosher food.
“It was really, you know, taking a leap of faith,” said Schneier, rabbi at the Hampton Synagogue on Long Island in New York. “I don’t know if one person needs a kosher meal or if 100 people will need a kosher meal.”
Chitrik, who has been involved in similar projects in the Gulf region in the past, told JTA that he received many phone calls asking if there would be kosher food available.
“From phone calls to actuality, you don’t know what will be, but there were a lot of requests,” he said. “As rabbis in the region, we felt it was our responsibility to respond to those requests and make sure that people have what to eat if they are coming to the games. Some people are staying for a month.”
The kitchen will be operational for the full 30 days of the World Cup tournament. Both rabbis said that if they see high demand, they hope to increase the offerings beyond just bagels.
The Jerusalem Post reported Sunday that Qatar has banned cooked kosher food at the World Cup, and World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder released a statement saying he was “outraged.” Both Chitrik and Schneier denied that claim.
“The whole thing was not very organized. Nobody actually came saying they would put up the money to establish a kosher restaurant. Everybody is demanding the Qataris to open a kosher restaurant, and no, they didn’t open a kosher restaurant. I’m sure if someone came with the business plan to open a kosher restaurant, they would have no problem with that. At the end of the day they did open up a kosher kitchen, but it was very last minute so there is no meat. That’s it for now,” Chitrik told JTA.
Schneier believes that the project has value beyond just filling empty stomachs — the bagels could be a step towards normalizing Jewish life in Qatar, which is currently nonexistent.
Both Chitrik and Schneier work in the realm of building Jewish-Islamic relations. Schneier is the president and founder of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, a nonprofit devoted to improving Jewish-Muslim relations, while Chitrik leads the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States.
Rabbi Marc Schneier, holding paper, and Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, third from left, worked together on the initiative. (Courtesy of Schneier)
Currently, Qatar has no relations with Israel, and its state broadcaster, Al Jazeera,which is often accused of serving Qatari foreign policy, has long taken a hard line against the Jewish state.
Nonetheless, Schneier worked with his Qatari contacts to help bring the first direct flights from Israel to the gulf nation so that Israeli soccer fans could watch the games, unhindered by regional politics. Despite the lack of formal relations, the Israeli foreign ministry negotiated the establishment of a temporary diplomatic mission and consular office to serve their citizens for the duration of the games.
“The leadership of the State of Qatar is performing a ‘mitzvah’ by making kosher food available for members of the worldwide Jewish community, including those traveling from Israel,” Schneier said in a statement. “Furthermore, the Qataris have stood by and followed through on every commitment that was made to welcome Jewish fans to this prestigious event.”
The World Cup isn’t Schneier’s first foray into getting kosher food into sporting events. In the 1990s, when he served as president of New York’s Board of Rabbis, he was involved in the initiative to establish a kosher food stand at Yankee stadium. Since then, kosher food options have become available at many stadiums around the United States.
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The post There’s no beer at the World Cup in Qatar, but there are kosher bagels appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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What I discovered during my visit to the Swedish paradise
נאָך אַ רעפֿעראַט וועגן דעם מצבֿ פֿון ייִדיש אין שוועדן, האָט פּראָפֿ׳ אַנאַ שטערנשיס אַ מאָל געזאָגט: „שוועדן איז אַ מין גן־עדן פֿאַר ייִדיש“.
איך בין לעצטנס געפֿאָרן קיין שטאָקהאָלם, כּדי צו האַלטן אַ לעקציע פֿאַר די אָרטיקע ייִדישיסטן — האָב איך געהאַט אַ געלעגנהייט צו זען דעם דאָזיקן גן־עדן מיט די אייגענע אויגן. פֿריִער האָט ער עקסיסטירט נאָר אין די לעגענדעס, וואָס אַנדערע ייִדישיסטן האָבן דערציילט: אַ לאַנד, וווּ ייִדיש איז אַן אָפֿיציעלע מינדערהייט־שפּראַך; אַ לאַנד וואָס שטיצט ייִדיש נישט בלויז מיט ווערטער, נאָר מיט אמתע געלטער; וווּ די מלוכה העלפֿט אַרויסצוגעבן ייִדישע ביכער, רעקאָרדירונגען, טעלעוויזיע און ראַדיאָ־פּראָגראַמען; וווּ עטלעכע פּראָפֿעסאָרן לערנען די שפּראַך אין אוניוועריסיטעט; וווּ יעדעס קינד האָט אַ רעכט צו פֿאָדערן דעם ייִדיש־לימוד און יעדע ביבליאָטעק דאַרף קויפֿן ייִדישע ביכער, אויב אַ בירגער וויל זיי לייענען.
פֿאַר מײַן נסיעה האָב איך געכאַפּט אַ שמועס מיט אַ רבֿ פֿון דער וואַרשעווער קהילה, וואָס איז געבוירן געוואָרן אין שטאָקהאָלם: הרבֿ יצחק ראַפּאָפּאָרט. שפּעטער האָב איך אויך געטראָפֿן הרבֿ ראַפּאָפּאָרטס מאַמע, וואָס וווינט אין שטאָקהאָלם, כאָטש זי שטאַמט פֿון פּוילן. זייער קוק אויף שוועדן איז ווייניקער גן־עדנדיק. למשל, אין שוועדן גייט הרבֿ ראַפּאָפּאָרט נישט אויף דער גאַס טראָגנדיק אַ יאַרמקלע, אַזוי ווי אין וואַרשע. אין שוועדן קען עס זײַן אַ סכּנה. טראָגט ער דאָרט אַ היטל איבער דער יאַרמלקע.
אָבער בשעת מײַן וויזיט האָב איך נישט געזען וואָס מורא צו האָבן, נישט קיין אַנטי־ישׂראל־פּראָטעסטן אָדער קיין גראַפֿיטי, ווי מע זעט אין אַ סך אייראָפּעיִשע שטעט. איך האָב יאָ געזען אַ סך יונגע משפּחות מיט קליינע קינדער, וואָס לויפֿן אַרום פֿראַנק און פֿרײַ אין אַלע עפֿנטלעכע ערטער. דאָס איז אַ סימן פֿון אַ לאַנד, וווּ מענטשן פֿילן זיך זיכער און פֿאַרזיכערט. אָבער, צוריק גערעדט, האָב איך זיך געדרייט בלויז אין צענטער שטאָט, אין די רײַכע, טוריסטישע געגנטן. דאָרט זענען מסתּמא נישט פֿאַראַן קיין סך אַנטיסעמיטן און טעראָריסטן.
אָבער פּלוצלינג האָט מיר פּאַסירט אַן אומגליק. איך בין אַרויס פֿון טראַמווײַ און זיך געכאַפּט, אַז איך האָב נישט מײַן טעלעפֿאָן. איך בין נאָכגעלאָפֿן דעם טראַמווײַ, אָבער — פֿאַרפֿאַלן. ער איז אַוועק מיט מײַן טעלעפֿאָן אָן אַ זײַ געזונט. די איבעריקע טעג פֿון מײַן וויזיט האָב איך פֿאַרבראַכט ווי אַ טוריסט פֿון די 1990ער יאָרן: נישט וויסנדיק וווּ איך פֿאָר און נישט וויסנדיק וואָס איך זע.
פֿון דעסט וועגן, האָב איך געזען, אַז שוועדן איז אַ געבענטשט לאַנד: שיין און ריין און אָן קיין אמתע פּראָבלעמען, אַחוץ אפֿשר דעם קאַלטן ווינטער. שוועדן האָט נישט געהאַט קיין מלחמה זײַט איבער צוויי הונדערט יאָר. קומענדיק פֿון פּוילן, וווּ מלחמות האָבן כּסדר חרובֿ געמאַכט דאָס לאַנד אין משך פֿון דער גאַנצער געשיכטע, איז געווען אינטערעסאַנט צו זען אַן אָרט, וווּ גאָרנישט איז נישט חרובֿ געוואָרן.
די הײַנטיקע שוועדן זענען אָבער גאָר נישט ענלעך צו די אַמאָליקע. הײַנט איז שוועדן אַ לאַנד פֿון ליבעראַליזם, פֿעמיניזם, און טאָלעראַנץ. מיט הונדערטער יאָרן פֿריִער האָבן די שוועדישע אַרמייען געוואָרפֿן אַ פּחד אויף גאַנץ אייראָפּע. אין פּוילן געדענקט מען נאָך די „שוועדישע פֿאַרפֿלייצונג“ פֿון 17טן י״ה, ווען די שוועדישע סאָלדאַטן האָבן פֿאַרוויסט און באַראַבעוועט דאָס לאַנד. אין משך פֿון די מלחמות דעמאָלטס איז אומגעקומען אַ דריטל פֿון דער פּוילישער באַפֿעלקערונג. אין די שוועדישע מוזייען קען מען נאָך הײַנט זען שיינע קונסטווערק און סקולפּטורן, און פֿון די אויפֿשריפֿטן לעבן די חפֿצים דערוויסט מען זיך, אַז דאָס האָבן די שוועדן אין יענע יאָרן געגנבֿעט פֿון די פּוילישע פּאַלאַצן.
סוף־כּל־סוף זענען די שוועדן געוואָרן מיד פֿון די אַלע מלחמות. די געווינערס זענען סײַ ווי געווען נישט די שוועדן און נישט די פּאָליאַקן, נאָר די רוסן. רוסלאַנד האָט פֿאַרכאַפּט די שוועדישע אימפּעריע בײַם באַלטישן ים, אַרײַנגערעכנט פֿינלאַנד. זײַט דעמאָלטס איז שוועדן געוואָרן אַ לאַנד פֿון שלום און ראַציאָנאַליזם.
בשעת דער צווייטער וועלט־מלחמה האָט די שוועדישע רעגירונג געהאָלפֿן צו ראַטעווען טויזנטער ייִדן. אין 1943 האָבן די שוועדן מיטגעאַרבעט מיט די דענער, וואָס זענען געווען אונטער דער דײַטשער אָקופּאַציע, כּדי אַריבערצושמוגלען די דענישע ייִדן קיין שוועדן. דענישע פֿישערס האָבן אין זייערע שיפֿלעך אַריבערגעבראַכט קיין שוועדן איבער 7,000 ייִדן. אין 1944, בעת די דעפּאָרטאַציעס פֿון אונגערישע ייִדן קיין אוישוויץ, האָט די שוועדישע רעגירונג געשיקט דעם דיפּלאָמאַט ראַוּל וואַלענבערג קיין בודאַפּעשט, כּדי צו ראַטעווען וואָס מער ייִדן. וואַלענבערג האָט צעטיילט „שוצפּאַסן“, וואָס האָבן געמאַכט די ייִדן פֿאַר פּאָטענציעלע שוועדישע בירגער. ער האָט באַהויזט עטלעכע טויזנט אונגערישע ייִדן אין געוויסע בנינים, וואָס מע האָט גערופֿן די „שוועדישע הײַזער“. אַזוי זענען איבער פֿיר טויזנט ייִדן געראַטעוועט געוואָרן.
נאָך דער מלחמה זענען טויזנטער ייִדישע פּליטים געקומען קיין שוועדן. אַ סך זענען ווײַטער געפֿאָרן קיין ישׂראל אָדער אַמעריקע, אָבער אַ טייל זענען געבליבן. אַ סך פּליטים זענען געקומען דווקא פֿון פּוילן און דערפֿאַר רעדן די שוועדישע ייִדן — אויב זיי קענען ייִדיש — געוויינלעך פּויליש ייִדיש. איך האָב געהאַלטן אַ לעקציע מיטן טיטל „פּויליש ייִדיש איז דאָס בעסטע ייִדיש“ און דאָס איז אַלעמען געפֿעלן — אַחוץ איין ליטוואַטשקע (הרבֿ ראַפּאָפּאָרטס מאַמע).
איך האָב גערעדט מיט עטלעכע ייִדן פֿונעם „דור פֿון 1968“. אין יענעם יאָר האָט די פּוילישע רעגירונג דורכגעפֿירט אַן אַנטיסעמיטישע קאַמפּאַניע און פֿאַרטריבן די מערסטע ייִדן פֿון לאַנד. איין פֿרוי האָט מיר געזאָגט, אַז זי וויל אַפֿילו נישט באַזוכן פּוילן. זי איז נאָך אַלץ אין כּעס איבער דעם אופֿן, ווי אַזוי די פּאָליאַקן — די פּשוטע מענטשן, נישט די רעגירונג — האָבן זי באַהאַנדלט מיט 60 יאָר צוריק. זיי האָבן אויסגעכאַפּט די געלעגנהייט אויסצודריקן זייער אַנטיסעמיטיזם. איך האָב איר געזאָגט, אַז די הײַנטיקע פּאָליאַקן זענען גאַנץ אַנדערש, אָבער עס איז שווער איבערצורעדן אַן עלטערן מענטשן.
ייִדן זאָגן: אַ גאַסט אויף אַ ווײַל זעט אויף אַ מײַל. אַ באַזוכער זעט זאַכן, וואָס די אײַנוווינערס זעען נישט, ווײַל זיי זענען אַזוי צוגעוווינט צום אָרט, אויך צו זײַנע חסרונות. אָבער אין מײַן פֿאַל איז דאָס ווערטל פֿאַלש, ווײַל איך האָב נישט באַוויזן זיי צו זען.
The post What I discovered during my visit to the Swedish paradise appeared first on The Forward.
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An Israeli dissident filmmaker finds tainted love amid the Gaza rubble
Nadav Lapid started writing his Oct. 7 movie in summer 2021 — before the events that shaped it took place. He says it hasn’t changed much, and that it’s not really about Oct. 7.
“It’s the same bitter reflection about the place of the artist,” Lapid told me on a Zoom call, a day after arriving in New York for the American debut of Yes, his withering satire of Israeli complacency.
“In a way, in the first version, you could notice the shadow of a catastrophe, the shadow of a disaster and a society on the edge of the abyss,” he said. “With the second version, this society made another few steps and went and fell down from the hill to the valley of hell”
As the title might suggest, Yes — which is sometimes styled with an exclamation mark — is about a kind of maximalist version of affirmative consent that ends in complicity. It follows Y (Ariel Bronz), a jazz pianist, who with his wife, Yasmin (Efrat Dor), serves as a willing entertainer and sex slave for the Israeli elite. The couple submit to almost anything, no questions asked. But when a Russian oligarch commissions Y to write an “anthem for the victory generation,” with bloodthirsty lyrics about annihilating Gaza, it’s (almost) too big of an ask.
What follows is a kind of Israeli Mephisto, alternating from orgiastic spectacle (fellated baguettes, geysers of cherry tomatoes, drugs) to biblical indictment (Y is pelted with stones from heaven for cravenly taking his hasbara assignment).
The film is well within Lapid’s oeuvre, which has skewered Israeli masculinity (Synonyms) and Israeli restrictions on free expression (Ahed’s Knee, which also featured a protagonist named Y, who contra our present hero is characterized by defiance). But the film has ratcheted up its critique along with its experimentation, seeming to say yes to its every outlandish idea.
Lapid was living in Paris on Oct. 7, 2023. He returned to Tel Aviv a couple of weeks later to see the aftermath with his own eyes, and later to begin filming.
“Almost immediately, when the airplane landed, I was taken by two, I think, contradictory feelings,” Lapid said the first was an “unfamiliar empathy” (he is famously conflicted about his home country) and a sense that the nation was partaking in a “collective shiva.”
At first there was a rare tenderness.
“It didn’t last long,” he said. “It was quickly replaced by what you see in the movie, by the kind of morbid vivacity, this ecstatic, dark party by a nation which, in a way, deeply knows that it’s giving up all its limits.”
Lapid saw his fellow artists throwing their weight behind the war and lending their talents to the government. He started production on Yes while drones were still bombarding Gaza. He filmed the smoke plumes from the border, guerilla style. It was an active military zone and he was only allowed to stay on thanks to the intercession of an interested officer, who peppered them with questions about the cameras. (When crew members learned the film was critical of the war, some walked off set — a career first for Lapid.)
In a film with extravagant, overstimulating set pieces, the sequence that takes place at the border stands out for its stillness.
During a road trip to find inspiration for his chest-thumping anthem, Y’s ex-girlfriend Leah (Naama Preis) explains to him the Hamas crimes she translates for the government on social media. It’s a gutting list of real-life murders and maimings. She interrupts the litany with the dismissive comments she sees daily, a signal of the world’s limited empathy.
Lapid chose to film this sequence simply in a static shot, emphasizing what he calls the “destabilizing power of the accumulation of facts.” Facts, he says, that many who he agrees with politically have difficulty acknowledging over a “childish lack of complexity, in the incapacity of looking at reality as it is.”
He sees the scene as a complement to the film’s main subject: the Israeli blindness to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The director lets the weight of Leah’s words sink in, but doesn’t offer them as an excuse. Even these horrors are commoditized by our opportunistic hero. The next shot shows Y trudging up a hill overlooking Gaza, muttering the Hamas atrocities Leah recited. He’s using them to find the melody for a song that lauds how Israel will “exterminate our enemies.” (The camera then pans to Gaza, and we hear Leah and Y, unbothered, making out.)
The lyrics Y is tasked with working off are from an actual altered version of Haim Gouri’s poem “The Brotherhood” that emerged during the Gaza war. Asked if the song, in its original form from 1949, represented a purer vision of Israel, Lapid offered a kind of yes and.
“On one hand, of course, there’s a huge gap between a genocidal anthem and the song talking about, you know, brotherhood in battlefield,” Lapid said. At the same time, both versions refer in their chorus to a “love sanctified by blood,” what he thinks may be the “most important collective myth in Israel.”
“In the heart of Yes there is also this question whether it’s possible in such a society, in such a place, to love,” Lapid said of Israel, which he deems a failed experiment. “And the answer is ‘no.’ The answer is that at the very end, everything will be stained, will be polluted, will be contaminated.”
With a new war in Iran only a month old, Lapid thinks the film is only growing more relevant, reflecting a society mixing vulgarity and nationalism, communicating only in slogans.
But he’s a more even-handed critic of slogans than some seem to think. He was surprised that most reviews of the film overlook a moment critiquing performative activism in the west. The film isn’t just taking aim at the Israeli institutions and hardliners that have ended up condemning it.
“I haven’t done this movie in order to flatter or to polish the ego, or to give a kind of audiovisual demonstration of the theory of anyone,” he said. “I think the artist, filmmaker shouldn’t and doesn’t belong to any camp. His only real place and true place is in the contradiction.”
The post An Israeli dissident filmmaker finds tainted love amid the Gaza rubble appeared first on The Forward.
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Iran Sees US Peace Plan as ‘One-Sided’ as Trump Presses for Deal
A view of a residential building damaged by a strike, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 23, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
A US proposal for ending nearly four weeks of fighting is “one-sided and unfair,” a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Thursday, while US President Donald Trump said Iran must make a deal or face a continued onslaught.
The Iranian official said the proposal, conveyed to Tehran by Pakistan, “was reviewed in detail on Wednesday night by senior Iranian officials and the representative of Iran‘s Supreme Leader.”
It lacked the minimum requirements for success and served only US and Israeli interests, the official said, while stressing that diplomacy had not ended despite the lack for now of a realistic plan for peace talks.
Trump described the Iranians as “great negotiators” but added that he was not sure he was “willing to make a deal with them to end the war.”
Iran has launched strikes against Israel as well as US bases and civilian sites in the Gulf states. The Iranian regime has also effectively blocked Middle East fuel exports via the Strait of Hormuz since the US and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28.
“They now have the chance, that is Iran, to permanently abandon their nuclear ambitions and to join a new path forward,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
“We’ll see if they want to do it. If they don’t, we’re their worst nightmare. In the meantime, we’ll just keep blowing them away.”
Oil jumped to $105 a barrel on Thursday and stock markets fell on renewed pessimism over ceasefire prospects as global plastics, technology, retail, and tourism struggled with the impact.
STRAIT OF HORMUZ A CRUCIAL ISSUE
Trump suggested on Thursday that Iran let 10 oil tankers transit the Strait of Hormuz as a goodwill gesture in negotiations, including some Pakistan-flagged vessels, elaborating on what he had described as a “present” from Iran.
The president, who is expected to send thousands of troops to the Middle East, driving expectations of a ground invasion, also said taking control of Iran‘s oil was an option but gave no further details.
A note seen by Reuters on Tuesday to the United Nations from Iran said “non-hostile vessels” could transit the strait if they coordinated with Iranian authorities.
A Thai oil tanker has passed through the strait following diplomatic coordination with Iran, and Malaysia said its vessels were also being allowed to transit in a sign that restrictions were loosening for some countries. Iran would be receptive to any request from Spain related to the strait, its embassy in Madrid said, in the first such offer to an EU state.
US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff confirmed that the US had sent a “15-point action list” as a basis for negotiations to end the war.
Pakistan’s foreign minister said “indirect talks” between the US and Iran were taking place through messages relayed by Islamabad, with other states including Turkey and Egypt also supporting mediation efforts.
Any talks, were they to happen, would likely prove very difficult given the positions laid out by both sides.
According to sources and reports, the 15-point proposal includes demands ranging from dismantling Iran‘s nuclear program and curbing its missiles to effectively handing over control of the strait.
Iran has hardened its stance since the war began, demanding guarantees against future military action, compensation for losses, and formal control of the strait, Iranian sources say.
It also told intermediaries that Lebanon must be included in any ceasefire deal, regional sources said.
Trump has not identified who the US is negotiating with in Iran, with many high-ranking officials among the thousands of people killed in the war across the Middle East.
Israel removed Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf from its hit list after Pakistan urged Washington to press Israel not to target them, a Pakistani source with knowledge of the discussions told Reuters. An Israeli military spokesperson declined to comment.
A Western diplomat said the US had taken a “maximalist” position and it was not clear if Washington was seeking to end the war or to calm markets before a potential ground operation.
WAVES OF MISSILES
On Thursday, Iran launched multiple waves of missiles at Israel, striking Tel Aviv, Haifa and other areas, including a Palestinian town in central Israel.
At least one ballistic missile hit Tel Aviv, according to the military, while others carried cluster munitions that dispersed smaller explosives, damaging homes and cars. Israel’s ambulance service said a man was killed in Nahariya after Hezbollah fired a rocket barrage at the northern city.
In Iran, strikes hit a residential zone in the southern city of Bandar Abbas and a village on the outskirts of the southern city of Shiraz, where two teenage brothers were killed, Iran‘s Tasnim news agency said. A university building in Isfahan was reported to have been hit.
US and Israeli officials said Israel had killed the naval commander of Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards, and that it had many more targets left as it degraded Iranian capabilities.