Uncategorized
Woody Allen saves his friend with Heimlich maneuver at dinner with Alan Dershowitz
(New York Jewish Week) — Woody Allen stepped into a different kind of starring role this week: the good samaritan who saves someone with the Heimlich maneuver.
The embattled Jewish Oscar winner helped his friend, Andrew Stein, a former Manhattan borough president, when Stein choked on a piece of pork at the Caravaggio restaurant on the Upper East Side last Tuesday, the New York Post reported.
“I am embarrassed to say it, but Woody actually saved my life,” Stein, who is Jewish, said. “I normally order fish, but this time I went for the pork.”
Allen, Stein and Allen’s wife Soon-Yi Previn were joined at the dinner by the prominent lawyer and political analyst Alan Dershowitz.
“It really was like a scene from one of his movies,” Stein told the Post, which noted that the diminutive Allen leapt to the rescue with “surprising strength and vigor,” according to witnesses.
The longtime power player Stein, who was also president of the New York City Council from 1986-1994, shortened his name from Finkelstein when he entered politics. His father, Jerry Finkelstein, was the publisher of the New York Law Journal and his brother, Jimmy Finkelstein, is also a media mogul, having founded The Messenger after partially owning The Hollywood Reporter and The Hill. Stein, a Democrat, left politics in the mid-1990s.
Stein failed to pay over $1 million in income tax in 2008, leading to a sentencing of 500 hours of community service.
In a recent op-ed co-authored with Dershowitz titled “Why Biden might be the Dems’ last pro-Israel president,” Stein wrote that he will now be voting Republican because of the Democratic Party’s stance on Israel. (Dershowitz wrote that he “is planning to remain a Democrat and vote for Biden while seeking to marginalize the radical anti-Israel elements in that party.”)
As the Post reported, Allen has saved another person with the Heimlich maneuver at an Upper East Side Italian restaurant: In 1992, he sprang to the rescue of Jean Doumanian, a former “Saturday Night Live” producer, at Primola on 2nd Avenue.
Allen, 87 — whose latest brush with scandal involved his name being found in sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein’s private calendar — has not let allegations of sexual abuse made by his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow completely derail his film career. The latest from the director, known for canonizing the neurotic Jewish male in comedy, is called “Coup de Chance” — a thriller and his first French-language film. A distributor picked it up last month, Variety reported.
—
The post Woody Allen saves his friend with Heimlich maneuver at dinner with Alan Dershowitz appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Israeli Druze Leader Seeks US Security Guarantees for Syrian Minority
Leader of the Druze community in Israel, Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif, speaks with Reuters at his house in Julis, northern Israel, July 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ali Sawafta
Israeli Druze leader Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif urged the United States to guarantee the security of the Druze community in Syria to prevent a recurrence of intense violence earlier this year in Sweida, a Druze-majority province in Sunni-dominated Syria.
Washington needed to fulfill its “duty” to safeguard the rights of Syria’s minorities in order to encourage stability, Tarif told Reuters on Tuesday during an official visit to the UN in Geneva, adding that US support would also remove the need for Israeli intervention in Syria’s south.
“We hope that the United States, President Trump, and America as a great power, we want it to guarantee the rights of all minorities in Syria … preventing any further massacres,” he said.
US President Donald Trump vowed in November to do everything he can to make Syria successful after landmark talks with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
BLOODY CLASHES IN JULY
The Druze are a minority group whose faith is an offshoot of Islam and have followers in Israel, Syria, and Lebanon.
In July, clashes between Druze and Bedouin residents broke out in Sweida after tit-for-tat kidnappings, leading to a week of bloodletting that shattered generations of fragile coexistence.
The violence worsened when government forces dispatched to restore order clashed with Druze militiamen, with widespread reports of looting, summary killings, and other abuses.
Israel entered the fray with encouragement from its Druze minority, attacking government forces with the stated aims of protecting Syrian Druze and keeping its borders free from militants.
Tens of thousands of people from both communities were uprooted, with the unrest all but ending the Bedouins’ presence across much of Sweida.
In the aftermath, Druze leaders called for a humanitarian corridor from the Golan to Sweida and demanded self-determination, which the government rejects.
‘NEED TO REBUILD TRUST’
Asked about proposals by influential Druze Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajari to separate Sweida from Syria, Tarif took a different stance, stressing the need for internal autonomy or self-governance within Syria as a way of protecting minorities and their rights and pointing to federal systems in Switzerland and Germany as examples.
It was inconceivable to ask the Druze to surrender their weapons, he said. Talks to bring Sweida’s former police force onto Damascus‘ payroll — while allowing the Druze to retain wide local autonomy — had been making steady progress until July’s bloodshed derailed them.
Al-Sharaa, a former al Qaeda commander who led rebel factions that ousted former long-time leader Bashar al-Assad last December, has vowed to protect the Druze. However, Hajari insists he poses an existential threat to his community and in September rejected a 13-point, US-brokered roadmap to resolve the conflict.
Asked if talks should be revived, Tarif said trust had to be rebuilt by allowing residents to return to their homes, and permitting full humanitarian access to Sweida.
“There is no trust today … Trust must be rebuilt,” he said.
Uncategorized
Lebanon Foreign Minister Declines Tehran Visit, Proposes Talks in Neutral Country
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, and members of the Lebanese cabinet meet to discuss efforts to bring all weapons in the country under the control of the state, at the Presidential Palace in Baabda, Lebanon, Aug. 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Emilie Madi
Lebanon‘s foreign minister Youssef Raji said on Wednesday he had declined an invitation to visit Tehran for now, proposing instead talks with Iran in a mutually agreed neutral third country, Lebanese state news agency NNA reported.
Raji cited “current conditions” for the decision not to go to Iran, without elaborating, and stressed that the move did not mean rejection of dialogue with Iran. He did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for additional comment.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi had extended the invitation last week, seeking talks on bilateral ties.
Raji said Lebanon stood ready to open a new phase of constructive relations with Iran, on the condition that ties be based strictly on mutual respect, full recognition of each country‘s independence and sovereignty, and non-interference in internal affairs under any pretext.
In an apparent reference to calls to disarm Iran-backed Hezbollah, the Lebanese terrorist group, Raji added that no strong state could be built unless the government held the exclusive right to hold weapons.
Hezbollah, once a dominant political force with wide influence over the Lebanese state, was severely weakened by Israeli strikes last year that ended with a US-brokered ceasefire. It has been under mounting domestic and international pressure to surrender its weapons and place all arms under state control.
In August, Iran’s top security official Ali Larijani visited Beirut, warning Lebanon not to “confuse its enemies with its friends.” In June, Foreign Minister Araqchi said Tehran sought a “new page” in ties.
Uncategorized
Iceland to Boycott 2026 Eurovision in Protest of Go-Ahead for Israel
A photographer takes a picture of a TV screen in Wiener Stadthalle, the venue of next year’s Eurovision in Vienna, Austria, Nov. 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
Iceland will not take part in the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest, the country’s public broadcaster RUV said on Wednesday, after organizer the European Broadcasting Union last week cleared Israel‘s participation.
The decision to allow Israel to take part in the next Eurovision, which will be held in Vienna in May, earlier prompted Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Slovenia to withdraw in protest, citing Israel‘s conduct in the Gaza war. Israel waged a two-year military campaign against Hamas after the Palestinian terrorist group invaded the Jewish state, massacred 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 hostages in October 2023.
“It is clear from the public debate in this country and the reaction to the EBU’s decision last week that there will be neither joy nor peace regarding RUV’s participation,” the broadcaster’s Director General Stefan Eiriksson said in a statement.
Iceland was among the countries that had requested a vote last week on Israel‘s participation. But the European Broadcasting Union, or EBU, decided not to call a vote on Israel‘s participation, saying it had instead passed new rules aimed at discouraging governments from influencing the contest.
Iceland has never won the song contest but came second in 1999 and 2009. The Eurovision Song Contest dates back to 1956 and reaches around 160 million viewers, according to the EBU.