In “September 5,” the new movie depicting the abduction and murder of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches at the 1972 Munich Olympics, there are many echoes of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, 51 years, and one month later.

Both are historical tragedies involving the murder of Israelis by Palestinian terrorists; both involved the taking of hostages, some of whom were American citizens; and both are remembered with the invocation of a specific date.

But “September 5” — which opens in limited release this week and is already drawing awards chatter — was not in any way conceived in response to Oct. 7. The movie had been filmed, and was already in the post-production process, at the time of the 2023 attack.

“I think it will certainly have an effect on how audiences will see the film, but I also think that our film is clearly about a specific moment in history, and or let’s say, even more specifically, a moment in media history, and about that turning point,” Tim Fehlbaum, the film’s director, said in an interview.

“What I would hope is that the audience reflects on how today we consume news, and about our complex media environment, through that historical lens.”

Indeed, “September 5” dwells on another way in which the Munich attack paralleled Oct. 7: It represented a watershed moment in the livestreaming of terrorism.

On that day, members of the Palestinian terror group Black September killed two of the Israelis in their dorm in the Olympic Village and held the remaining nine as hostages. After West German authorities botched virtually every stage of the situation, the remaining hostages were all killed at a nearby airport.

The entire tragic saga played out on live television, with ABC Sports, which was covering the Games, staying on air for most of the day. The film focuses not on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict nor the experiences of the athletes and those seeking to save them, but on the ABC reporting team that went to West Germany to cover the Games and ended up in the middle of a deadly crisis.

The film depicts the split-second decisions that the reporters and producers — including Peter Jennings, who appears in the film and is also portrayed in some scenes by actor Benjamin Walker — must make while covering a hostage crisis as it plays out. At one point, there is a debate over whether the journalists should call the Black September attackers “terrorists.” At another, a young producer asks aloud, “Can we show someone being shot on live television?” And in another scene, German police seek to crack down on coverage that shows the positions of their sharpshooters.

The story is told with uncommon tension, including the use of vintage television equipment, which the filmmakers wanted to make sure was period-accurate, even though tracking down the right supplies was at times challenging.

“When we were making our research, we learned, more and more, the role the media played in that day,” Fehlbaum said. “Then, we were lucky enough to get in conversation with one of the eyewitnesses, and was in the control room that day, Geoffrey Mason. During this conversation, that was the moment when we finally decided that we wanted to tell the story entirely from that angle.”

The Jewish actor John Magaro plays Mason, a young ABC producer at the time who is not himself Jewish, and who is the only one of the principal figures in the film who is still alive. (He is the one who asks about showing a shooting on live TV.) Another key character is Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin), a veteran ABC Sports producer who was Jewish and whose pain at covering the crisis is clear throughout.

“We learned that from Geoffrey Mason, from private conversations that he had with him, with Marvin’s background, how it still — you could tell that this was not so long after World War II that they were in Munich for the broadcast of these Olympics,” Fehlbaum said.

Despite his Ashkenazi-sounding surname, Fehlbaum, who is a native of Switzerland, does not have any Jewish ancestry. But the director went to film school in Munich, and in that city, he said, “this tragedy is still very present.”

One through-line in the film is that the Olympics, the first to take place in Germany since the Games Hitler hosted in 1936, were meant to “welcome to the world to a new Germany,” in the words of a German official, at a time when World War II and the Holocaust were still in living memory for most people.

Mark Spitz, a Jewish American swimmer, won seven gold medals, and the producers are depicted discussing whether to ask Spitz about “winning gold in Hitler’s backyard.” Among the massive amount of archival footage in the film is one of Spitz’s wins, as well as a feature about the Israeli Olympians, including American-Israeli wrestler David Berger, visiting Dachau days before they met their deaths.

Peter Sarsgaard plays famed ABC Sports executive Roone Arledge, while ABC anchor Jim McKay, who led the coverage that day, appears only in archival footage.

Israeli fans at the infamous 1972 Olympics in Munich, Sept. 5, 1972. (Klaus Rose/picture alliance via Getty Images)“September 5” is at least the third major motion picture about the hostage crisis. “One Day in September,” Kevin Macdonald’s Oscar-winning documentary from 1999 about the Munich crisis, was a major influence on the film, Fehlbaum said.

As for the other major film about the massacre, Steven Spielberg’s 2005 “Munich,” it’s very different, focusing mainly on the aftermath of the tragedy, on Israel’s campaign of revenge, and how one fictional soldier, Eric Bana’s Avner, became disillusioned with it.

“Steven Spielberg, I mean, that’s of course a big influence on me, regardless of ‘Munich,’ all of his films, generally,” Fehlbaum said. “‘Munich,’ of course, also we studied carefully, but … our film has a very different perspective on this tragedy.”

Driving the northernmost spur of Israel’s Road 886, it’s hard not be astonished by just how close Israelis and their Hezbollah foes lived to one another before the war that began 14 months ago.

In the panhandle known as the Finger of the Galilee, Road 886 runs south-to-north along the Ramim Ridge, a 3,000-foot-high range in the Naftali Mountains dotted with small Israeli towns and kibbutzim that overlook Israel’s lush Hula Valley to the east and a smattering of Lebanese villages to the west. The road terminates at Misgav Am, a storied Israeli kibbutz right on the border fence that’s closer to the Lebanese village of Udaysah than to any town in Israel.

When I drove the length of this road several days after the announcement of Israel’s ceasefire with Hezbollah — and shortly before Israeli troops entered nearby Syria after the fall of the government there — signs of war were everywhere.

At one clearing in the woods, spent artillery canisters and detritus left behind by soldiers were scattered on the ground. Trees scorched from fires sparked by incendiary exchanges between the two sides were bent at odd angles. The road, chewed up by tanks and heavy military equipment, is full of large potholes and tread marks. Concrete berms stand at points where the military fashioned makeshift routes into Lebanon. A roadside picnic area is a mess of mud, the vestige of a staging ground for military vehicles.

At Kibbutz Manara, where in better times tourists can ride a gondola down the steep ridge to a base station just outside the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona, Road 886 is flush with the border. The kibbutz is so close to Lebanon that a Hezbollah fighter could theoretically hear an Israeli baby in Manara crying in their bedroom crib less than 100 yards away.

When I stopped to take some photos, I heard a U.N. vehicle turn on its ignition at a UNIFIL post on the Lebanese side of the fence.

The only reason I didn’t feel like I was risking my life was because there were still Israeli soldiers on the Lebanese side. Under the terms of the current ceasefire, Israel has 60 days to move its troops out of the country. The Lebanese villages near the border remain unoccupied and, in many cases, largely in ruins, and the Israeli Defense Forces has warned Lebanese residents that they cannot yet return.

There is no such order in place for Israelis, who for the first time in more than a year can return to their homes in the northern Galilee without the threat of imminent attack from Hezbollah drones and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), rockets, antitank fire or infiltrations.

But the Israelis who live here for the most part haven’t come back.

“There’s lots of things people don’t know,” Shani Atsmon of Kiryat Shmona said of Hezbollah. Atsmon has been living at a hotel and hasn’t yet returned to the city. “At any second they can come into Israel with paragliders like Hamas did on Oct. 7. Maybe there are tunnels. They’re still at the fences. I don’t want to risk my life. It can come from anywhere — Lebanon or Syria. It’s scary.”

Unlike in southern Lebanon, where roads were jammed with returning residents almost as soon as the ceasefire was announced on Nov. 27, the northern Israeli communities that emptied out due to the war are still ghost towns. There are no schools open, banks are mostly closed, health clinics aren’t operating, and there’s hardly any place to buy food. The government is still paying for evacuees to live elsewhere, and many families with children already have made clear they won’t move back until the end of the school year in six months, at the earliest.

The fall of the Assad regime this month in Syria only adds to the uncertainty. While the Israeli military has conducted an extensive bombing campaign to degrade the offensive capabilities of any future Syrian army, the turmoil in Syria and the fall of Damascus to an Islamist militia is a reminder that threats to the border region of northern Israel are never far away.

“We still don’t have a feeling of security,” said Revital Gabay, a nurse who evacuated from Kiryat Shmona and is living at a hotel outside the city. “I was home on Friday for five minutes to get something and I heard army artillery fire. We know Hezbollah is on the other side of the fence, watching us. We’ll have another two years of quiet and then at some point there’ll be a war and we’ll be sent back to the stone age.”

The question that will determine northern Israel’s future

I went to Israel’s northern war zone because I wanted to see what it looks like in this liminal period between the apparent end of the long war with Hezbollah and the resumption of normal life. What I found was that while certain frontline communities, such as Metula, have suffered extensive destruction, the area’s main city, Kiryat Shmona, and many surrounding towns and kibbutzim have limited damage.

To be sure, there are wrecked homes to rebuild, burnt forests to restore, crumbling businesses to reconstruct and ruined roads to repair. Israeli government authorities estimate direct damage to Israel’s 82 border-area communities — those in the 4.5-kilometer evacuation zone near the Lebanon border — at over $420 million, including damage to homes, public and private buildings, infrastructure like electricity and water, agriculture, equipment and vehicles. Along with indirect losses, such as compensation for lost revenue — if, for example, a farm couldn’t produce the pomegranates it normally does — the total costs of the war in the north are an estimated $1.4 billion, excluding military expenditures.

And over 110 soldiers and civilians inside Israel were killed by Hezbollah attacks since Oct. 8, 2023, when the Lebanese terrorist group joined in attacking Israel the day following Hamas’s shocking, brutal attack in the south.

But considering the intensity and duration of the attacks here, the area fared much better in the showdown with Hezbollah than military analysts had predicted — a testament to the effectiveness of Israel’s overwhelming military successes in Lebanon in addition to its homefront defenses like the Iron Dome anti-missile system, air raid alerts, abundant bomb shelters, and, somewhat controversially, the decision to evacuate over 60,000 locals.

The more lasting damage up north, it seems, is psychological — with even graver long-term implications for the future of the Galilee than the war’s physical toll.

More than anything else, residents are traumatized by the fear that what happened in southern Israel on Oct. 7 can happen here, too — if not in the near future then one day years from now, when their children will pay the price.

“We lived here with quiet for 20 years, but we never forgot that they hate us,” Kiryat Shmona resident Zahava Zarad, 61, said of her Hezbollah neighbors across the border in Lebanon. “I want the army to kill Hezbollah without giving them any advance warning. Their little kids today are the terrorists who one day will come to murder my grandchildren. They have to be destroyed in groups, not one by one. That’s the feeling.”

The critical question for Israel is whether the security concerns of those who live here can be assuaged. If not, the northern Galilee will struggle to retain its population, much less attract newcomers, and the area may fall into a downward spiral as families leave, businesses fail and real estate prices crater.

If that happens, the damage from Oct. 7 will last for generations.

“Only those who really love it here will return — or those who have no alternative,” Zarad said.

Ramim Ridge: In the line of fire

Bordered by Lebanon both to the west and north, the Finger of the Galilee is particularly vulnerable to enemy attack.

During the war, Hezbollah used rockets and UAVs to attack Israeli targets as far away as metropolitan Tel Aviv, but closer Israeli communities presented the most convenient target of opportunity. The communities here could be reached using short-range rockets, artillery, and a uniquely nimble and lethal weapon against which Israel struggled to defend: antitank shells.

Unlike rockets, which fly in an arc and can be intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome system, antitank shells fly straight as a bullet, can be shot using shoulder-mounted systems, often arrive without warning, and can tear through the Israeli safe room shelters known as mamads like they’re a tin can. That meant that any Israeli community with a straight line of sight into Lebanon and within the range of antitank fire — about two to three miles — could be a very dangerous place.

This is partly why Israel’s evacuation order was set to cover any community within 4.5 kilometers (about 2.7 miles) of the border.

The communities that sit atop the Ramim Ridge, some abutting the border, were particularly exposed.

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At Ramot Naftali, a picturesque town on the ridge that in normal times is home to about 550 residents, vintner Yitzak Cohen, 75, is one of the few locals who stayed home throughout the war. He owns a boutique winery that produces about 15,000 bottles per year and grows his grapes on a four-acre plot of land in the Kedesh Valley on the west side of the ridge, in full view of the Lebanese villages about two miles away.

“I was born here. I experienced all the wars that were here. This was a very strange war, very atypical,” said Cohen, whose house is right behind the facility where the wine is aged and bottled. “This thing of evacuating all the residents was extreme. I didn’t consent to be evacuated.”

Ramot Naftaly Winery stayed operational throughout the war, thanks to a skeleton crew of Israelis and Thai laborers. They kept working amid sirens, Hezbollah attacks and a seemingly endless rain of shrapnel.

“Every morning you’d find shrapnel here,” Cohen said. “But it didn’t deter us. We kept going.”

The winery’s visitor center, a significant source of income with group tastings and gourmet meals and special events, was shuttered. The first group to return after the war arrived the day before I visited.

“For the time being it’s pretty sad here. I’m waiting for residents to return to the town,” Cohen said. “Now you see on weekends that families with children are coming back to scout out the situation.”

But the families aren’t staying. Cohen can’t even get his grandchildren to visit. That morning, Cohen told me, he had an intense argument on the phone with his son-in-law, who doesn’t feel comfortable having his children visit their grandfather on the front line. The kids, by Cohen’s account, are eager to come.

He sighs. Cohen’s wife split her time during the war between Raanana, where a daughter lives, and home, where she’d spend the weekends with her husband. But over the last year, Cohen has seen his grandkids only about once a month — relatively infrequent by Israeli standards.

Cohen walks me back behind the winery and shows me the chicken coop beside his house where his grandkids gather eggs whenever they visit. Without his family around, the chickens produce more eggs than Cohen can possibly eat; he gives away the excess to neighbors. Cohen reaches over to the persimmon tree behind me, plucks one of the bright orange orbs, wipes it against his shirt and takes a bite, beckoning me to do the same.

“I see it as a mistake that the government evacuated the residents. I’m not saying that someone who is afraid, who has kids, should be prevented from leaving, but for it to be initiated by the government was a terrible mistake,” Cohen said. “If the towns here had been full, then they” — meaning Hezbollah — “wouldn’t have dared to do what they did when there were no residents. If they would have hit one family, we would have erased them. They would have been afraid.”

In the 2006 war with Hezbollah, Cohen recalls, a Katyusha rocket landed in his yard while his daughters were in the house. It’s not clear whether this anecdote buttresses his argument.

I ask Cohen the question on everyone’s minds: When will his neighbors return?

“It depends on the circumstances, on how people feel about their personal safety, their financial security,” he says.

Outside Kibbutz Yiftah, another community on Ramim Ridge about two miles from Lebanon, I come upon a man with his three adult children harvesting olives alongside the road.

Early December is generally late to pick olives, which are practically ready to fall off the tree on their own. But Arik Aharon and his children, all of whom live in Yiftah during normal times, are just in time. Aharon’s two sons and daughter have spread out a long net to catch the fruit, which they shake off the tree using a mechanical picker that resembles a pitchfork with moving fingers. The olives will have to be pressed immediately; during the harvesting season, an olive press may stay open throughout the night to process a freshly picked yield. The Aharons will probably get just a few kilograms of olive oil this year from their rushed labor.

But it’s better than nothing. Last year the trees went unpicked, Arik tells me. He, his children and their families all evacuated to points south.

“We haven’t returned home,” says Or, his daughter. “It’s not possible to go back now and live in Yiftah. But it is possible to harvest olives.”

When will they come back?

“I don’t feel safe returning now; it’s not on the agenda,” Or says. “I have a baby daughter. We’re 1,000 meters from the border. I won’t come back until I feel safe.”

What will make you feel safe? I ask.

“I don’t have an answer,” she replies.

Kiryat Shmona: A city without people

When I arrive at Kiryat Shmona in the early afternoon, I pull into the shopping center at the city’s southern entrance to grab a quick bite. The parking lot is surrounded by Israeli and international chain restaurants: McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Café Neeman, Biga boulangerie.

But as I step out of my car it becomes clear they’re all closed. Of course, I realize. For 14 months they’ve been gathering dust, their customers and employees gone. Reopening will be more complicated than flicking on a switch and lighting the ovens. Equipment needs to be cleaned, damage repaired, employees hired. Most important, there must be customers.

The only action at this shopping area is at the supermarket, which stayed open throughout the war. Many of its patrons carry automatic weapons. They’re either soldiers in uniform or members of local security squads who stayed here for the duration of the war, paid by the government to safeguard their own communities.

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I head into town and park on Kiryat Shmona’s main drag. The last time I visited this particular strip, in early April, the only eatery still operating was a family-owned shwarma place called Baguette Shlomi that had stayed open to serve soldiers deployed to the area and a few remaining locals. While interviewing one of the restaurant’s owners we were interrupted by an air raid siren and had to rush into the kitchen for cover.

This time, I see a long line of customers snaking out the door, despite the fact that it’s mid-afternoon. Baguette Shlomi is the only place open among a dozen or so stores on the block. Next door, a mobile phone shop has a sign taped to the door that reads, “Dear soldiers! Please wipe your boots of mud before entering the store!”

Kiryat Shmona is a city in need of some TLC. At one roundabout, a rusting 7-foot menorah from some bygone Hanukkah that’s missing three of its eight branches is perched on the sidewalk, a sad-looking sentry in a mostly empty neighborhood. At night, the windows in large apartment blocks are mostly dark, their occupants living elsewhere.

Ravit Levi, who spent about a year at a hotel 15 minutes south of the city, went back to her Kiryat Shmona home in early November. Even though the war was still raging, the IDF’s invasion of southern Lebanon gave her confidence to move back — that, and she was fed up living in temporary accommodations.

“We said, That’s it. We were tired. We missed home,” she said. “Now we’re in our home and it’s a pleasure for us.”

Her adult daughter, Peleg Levi, a single mom with two kids, also returned to Kiryat Shmona. Because there are no schools open in the city, her 11-year-old son must commute about 10 miles south to attend school at Yesod Hamaala. During the war, if there was too much shelling or if Peleg didn’t feel comfortable doing the drive, she kept her son home.

Meanwhile, her 2-year-old daughter has returned to a house she doesn’t even remember, according to Peleg. “She’s more used to growing up in a hotel surrounded by strangers,” Peleg said.

It’s not easy finding people in Kiryat Shmona, which had a prewar population of 25,000. I drive for blocks on end without seeing a soul.

In the relatively new neighborhood of Yuvalim, a bus careens through the streets but there are no passengers at any of the stops. One block bears the scars of a direct strike: The impact crater on the pavement has been filled in by dirt, nearby apartment buildings are pocked with shrapnel damage, and the windows of the closest building were all blown out and are covered with plywood. There’s broken glass in the lobby, the elevator isn’t working because there’s no electricity and the stairwell is covered with guano from birds that found their way inside.

Elsewhere in the neighborhood, the frame of a sukkah is visible on an apartment balcony, its walls torn to shreds and its roof long gone. It’s an eerie reminder of the day this long war started, with a surprise early morning attack the day after Sukkot’s conclusion, on Simchat Torah, prompting many residents to flee in their pajamas — to say nothing of dismantling their sukkahs. I’m reminded of the forlorn sukkahs I saw still standing amid the ruins in Beeri, Sderot and other southern communities months after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.

In the hillside neighborhood of Naftali Hills, which overlooks the entire city, I run into David Cohen and two of his daughters cleaning the patio in front of a small synagogue. Cohen, 56, was born and raised in Kiryat Shmona, and his eight children were born here. He spent most of the war in Tzfat and is eager to return, but it’s not possible yet because the schools aren’t open.

In any case, the family isn’t quite ready. Cohen’s youngest daughter, Adi, is worried about a terrorist coming through her window, Cohen says. Their neighborhood is the closest one in Kiryat Shmona to the Lebanon border, and there are no other towns in between.

Cohen says he’s not sure whether the ceasefire will hold up, but in the meantime he’s taking advantage of the quiet to clean up. His yard is overgrown and neglected, his fridge shorted out and broke due to war-related electrical blackouts, and there’s dust everywhere in the house. Other homes have been infested by rats — a story I hear repeatedly during my trip.

He takes me into the synagogue to show me some damage to the interior ceiling of the social hall where some shrapnel hit the roof, but the sanctuary, after a thorough cleaning, looks pristine. Cohen is the gabbai (sexton) of the synagogue, Mishkan Saadya, which he was instrumental in building and which carries his grandfather’s name. Before the war, as many as 100 people would come to Friday night services. Now, Cohen says, he doesn’t think there are more than five men living in the neighborhood.

“A synagogue that goes 14 months without a minyan is sad. To see it abandoned like this …” his voice trails off.

Kibbutz Kfar Blum: Just outside the evacuation zone

During this war, even small distances could make a big difference. Kibbutz Kfar Blum was one of the unfortunate communities in the lose-lose zone: too far for residents to be eligible for government assistance to relocate elsewhere, but close enough to Lebanon to make for an opportune target for Hezbollah.

Most Kfar Blum residents had no choice but to stay, even as nearby communities to the north emptied out and services like schools, health clinics and shopping areas shut down.

A week into the ceasefire, Kfar Blum appeared idyllic. Retirees balancing on antiquated bikes cycled on the kibbutz paths. A shirtless young man sat in the sun writing a song on a yellow notepad. Laughing children could be heard through the open window of a neighborhood preschool. Everywhere, the boughs of citrus trees hung low with ripening lemons, grapefruits, oranges and pomelos. Some of the deciduous trees were at peak foliage, flaunting brilliant yellows and reds.

But scars of war were also evident. A soldier sitting behind a concrete bunker manned a checkpoint at the entrance to the kibbutz, checking every vehicle seeking to enter. On Nov. 24, the Pastoral Kfar Blum Hotel, a luxury lodge whose rooms are rarely priced under $300 per night, took a direct hit, leaving the roof of one of the guesthouses mangled, and a 60-year-old man was seriously wounded. The many bomb shelters in the kibbutz are still unlocked and ready.

“It was scary,” said Zvi Renan, 70, a bus driver who last month moved to a rental unit at Kfar Blum from Beit Hillel, a town about three miles north, in the evacuation zone. “When the drone attacks began, it became clear very quickly that they can kill or wound you. It’s not a pleasant feeling. On one drive to Kiryat Shmona I had to stop and run for cover three separate times.”

Despite the evacuation of Beit Hillel, Renan decided to stay put. But between all the sounds of war, Renan said, he didn’t sleep soundly even for a single night. Sometimes he failed to make it to shelter in time when an air raid siren sounded. The stress took a toll. Three and a half months ago, Renan had a heart attack. He’s now recovering from surgery.

Despite the challenges, Renan has no intention of leaving.

“I moved to the north four years ago and I’m sorry I didn’t come 30 years sooner,” he said. “I own an apartment in Givatayim” — next to Tel Aviv — “but I’ll never move back to the center of the country. I can’t take the crowds and the stress.

“I didn’t regret moving up north even for one second during the war. On the contrary, we have to stick our finger in the eyes of Hezbollah and the Iranians and show them that people here won’t move. I’m one of those who believe that it was a mistake to evacuate the north when Hezbollah started firing at us. We should have gone into Lebanon the next day.”

Renan ignored his daughters’ pleas to leave. If he died, he told them, the two properties he owns would ensure they’d be okay financially.

“When I hear people in Israel say it’s difficult, and they want to move to Cyprus or Greece, it makes me want to vomit on them,” Renan said. “We have no other home. My mother spent five years in a concentration camp in Europe. Even if you’re in the shit here, at least it’s your shit.”

Then he reached up into his avocado tree and offered me two bright-green fruits to take home to my family.

The evacuees: Not hurrying to come back

The Yarden Boutique Hotel is so close to Kiryat Shmona, about 15 minutes south, that I was surprised to find it full of displaced residents from the city. Out of 130 rooms, about 115 are occupied by evacuees, according to hotel CEO Meir Levi.

It turns out most chose this location because they or their spouse need to be near Kiryat Shmona for work. The evacuees here include local policemen, men who work at essential factories related to the defense industry, and lots of agricultural workers — including about 70 foreign laborers.

A few weeks ago, four Thai workers who’d been living at the hotel were killed in an Oct. 31 barrage by Hezbollah on an apple orchard in Metula, about 100 meters from the border, that also killed an Israeli farmer.

Before the war, said evacuee Miri Ben Shaanan, there was practically no social interaction between the Thai workers and the local Israelis. But with everyone living together at the hotel, a sense of comradeship had taken hold. “We talk with them, we laugh with them,” she observed. “This never was the case before.”

After more than a year in the hotel, the evacuees seem to be at wit’s end. Tired of eating the hotel’s food, many have turned their rooms into makeshift kitchens, acquiring microwaves, refrigerators, electric burners, and toasters so they can prepare food that makes them feel at home. Some evacuees have bought washing machines.

Shani Atsmon, whose husband works for the police in Kiryat Shmona, says living in the hotel has felt like an eternity. She has marked two of her husband’s birthdays at the hotel, and other families have celebrated weddings and bar mitzvahs there. Babies learned to walk in the lobby. Parents have sent off their kids to the army from the hotel.

“My daughter was drafted into the army last week. When she comes ‘home’ we can’t cook for her or do her laundry like a normal person,” lamented Gabay, the Kiryat Shmona nurse, who lives at the hotel.

“My 6-year-old is afraid to go to bed at night,” she said. “If we had an alternative we wouldn’t stay here in the north. Enough! We’re fed up being the country’s shield. But we can’t afford to live in the center of the country. If we could, I don’t think I’d stay.”

Some of the family’s close friends are returning, Gabay said, but others are putting up their homes for sale. Families that found a place for themselves in the center of Israel — where culture, excellent healthcare and job opportunities are in abundance — won’t return, she said.

“Kiryat Shmona always struggled, but we felt the place was starting to develop,” Gabay said. “Now it will take time to go back to what it was. You feel like it’s starting from zero.”

During breakfast at the hotel, I sit with Etti and David Fahima. She’s ready to return to Kiryat Shmona, but he says it’s not safe.

“I very much want to go back to my home, my things,” Etti says. “Being here so long has crossed the bounds of good taste. I live in this hotel in a state of chaos. I’ve worked from my hotel room for a year.”

David says they’ll stay at the hotel for as long as they can because it’s safer than going home. Sooner or later, he understands, the government will stop underwriting their stay. No one knows when that will happen, but the rumored date everyone keeps mentioning is Feb. 1.

“The moment the government turns off the flow of aid we won’t have a choice but to go back,” David said.

“But people have internalized the fears of Oct. 7. When you don’t have a feeling of security, you have nothing.”

 

(JTA) — The fall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has opened up a sea of uncertainty about Syria’s future — and about the treasures of its past, including the remnants of its Jewish history.

A 13-year civil war has cost the country more than 600,000 lives and saw some 100,000 people “forcibly disappeared” into prisons by the Assad regime. The war has also wreaked havoc on Syria’s most important cultural sites — from ancient monuments, castles and mosques to the vestiges of a rich Jewish culture.

Well before the war, Syria’s historical synagogues and other Jewish sites languished in neglect after Jews left the country en masse surrounding Israel’s establishment. Now, archaeologists are beginning to assess how much more was lost to bombardment and wartime looting.

Syria was home to well established Jewish communities for more than 2,000 years, dating back to the Roman period, including Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 and European Jewish merchants. But the 20th-century rise of Arab nationalist movements, along with a set of anti-Jewish laws and violence surrounding the establishment of Israel, resulted in waves of Jewish emigration.

About 100,000 Jews lived in Syria at the start of the 20th century, dropping to 15,000 in 1947. An anti-Jewish riot that year, followed by the creation of Israel in 1948, spurred many of the remaining Jews to leave — though they were not legally permitted to do so in most cases despite facing persecution in Syria. The Aleppo Codex, a landmark 10th-century copy of the Hebrew Bible, was damaged and secreted out of the country to Israel around that time.

By 1992, when Assad’s father acceded to pressure to let the Jews emigrate, there were about 4,000 Jews remaining in Aleppo and smaller numbers in Damascus and Qamishli. Most left the country shortly afterwards.

In 2011, a now-infamous Vogue profile of Asma al-Assad, Bashar’s wife, quoted her as saying that Jews fit into her vision of religious diversity in Syria. “There is a very big Jewish quarter in old Damascus,” she told the interviewer, who noted that homes in the quarter had been boarded up since the 1992 exodus. (The article was removed from the internet after drawing criticism for sanitizing the wife of a dictator, and his regime, but remains accessible in an archived form.)

In 2022, an estimate of Syria’s Jews counted only four; this year, the widely circulating number is three. Many Jewish sites have had no caretakers for decades, said Emma Cunliffe, an archaeologist with the Cultural Property Protection and Peace team at Newcastle University.

“In a conflict situation, that neglect intensifies,” said Cunliffe. “Those few people who remained to look after them were then unable to reach them. But then as the war progressed, the damage increased significantly.”

By 2020, nearly half of Syria’s Jewish sites were destroyed, according to a report from the Foundation for Jewish Heritage. The Jobar Synagogue in Damascus, one of few Jewish places of worship still visited by a handful of elderly Jews before the war, was mostly turned into rubble in 2014. A host of ancient Torah scrolls, tapestries, chandeliers and other artifacts from the synagogue went missing, with some resurfacing in Turkey.

The al-Bandara Synagogue, one of the oldest synagogues in Aleppo, also suffered damage during heavy fighting in the region. The synagogue had been renovated in the 1990s but was damaged again during the civil war in 2016. Cunliffe, who conducted a study of the site in 2017, said some parts of the building were destroyed and its courtyard was littered with debris. (A recent virtual reality exhibition at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem allowed visitors to explore the famed synagogue as it stood in 1947, using photographs taken by a local woman who later emigrated.)

Tadef, a town east of Aleppo, was once a popular destination for Jews because of its shrine to the Jewish scribe and prophet Ezra, who was said to stop there on his way to Jerusalem. But after a long period of neglect, the shrine was illegally excavated and looted both by rebel groups and Syrian government forces between 2021 and 2022, according to the rights group Syrians for Truth and Justice.

Scholars also worry about the ruins of Roman-era synagogues in Syria’s ancient cities, such as Apamea and Dura-Europos. Satellite imaging has shown that Dura-Europos was heavily looted while being held by Islamic State forces, according to Adam Blitz, a fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

Remnants from the synagogue of Dura-Europos are treasured by museums, including the Yale University Art Gallery, which displays 40 tiles from the synagogue’s ceiling. But Blitz said other artifacts from the site are feared to have been pilfered by combatants.

“There has been tremendous fear about mosaics being looted,” he said of Syria’s ancient sites.

The extent of the damage to Jewish sites is still difficult to assess, according to Cunliffe, who said the skills and training needed for forensic damage collection remain limited in the war-torn country. Investigations through satellite imagery will also take several months. It may take much longer to establish protection for these sites, as Syria’s cultural sector has been overlooked during the war and the Syrian Antiquities Authority has been consigned to a tiny budget.

As Syria hurtles into a new era, the fate of its heritage sites hangs in the balance. The country’s gems of Jewish history will only survive as far as its next regime allows, said Cunliffe.

The new regime has its roots in Islamic fundamentalist movements but in recent years has taken a pragmatic turn, leaving open questions about the fate of minorities and their interests under its governance.

“Support for the people who are in a position to access them and protect them is critical, and also the need for an inclusive society that will allow that to happen,” Cunliffe said about the historic Jewish sites. “We don’t know what the future of Syria looks like. Certainly, there’s a lot of fighting, and which group ultimately wins will dictate a lot of what is possible.”

Three single Jewish men sat next to each other onstage. One nursed a mostly-empty beer and scratched his graying stubble while another readjusted his kippah. To their right, separated by a blue divider, the bachelorette — wearing hot pink pants and sorting through a stack of cue cards — sat on her own.

Those in the audience at Caveat, a venue on the Lower East Side, knew what the contestants looked like, of course, but the bachelorette on stage did not. Nor did she know the men’s occupations or their names — nothing that could create any preconceptions. All they knew were each other’s voices, and their shame-free answers to some of life’s most personal questions.

From the men’s responses to probing questions — including “What Jewish icon was your role model growing up?” and “How many times have you been in love?” — the bachelorette would pick one man to have a dinner date with at a local Jewish restaurant. 

Welcome to The Jewish Dating Game, a monthly live show that’s inspired by the long-running 1960s game show “The Dating Game.” This live, Jewish version of the game was launched in July by actor and writer Linnea Sage. Sage’s goal is to help contestants — and audience members — find their beshert, or soul mate. 

What sets The Jewish Dating Game apart from a non-Jewish one? “I don’t think it would be as funny,” Sage told the New York Jewish Week. “At the end of the day, Jews have something special. We’ve got some pizzazz, you know, that I think is just endearing and entertaining to watch regardless.”  

At Caveat on a Monday evening last month, the night’s bachelorette, Dina Plotch, excitedly dove into her questions, which had been written by Sage. “Ooh, this [question] is super important —  do or die,” she said after flipping to the cue card of her liking. The audience of approximately 75 “Jews and allies,” as the event’s description reads, waited with bated breath. 

She leaned into her microphone: “Did we free Britney [Spears] too soon?” 

“I don’t totally know what you mean,” Contestant 1 responded, with unabashed honesty that earned the room’s loud applause. Contestant 3 chimed in, saying he’d seen the documentary about Spears’ conservatorship and that “it seemed like we did it at the right time.” 

Finally, Contestant 2 brought it all home: “To be honest with you, I go with bachelor number one’s answer. Because whatever is meant to be is meant to be, and you know what? God has a plan, and when she’s meant to be free, she’s meant to be free.” The audience went wild.

The idea for the Jewish Dating Game came to Sage while she was stuck in a creative rut this past spring. She and her husband, Paul Skye Lehrman, who co-produces the show, are both voice actors — and in May, the couple sued an A.I. company that cloned both of their voices without their permission. 

“I had this huge reckoning with like, ‘What am I doing now for the rest of my life?’” Sage said. “Because the industry is changing so drastically.” Hosting The Jewish Dating Game, she added, has allowed her to tap into her background in theater and improv comedy.

Sage said she was also inspired by a growing need for involvement in the city’s Jewish community after Oct. 7. “I so quickly felt like I needed to be around my people as often as possible, and in as loving ways as possible,” she said. 

She was already attending Jewish events organized by friends. “But I didn’t really think that that was going to be any part of my career,” Sage said. “I thought I was just sort of an attender.” 

At large Shabbats organized by SHIUR — a group that aims to take “the ancient Jewish practice of text based discourse integrated with space, ritual, and practice to the world of art, diplomacy, culture and more” — she’d befriend other women who, as soon as they learned Sage was married, would ask to be set up with someone. “I would literally spend the rest of the evening shuffling nice Jewish boys in front of these women,” she said. “And like a live Tinder swipe, they’re just like, ‘Left, left, no, forget it.’ And I’m like, ‘Can we give these people a chance?’ Like, so much of attraction is based on getting to know somebody.” 

Her Shabbat matchmaking attempts helped inspire The Jewish Dating Game — specifically, its focus on values and personalities rather than looks. But her “a-ha moment” happened when she literally woke up in the middle of the night with the idea. Sage, as she normally does when she dreams up an idea, went back to sleep. “If I wake up in the morning and I still remember it, then it was worth remembering,” she said.

Sage woke up still thinking about the idea — and she hasn’t stopped since. “I feel like the people on ‘Shark Tank,’ who are like, ‘This is my baby and this is all I do now,’” she said. “I literally don’t stop thinking about it.”

In July, Sage put on the first edition of The Jewish Dating Game, inspired by the matchmaking show that in 1978 infamously featured a contestant who later pleaded guilty to seven counts of murder. Said Sage, “I try to screen my contestants enough that I know they’re not serial killers.”

Other than refraining from murder, singles interested in a spot onstage must complete a submission form that asks for information like their line of work, level of religious observance and what they’re looking for in a partner. Then, after completing social media background checks and getting a feel for the candidates’ personalities, Sage uses her “yenta magic” to concoct a lineup with compatible pairings.

Plotch, the November bachelorette and full-time social worker who also acts, said she was excited to be featured. “I love being onstage and I date Jewish boys, so like, why not?” she said. 

Plotch said the answer to the Britney Spears question is what clinched her decision. “Obviously, as a lady of a certain age, [I] grew up with Britney as the be-all and end-all,” she said, adding that she took notice that one of the bachelors was not only aware of Spears, but had even seen her documentary. “I felt that that was a sign that this was my beshert — or at least beshert for the evening.” 

Earlier that night, the audience had been treated to a fun surprise. During Round 1 of the game, which featured a bachelor interviewing three bachelorettes, one of the contestants was Harmonie Krieger, a star of the Netflix series “Jewish Matchmaking.” Krieger, who’s since become a dating coach for the Lox Club, a Jewish dating app, said she had an “amazing” night — though she wasn’t kidding herself about her connection with the bachelor. 

“Listen, from the beginning, I knew that guy wasn’t my type,” she said in an interview after the show. “He said, ‘I’m not really an island [vacation] person,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh no. This is not gonna work.’”

While not ultimately a winning contestant, Krieger expressed the importance of an event that facilitated Jewish matchmaking in a time of rising antisemitism. “I’m Reform, I never grew up like I had to marry Jewish,” she said. But since Oct. 7, her view on the matter has shifted. “And now I feel such an inclination to, almost like, do my duty and carry it on.”

Beyond the matchmaking, Sage said her goal for the show is to provide “a night of Jewish joy” for all involved. Lehrman, Sage’s husband, said he’s seen that vision come to life. 

“It’s not the easiest time to be publicly Jewish,” Lehrman said. “And the foundational thing for this show is there’s always a moment in the evening where I look up and see the audience, and there’s this feeling where people have allowed their guard to go down.”

Following two rounds of matchmaking, the house lights came on and audience members roamed the theater to mingle. People lined up to introduce themselves to contestants as if they were newly anointed celebrities. The room was abuzz with not only singles looking for a date, but also couples who were just there to enjoy the show. 

Zach, 38, who attended with his wife, said he felt like “automatically, everyone’s already a friend you could talk to” because of their shared experiences: “We all had the same critical mother, we all had the same pressure to find a Jewish spouse — it’s like a fun way to kind of share that.” 

He added, “I don’t even talk to the person in the elevator who [lives] on my hall of like, four people. No way. But, you know, you bring a bunch of young Jews together with some libations, and everyone’s having a good time.”

The next Jewish Dating Game is Monday, Dec. 23 at Caveat (21A Clinton St.). Get tickets and info here.

TEL AVIV — A woman with a gaunt face and ripped pajama pants ambles into Cafe Otef, nestled in a up-and-coming yet still gritty corner of Tel Aviv’s Florentin neighborhood. She gestures to the water dispenser, and Ziv Hai, a worker at the cafe, obliges with a glass while owner Reut Karp offers her a cigarette.

“We don’t have them in our region,” Hai said about apparently unhoused people. “Learning how to navigate that has also been part of the journey.”

Hai was far from home because the cafe is no ordinary establishment. Founded by Tamir Barelko, a serial entrepreneur in the culinary world, it is the second in the Cafe Otef chain — “Otef” referring to the “envelope” region of Israel bordering Gaza that Hamas terrorists invaded on Oct. 7, 2023. The first branch opened as a pop-up in Tel Aviv’s glitzy Sarona complex, staffed by residents of Netiv Haasara, one of the communities targeted in the massacre. This branch, named Cafe Otef-Re’im, honors the kibbutz of the same name, where 80 terrorists invaded, killing seven residents and kidnapping four. The kibbutz was also next to where the Nova music festival massacre took place.

Staffed entirely by displaced residents from the battered communities in the south, the cafe offers a wide range of goods from that region: cheeses from Be’eri, honey from Kibbutz Erez, jams, spreads, granola and specialty cakes, alongside branded items such T-shirts, water bottles, and aprons — all sourced from small producers affected by the massacre.

But the piece de resistance is the chocolate, crafted from recipes by Dvir Karp, the owner’s late ex-husband, who was murdered on Oct. 7 in front of their children, then ages 10 and 8.

Reut Karp said that during the pandemic, “when we all thought we were going to die,” she had urged her ex-husband to write down his chocolate recipes. Despite his initial resistance — insisting he had them all in his head — he eventually complied. After his murder, Karp felt a profound responsibility to preserve his legacy. She believes Dvir would have been proud of her posthumous rebranding of his chocolates, including a new logo inspired by the luxury brand Cartier, though she joked he would “probably say I went overboard.”

Most of Re’im’s residents were evacuated to nearby apartment buildings in Florentin, while Hai, who is from a different kibbutz close to Egypt, was initially relocated with his family to Ofakim, a small city near Beersheba. In April, he moved to Tel Aviv, where he said he experienced an intense culture shock.

“At first, I was like, what the hell am I doing here, and I just wanted to move back,” he said. Over time, however, he adjusted to city life, finding a sense of belonging through his work at the cafe, which opened in the summer.

“I feel like I left a piece of myself behind in Sufa, and here in Tel Aviv, I’m trying to rebuild myself anew. The cafe gives me a place where I can feel comfortable,” he said. “I can tell a dark joke, and everyone here — because they’re also from the south — gets it.”

Karp, who co-owns another cafe featuring Dvir’s chocolates in Israel’s south, was approached by Barelko to manage the Re’im branch. She declined, citing her responsibilities to her three children who are still coping with the trauma of the attack (Karp herself was away for the weekend of Oct. 7). Determined to involve her, Barelko appointed managers to handle daily operations, allowing Karp to serve as the owner and hostess.

The role proved a perfect fit for Karp, who expressed gratitude for having a reason to get up each day.

“So many times over the past six months, I’ve said, thank God I have this place that forces me out of bed. And all the workers say the same thing,” she shared, highlighting one employee who had lost his entire family in the attack.

The cafe has become a gathering place for those directly impacted by the events of Oct. 7 — survivors of the Nova music festival, bereaved parents and others — while also offering a space for those not directly affected to engage with their stories and find meaning. “They want to feel a sense of connection and to know it’s not just a gimmick,” Karp said.

“People always say Tel Avivians are living in a bubble — sitting in coffee shops while soldiers are fighting and hostages are trapped in Hamas tunnels,” she added. “But here, people let themselves enjoy coffee without the guilt.”

The cafe’s location in the center of the country has also made it a natural meeting point for evacuees from both Israel’s north and south who have been relocated to the city. Karp noted the unique camaraderie that has formed between the two groups, describing it as a shared understanding of what it means to be displaced within their own country.

As if on cue, an older woman from Kibbutz Manara in the north approached and chatted with Karp about her recent visit to her kibbutz — the first since the ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah in late November. Their laughter seemed out of place given the context of the conversation, with the older woman remarking that it would take “at least a decade” to rebuild the kibbutz. Over 70% of the homes in Manara have been damaged, with rocket fragments still scattered across the area, prompting some residents to compare it to Chernobyl.

The two hug before the older woman walks away — a scene that plays out repeatedly throughout the afternoon.

“Some people recognize me from TV but hesitate to ask questions or offer a hug,” Karp said. “But that contact is like a human charger for me.”

Around 100 of Re’im’s 450 residents have returned home. Yet, according to Karp, many of their temporary neighbors in Tel Aviv feel conflicted about their departure. “On the one hand, they’re happy for us to go back home, but on the other, they want us to stay because our presence here has put a face to Oct. 7,” she said.

The red anemone, or kalanit – Israel’s national flower, ubiquitous in the region of Re’im — is equally ubiquitous at the cafe, embroidered on staff uniforms, printed on takeaway cups, and displayed on ceramic items for sale. But otherwise, there are few overt signs of the cafe’s deeper purpose. One less obvious sign comes in an innocuous poster on the wall, its tiny spiral text easy to miss.

Created by Adi Drimer, an art teacher from Re’im, the artwork contains the haunting text messages sent in the kibbutz WhatsApp group on Oct. 7. Karp points out her own chilling plea from that day, begging other kibbutz members to rescue her children: “Urgent! Urgent! Daria and Lavi are alone,” read her text. “Dvir was murdered.”

Karp said the decision to avoid making the cafe overtly about the massacre was deliberate, respecting those who prefer to keep their coffee and grief separate.

“We also don’t want to sink into the sadness of it all,” she said. “This is a place for renewal, and when people see us moving forward, it inspires them.”

Barelko has big plans for the chain. Two new branches are set to open in the coming weeks: one in Rehovot, called Cafe Otef–Sderot, for residents of the southern town, and a misnomered Cafe Otef–Kiryat Shmona, paying tribute to those evacuated from the northern town for 14 months.

He also plans to introduce food trucks at various locations across the country and expand the initiative to include employment for soldiers disabled in the war, whose numbers are estimated in the thousands.

“In the end, we realized this is the best approach to rehabilitation. It builds both hope and resilience,” he said.

This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives.

Spending a semester in Israel in 2023 was life-changing for Leora Schonbrun. At Tichon Ramah Yerushalayim, a high school program run by the Ramah organization, her feelings about Israel were transformed. It quickly became one of the most cherished places she had ever been to.

“My desire to learn more about Israel grew everyday there and is still growing,” the 16-year-old from Deal, New Jersey said. 

It was an experience she would have missed if not for her seven years at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires, one of more than a dozen overnight and day camps in the Ramah network, which is affiliated with the Conservative movement.

“Being run by the same organization, my camp introduced me to my Israel program and provided me Jewish values and lessons that influenced me to be a part of something that has changed my life,” said Schonbrun.

For Schonbrun, and many teens like her, camp does more than create memories. It helps create decisions that have lasting impact. From Israel programs to gap years, some teens are inspired to make life choices based on their summer experiences. They say these decisions help them develop their personal agency and lifelong connections. From starting or reinforcing their religious experiences at Jewish camps, campers go on to new experiences that connect them with their Jewish identity in even broader ways.

Schonbrun’s mother, Jane Rachel Schonbrun, the director of Camp Yavneh, a nondenominational camp in New Hampshire, has guided many teenagers to make these important decisions.

“At its best, Jewish overnight camp can give teens a strong Jewish community and solid Jewish values, both things that will likely have a big impact on their decision making, especially about their futures,” said Jane Rachel. “The unique immersive Jewish community at overnight camps gives teens a taste of living 24-7 in a community of people with shared values, interests, and religious commitments.” 

Many of the camps also integrate Israeli culture and Israeli staff, hoping to immerse campers in an environment that will connect them even further with Israel — a priority of many Jewish camps with Israel at war and facing harsh international criticism.

Haley Berger, of Westfield, New Jersey, took part in a semester abroad at the Alexander Muss High School in Israel after attending Camp Perlman in Pennsylvania for 10 years. Berger first heard about this program through people at her camp. “Camp connects me to my love for Israel because Israeli culture is ingrained into the camp,” said Berger.

“Everything that I got out of this semester [in Israel] was exceptional, and I am sure I will always carry the memories, learnings, and culture with me my whole life,” said Berger. 

She became more connected with her Judaism through learning extensively about her religion and living in the place where many of her Jewish ancestors lived before her. “Ever since this program I feel way more connected to my Judaism, and I’m sure that connection will keep getting stronger and stronger,” said Berger.

Camping professionals say that what happens after camp can be as important as what happens during it.

“All of our research shows that if you are someone who is involved in Jewish camp and has Jewish experiences as a young person that you are more likely to be involved and do those things once you become older,” said Julie Finkelstein, senior director of program strategy and innovation at the Foundation for Jewish Camp. “The most important variable in these cases is building that strong Jewish community early on.”

Teenagers are very impressionable, and spending those teenage years at a camp can have a huge impact, she says. Camp allows students to learn about themselves away from the pressures of school and home. “We grow up and become the people we are away from the pressures of the achievement-driven world,” Finkelstein said.

Jolie Waitman, a 16-year-old from White Plains, New York would not be considering a gap year at a pluralistic program in Israel if it weren’t for her seven years at Camp Yavneh, which calls itself “a place where all Jews are encouraged to engage in our traditions and practices.” She said most teens at SAR, the Modern Orthodox school she attends in Riverdale, New York are considering gap-year programs at places like Bar Ilan University, which are also Orthodox. 

Instead, she is going to look at programs similar to Hevruta and Year Course because she appreciates the pluralistic environment she was immersed in at camp. The atmosphere gave her a chance to explore and practice her own style of Jewish identity.

“I have always felt so welcome in the pluralistic camp environment, and I want to be able to recreate this type of environment in other experiences I have,” said Waitman.

Tyler Levan, 17, from Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, was inspired to take a summer trip in Israel after spending summers at Camp Eisner in Massachusetts since 2015. As well as giving him a place to connect more with his Judaism, the Reform movement camp allowed him to connect with Israel and really understand it on a personal level. 

Camp also helped him make other important decisions. “Camp really influenced me as a person and shaped who I am which in some ways has influenced me with my college process,” said Levan.

For Schonbrun, who spent a semester in Israel, camp led her to something she didn’t know she needed. “Because of my program Tichon Ramah Yerushalayim, my connection to Israel is one of the most important and meaningful things in my life,” said Schonbrun. “My love for Israel could not be stronger.”

WASHINGTON — There are 34 Jews in the incoming Congress, with a 35th likely to join in April.

Should that candidate, Florida State Sen. Randy Fine, win his special election in Florida, that would mean no change in numbers overall between the outgoing Congress and the incoming one: The House Jewish delegation will drop from 26 to 25, but the number of Jewish senators will increase from nine to a minyan.

Dig a little deeper, though, and there are some changes — both in terms of new challenges and new opportunities for the Jewish class of the 119th Congress. Here’s a look at what to expect.

Jewish Republicans (likely) double their caucus

Ohio Rep. Max Miller and Tennessee Rep. David Kustoff will be joined by Craig Goldman of Texas, increasing the Republican caucus by 50% as of Jan. 3. 

Fine, an outspoken right-winger who has made defending Jewish interests a centerpiece of his campaigning despite the small Jewish population in his district, Florida’s 6th, would double the representation to four.

That’s the largest number of Jewish Republicans in the House — and in Congress overall — since the 1990s. It reflects a newly assertive Jewish movement in the GOP, which portrays their party as a stronger advocate of Israel and Jewish interests, and points to gains, albeit small ones, in the Jewish vote for president.

Trump urged Fine to run after picking Michael Waltz, who currently represents the district, to lead the National Security Council. It was quite a shift for Fine, who claims he had been prepared to move his family to Israel had Vice President Kamala Harris won the presidency.

Goldman, a realtor, is a more traditional Republican. In pledging to maintain the internationalist policies of his predecessor, Kay Granger, who is retiring, he also represents where most Jews in the party have been historically. That differentiates him from Trump and his acolytes, including Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, who favor a more insular United States.

Two new Jewish Democrats in the House

Laura Friedman is stepping into Adam Schiff’s Los Angeles area 30th District seat as he moves to the Senate. 

Friedman, an assemblywoman who was a leading member of the robust Jewish caucus in California’s legislature told Jewish Insider in March that she will hew to Schiff’s mainstream pro-Israel outlook. Both she and Schiff came under fire from pro-Palestinian progressives during their campaigns.

Eugene Vindman, the incoming freshman from Virginia’s 7th District, stretching from the Washington, D.C. suburbs down toward Richmond, is one of a pair of twin brothers who helped expose the telephone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that led to Trump’s first impeachment in early 2020. Before winning his race, Vindman had served in the military and on the National Security Council.  

First-term congressmen don’t usually  get a lot of attention, but that may not be the case for Vindman. Trump has vowed retribution against the Democrats who impeached him and exposed his role in the violent pro-Trump Jan. 6, 2021, riot in the U.S. Capitol — a list that could include the freshman rep. 

Adam Schiff — upholding the law, Jewishly

Speaking of Trump and retribution, the president-elect has named the freshman California senator as a target — and said he wants to see him in jail. Schiff not only led Trump’s first impeachment, he co-chaired the inquiry into the Jan. 6 events.

Schiff has said his focus will be first and foremost on California, but he has no illusions that he will avoid the crosshairs of the president-elect and his allies. He recently told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he fears for the fragility of U.S. democracy.

Schiff, who began his career as a prosecutor, casts his concerns for democracy and the place of Jews in America as part of the same mission. Not for nothing, he chose to be sworn in this week on the Mishneh Torah, the monumental code of Jewish law by the medieval sage Maimonides.

A changing of the guard at the House Judiciary Committee

New York’s Jerry Nadler got the message this month when someone leaked to the New York Times that Maryland’s Jamie Raskin was seeking to displace him as the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee: He volunteered to step down, reportedly reluctantly.

The two have plenty in common, aside from being Jewish: Nadler was Schiff’s second-in-command at Trump’s first impeachment hearings and Raskin helped lead the second impeachment, over Trump’s role in spurring the Jan. 6 riot. They both have deep Jewish communal roots, with Raskin for years championing Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, and Nadler a product of a yeshiva education.

They also are among the pro-Israel Democrats who are still more most trenchantly critical of the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They joined a letter last month calling on the lame-duck Biden administration to sanction two far-right ministers in Netanyahu’s government, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir.

When Netanyahu addressed Congress in July, Nadler walked in carrying a hypercritical biography of the prime minister, and read it while waiting for him to speak.

But Nadler, at 77, is also well over a decade older than Raskin, 61, reportedly one of the driving factors behind the switch. Nadler is the longest serving Jewish member in Congress.

Two Senate leaders in the minority

Bernie Sanders was handily reelected in this year’s Vermont Senate contest, even though he will be 89 when he completes his term. The unofficial leader of congressional progressives, Sanders has said he is still ready to work with the Trump administration on nuts-and-bolts economic issues like credit card debt reform.

He also is spearheading efforts to cut defense assistance to Israel. That quest likely will go nowhere with a Republican sweep of the White House and both chambers of Congress, but it is a sign of how entrenched skepticism of Israel funding has become among progressives.

And as of Jan. 3, New York’s Chuck Schumer will continue to lead Democrats in the chamber — but will relinquish the title that made him the most senior Jewish elected official in American history. South Dakota’s John Thune, a Republican, is replacing Schumer as majority leader.

Schumer may have also missed his chance to pass the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would codify into law a popular but controversial definition of antisemitism. Supporters say the definition, commonly known as the IHRA definition, provides a guide to how antisemitism manifests today. Critics say it is overly broad in how it is applied to criticism of Israel, and could chill legitimate political speech. Schumer wanted to attach the act to a must-pass defense budget bill, but House Speaker Mike Johnson declined.

Here are the Jews incoming to the new Congress, minus Randy Fine, whose April 1 election appears all but guaranteed.

U.S. House of Representatives

Laura Friedman, D, California 30

Brad Sherman, D, California 32

Mike Levin, D, California 49

Sara Jacobs, D, California 51

Lois Frankel, D, Florida 22

Jared Moskowitz, D, Florida 23

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D, Florida 25

Jan Schakowsky, D, Illinois 9

Brad Schneider, D, Illinois 10

Jamie Raskin, D, Maryland 8

Jake Auchincloss, D, Massachusetts 4

Josh Gottheimer, D, New Jersey 5

Dan Goldman, D, New York 10

Jerry Nadler, D, New York 12

Greg Landsman, D,  Ohio 1

Max Miller, R, Ohio 7

Suzanne Bonamici, D, Oregon 1

Seth Magaziner, D, Rhode Island 2

David Kustoff, R, Tennessee 8

Steve Cohen, D, Tennessee 9

Craig Goldman, R, Texas 12

Becca Balint, D, Vermont at large

Eugene Vindman, D, Virginia 7

Kin Schrier, D, Washington 8

U.S. Senate

(Elected this cycle)

Adam Schiff, D, California

Elissa Slotkin, D, Michigan

Jacky Rosen, D, Nevada

Bernie Sanders, Independent, caucuses with Democrats, Vermont

(Elected previous cycles)

Michael Bennet, D, Colorado

Richard Blumenthal, D, Connecticut

Jon Ossoff, D, Georgia

Brian Schatz, D, Hawaii

Chuck Schumer, D, New York

Ron Wyden, D, Oregon

 

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden signed into law a bill that could bring the country’s premiere Jewish history museum under the Smithsonian umbrella,  a measure that may help ensure the survival of an institution that faced bankruptcy just a few years ago.

Biden on Wednesday announced the enactment of the “Commission to Study the Potential Transfer of the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History to the Smithsonian Institution Act.” The act establishes a body that will examine whether the Philadelphia museum, known as the Weitzman, can join the Smithsonian Institution.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved the bill, authored by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Jewish Democrat, in September and the Senate followed suit on Dec. 4. Both votes were unanimous. The bill had the support of 36 Jewish groups.

If the commission created by the bill transfers the museum to the control of the Smithsonian trust, it would join a collection of Smithsonian museums dedicated to other minority groups including African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans and Latinos.

In floor speeches lawmakers cited the spike in antisemitism since Hamas launched its war against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, as a spur. But the effort to bring the museum under the umbrella of a system that includes federal government support predated the attacks.

The museum was on the cusp of closure four years ago. In early March 2020, right as COVID-19 hit, the museum filed for bankruptcy protection in the face of a $30 million construction debt. It was rescued the following year by a donation from footwear entrepreneur Stuart Weitzman, giving the museum its current name, and was in good financial health when the bill was first proposed earlier this year.

The museum last month named as its new CEO Dan Tadmor, an Israeli who oversaw the $100 million transformation of a Tel Aviv museum called Beit Hatfutsot, which reopened in 2021 as ANU-Museum of the Jewish People. The Weitzman regained its financial footing under Tadmor’s predecessor, Misha Galperin.

The Smithsonian, a trust, runs its museums with a combination of fundraising and federal appropriations, with percentages varying among its many institutions. Most Smithsonian museums are in Washington D.C. and have free admission, although several are further afield, including the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in Manhattan. The Weitzman already offers free admission through philanthropic support.

The commission of eight people studying the feasibility of the move will include eight voting members appointed by leaders of both chambers of Congress. Their report to Congress on the feasibility of the museum joining the Smithsonian would come within two years of the commission’s launch.

Rachel Dallet was at soccer practice when the sirens sounded.

It was Oct. 1, and Iran was barraging Israel with around 200 ballistic missiles.

It was the second such attack this year, but a first for Dallet, 22, who had moved to Israel in July to join the Hapoel Jerusalem soccer club, currently leading Israel’s top-tier women’s Premier League.

“There were two shelters in our facility, so we all — cleats and everything on, sweaty — sprint inside,” Dallet recalled. “We were there for about an hour, I think, because there were multiple sirens. Actually a missile got shot, in the air, with the counter missile, like, right above our field.”

Basketball player Nikki Bick, 27, had a similar experience: She had arrived in Israel only two weeks earlier, and was at practice with the second-tier Ironi Ness Ziona, a professional women’s team. “That was scary, because it was the first time I was actually hearing booms,” she said. “It was constant booms, booms, booms. And sirens were going off like every five minutes.”

The experience was one obvious way in which the athletes’ experience has changed since they opted to pursue athletic careers in Israel rather than the United States: American practices, generally speaking, aren’t interrupted by missile sirens. But for both, and for former NBA G League player Ryan Turell, Israel was an inviting place to play professionally despite the country’s multi-front war.

All three moved to Israel after Oct. 7, 2023. They said they were drawn by the lure of living in Israel, as well as the country’s European-style sports ecosystem, which could afford them a more reliable career path than the hypercompetitive American pro leagues.

“It’s always been a dream of mine to play basketball in Israel professionally, ever since I was in high school and I was thinking maybe playing professionally can happen,” said Turell, 25, the former Yeshiva University basketball star. He moved to Israel in September after two seasons in the G League, the NBA’s developmental system. “I always wanted to do it.”

Turell signed with Ness Ziona’s men’s team, which plays in the Israeli Basketball Premier League. The Los Angeles native, who was the top scorer in the NCAA in his senior year at Division III Y.U., made history in 2022 by becoming the first Orthodox Jewish player to appear in the G League.

But his prospects of moving up to the NBA were slim. In 54 career games with the Motor City Cruise, the G League affiliate of the Detroit Pistons, Turell averaged only 13.3 minutes and 4.4 points per game. He said he was seeking a one-year contract with a team that would enable him to “really get exposure, but also experience playing a European style of basketball.”

Dallet, who played Division I soccer at the University of Wisconsin, said her soccer career may have been over had she stayed in the U.S.

“I honestly wasn’t planning on playing soccer past college, as most female athletes don’t, as it’s very hard in the United States to go professional,” she said. “I was already planning on moving to Israel and making aliyah, so it was a perfect opportunity to not be done playing soccer yet.”

And Bick, a New Jersey native who played basketball at Y.U.’s Stern College, said the ability to pursue a professional career also drew her to Israel.

“I’m like, wow, if I move there, maybe I can also play basketball there and have the opportunity to play at a professional level,” Bick said. “Because in America, if you don’t play for the WNBA, you’re just playing for fun, and playing basketball professionally [in Israel] is something that I always wanted to do.”

Making the move during a war was less of a slam dunk, but all three said they had wanted to try the country out for reasons beyond their careers. (Like all North American Jews who immigrate to Israel, these athletes made aliyah via Nefesh B’Nefesh, which facilitates aliyah from the United States and Canada.)

Despite the violence, Turell said he still views Israel as a safe haven for Jews. “As a Jew, if you’re not safe in Israel, you’re safe nowhere around the world. That’s how I feel,” he said. He added that he’s received antisemitic threats on social media.

“You hear your grandparents talk about it and your parents talk about it, and you’re like, ‘Yeah, that can’t happen to us. That doesn’t exist today,’” he said, regarding antisemitism. “And then all of a sudden, Oct. 7 happens, and it exists, and it’s pretty apparent.”

Dallet also said the rise of antisemitism played a part in her decision. She recalled one time when she and some of her friends were walking home from a pro-Israel vigil on Nov. 7, 2023, carrying an Israeli flag, and a group of men threw a rock at them from a roof and shouted “Free Palestine” and called them “F—ing fascists.” Dallet and her friends reported the episode to police.

Dallet grew up attending Milwaukee Jewish Day School and the Reform movement’s OSRUI summer camp. She competed in three international tournaments with the Maccabiah sports organization and had been to Israel three times before making aliyah. She first made contact with Hapoel Jerusalem when she was in Israel for the 2022 Maccabiah Games, and the club followed the final part of her collegiate career and started discussing a contract as she neared graduation.

“Ever since the Maccabiah Games, honestly, I was like, I want to live here,” Dallet said shortly after her move. “I had the time of my life. The people here, the food, everything is just so fun. I love being around everyone who’s Jewish. It’s just a different feeling coming from Wisconsin, where you’re a minority as Jew.”

She said she’s been surprised by how normal daily life has felt despite the ongoing war.

“Everybody just lives their lives, which is the craziest part,” Dallet said. “Because there’s this crazy war going on, but everyone goes to work, has fun, hangs out with friends. It’s like normal life here, everyone’s just continuing to live.”

Bick, who’s also a licensed physical therapist, arrived in Israel Sept. 19 from New York City. She said she knew she had wanted to leave New York and had always thought Tel Aviv would be a great place to live. Her lease in New York was ending, so she decided to make the leap.

Bick said that when she had decided to begin the aliyah process, she reached out to a number of basketball teams. Ness Ziona was the only team that was willing to sign her without an in-person tryout.

Now she’s juggling her full-time job as a physical therapist with her basketball obligations. Three nights a week, she gets home from an eight-and-a-half hour workday, grabs a bite and heads to practice. She said the social dynamics in Israel are noticeably different, recalling a time recently when she was carrying furniture and a stranger came over, unprompted, to help her.

“In America, you don’t feel that,” she said. “You don’t feel like you have people around you that support you always. Here it feels like there’s always people to help you, and bring you up. I don’t feel alone.”

Dallet said that feeling of camaraderie extends to her team. Much of the team lives in the same apartment building in Jerusalem, and they spend a lot of time together outside of practice.

“When it comes to soccer, we all pretty much speak the same language,” she said. “We all want to win. Everyone has the same goal in mind — win the league. So when it comes to the locker room, it’s pretty normal, standard, same as it would be at college or in club.”

Actually speaking the same language has been more of a challenge. While many Israelis speak English, professional sports teams operate in Hebrew. Dallet said she got a part-time job at a cafe, in part to work on her Hebrew.

“The language barrier is hard to connect sometimes on a deeper level,” she said. But she added, “When it comes to soccer, we’re definitely all on the same page.”

All three athletes said they had to adjust to a different style of play than they were used to in the U.S.

“They have a lot of set plays and places where you’ve got to be on offense, like every time down the court, it’s a set play,” Bick explained. “In America, it’s more like a free play, more motion-y. You kind of just feel out the game. Here it just feels more structured.”

Turell also said he noticed an immediate difference in the style, which he said is more strategic and less athletic than in the states.

“You’re really thinking the game more than just playing it,” Turell said. “There’s a lot of strategy that goes into it, a lot more strategy that goes into it than in NBA-style play.”

The stakes are also different for Turell. He said that in the G League, which exists to be a stepping stone to the NBA, the focus was more on personal improvement. In Israel, where he’s playing in the top-tier league, it’s all about winning.

“In the G League, there’s 52 games, you can drop a few,” Turell said. “They really care about player development… Here it’s about, let’s win, let’s try to get the organization to improve.”

Dallet, too, said she has had to adjust her approach to match the style of soccer that’s played in Israel and across Europe. But her takeaway was the opposite of the basketball players: The Israeli game, she feels, is less strategic.

“It’s so much more of a physical game here and less tactics,” she said. “We’re coming from college, where it’s all tactics and I’d say prettier soccer. Here it’s more physical and aggressive, so that was a big challenge in the beginning.”

As far as the future goes, all three athletes said they’re taking it one year at a time.

Bick said that given her history of injuries, “the fact that I’m still able to play at this level is amazing.” Dallet said she plans to go to graduate school eventually.

For Turell, the goal is “reach my ceiling as a basketball player” — wherever that may be.

“If you would tell me in high school I was going to be a G League player, I’d be like, ‘Yeah, what are you talking about? You don’t know what you’re talking about,’” Turell said. “In college, if you told me NBA teams were going to start coming to my games, I’d be like, ‘Dude, what are you talking about?’”

He added, “So it’s just one day at a time, putting in the work and letting the work take me to wherever it’s going to take me.”

Could a pro career in Israel be a pathway to the NBA, where Turell would become the league’s first-ever Orthodox player? He wouldn’t be the first to make that jump: Omri Casspi, the first Israeli to play in the NBA, and Deni Avdija, currently the NBA’s lone Israeli, both joined the NBA after playing professionally in Israel. Others, like Amar’e Stoudemire and Patrick Beverley, played in Israel after successful NBA careers.

“I mean, yeah, it’d be a dream,” Turell said. “That’d be amazing.”

On an April Saturday in 1945, a Jewish teen living in East New York named Charlotte Buchsbaum washed her hair with lemon. “It looked nice,” she wrote in her diary.

The following day, the 15-year-old Brooklynite went to a bar mitzvah at The Rainbow Room, where there was an “effective ceremony” followed by dinner and dancing.

Two weeks later, she was at school when a loudspeaker announced that “hostilities have ceased in Germany and all Europe.”

These musings by a Jewish high schooler, which reflect happenings both highly personal and historically significant, have recently found a contemporary audience of millions. This unlikely turn of events is thanks to a viral TikTok video posted by Helaina Ferraioli, the social media manager for her family’s vintage store in Carroll Gardens.

Ferraioli had found Buchsbaum’s diary in 2019, but she read just a few pages of the journal before putting it away on her bookshelf. Last month, however, while recovering from a running injury, Ferraioli rediscovered Buchsbaum’s journal, and realized the historical significance of her documented experience of the end of World War II. And so, Ferraioli posted her first TikTok about Buchsbaum’s diary — one of six — on Nov. 21. It has since been viewed more than 3 million times.

Ferraioli attributes the interest in the diary to a combination of Buchsbaum’s youth and her matter-of-factness about major historical events. “The time of the journal is quite literally on the hinge of the world changing,” she said.

“It straddles right before World War II ended and right after World War II ended,” Ferraioli added. “And just that moment in time is so historically significant. And just to sort of see it processed through someone’s — we always say, ‘oh, we normalize these crazy times, like with COVID, everyone kind of got used to COVID really quick’ — it’s the same idea, really hearing it from the sort of neutral perspective is fascinating.”

Ferraioli has shared other vintage finds from her family’s store on social media, like copies of Time Magazine from 1912 and a menu from the 1939 New York World’s Fair. But Buchsbaum’s diary gives rare, personal insight into the life of a mid-century American Jewish teenager: Buchsbaum goes to her last day of school in the morning and celebrates the Passover seder later that evening. She organizes dances for her synagogue, and plays ping pong with her girlfriends while the boys finish their AZA meeting — referring to the B’nai Brith Youth Organization’s boys’ chapter, which is still in existence today.

“All these women who are saying they love her,” Eric Kaplan, Buchsbaum’s son and a television writer, told the Washington Post. “It brings tears to my eyes and breaks my heart in a good way.”

Thanks to the video’s virality, the diary is being reunited with Buchsbaum’s family.

Buchsbaum’s other son, Philip, a playwright, said, “I think Mom would have been quite happy to have people be interested in her life.”

According to a 2013 interview with Kaplan in The New York Times and a podcast interview last year with Mayim Bialik, Charlotte Buchsbaum grew up Orthodox in East New York, the daughter of a father from the Eastern European region of Galicia.

Buchsbaum, who was born in 1930, became a high school biology teacher at age 20 at Erasmus Hall in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and raised her family in what is today Ditmas Park. She married attorney Benjamin Kaplan in 1952. Benjamin Kaplan died in 2014. In addition to Eric and Philip, the couple also had a son Andy, who passed away as a child. Buchsbaum died in 2017.

Buchsbaum’s diary begins in March 1945, though it was printed for the year 1916, and originally belonged to her grandfather, Mechel Guzik. Buchsbaum scratched out the year 1916 and replaced it with 1945.

Over the course of her entries from March to August 1945, Buchsbaum describes who came to Passover seder, notes which days she washed and set her hair, and studies Russian. She also documents her outfits of the day (“my pink pencil skirt and new drawstring blouse. Pearls and pearl earrings. My hair was in waves — loose”), co-hosts a dance at her synagogue, plays tennis, takes the Long Island Railroad for the first time, sees classic films in the theater starring Gregory Peck and Judy Garland, starts and quits a job, and goes on dates.

In her diary, Buchsbaum also refers to a local synagogue, Temple Sinai. TikTok sleuths have since noted that she’s likely referring to a former synagogue on Arlington Avenue East New York, which was sold to a Spanish Pentecostal church in the 1980s.

“The thing that I think resonated was [her] age,” Ferraioli said about the popularity of her videos about Buchsbaum’s diary. “I think she comes off very young. And I think we are so used to right now, every teenager has a voice, and they document every emotion, every dance. We’re very comfortable and familiar with the teenage voice now — that is the most popular voice on the internet, the adolescent influencer. But it’s rare to get a glimpse at that same sort of demographic 80 years ago. And just, I think the contrast is really just fascinating.”

Of course, when Buchsbaum was a teenager, she also experienced world-changing events: President Franklin D. Roosevelt died, the Allies were victorious in Europe, the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, and the war ended. She weaves these events into her diary entries, sometimes even inserting herself into history. The diary does not mention the Holocaust, whose scope and enormity was still in the process of becoming widely known.

Take, for example, Buchsbaum’s entry on August 14, 1945, when she described heading to Times Square for Victory over Japan Day.

“This morning at 2:30 I was awoken by the noise. News had come that we had received Japan’s answer. And that unofficially there was peace,” Buchsbaum wrote. “All morning long until 6 we traipsed around the streets in pyjamas and housecoats. Everyone was celebrating. About 5:30 we came in and ate breakfast. I didn’t go to sleep again just got dressed and went to work. When I came home from work we heard it was official. I ate very quickly and Ann / Rita / Ruth / Felicia and I went to Times Square. We picked up two Canadian Merchant Navy men who were with us all night. The crowd was wild and soldiers & sailors kissing everyone they could catch. The fellow Morty & Fred who were very sweet protected us from them. Newsreel men and photographers were everywhere. At 10:30 about we left.”

The scene Buchsbaum described is similar to one pictured in the iconic photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt for Life Magazine that shows an American Navy soldier kissing a dental assistant dressed in white. (The woman in the photo, Greta Zimmer Friedman, later said the kiss was nonconsensual.)

“Mom was very smart, and she went to Brooklyn College, studied science, became a biology teacher,” Philip Kaplan said. “I think if she had been born maybe 10, maybe 20 years later, she would have been a scientist, not a biology teacher, but I don’t think that options were really open to women at the time. And she certainly never mentioned that thing about V-J Day! That was a total surprise to me.”

Ferraioli said she is happy that the video series took off the way it did.

“I think it sparked so many interesting conversations about historic perspective,” she said. “A lot of people were like, ‘Oh, I want to start journaling.’ A lot of people were just inspired by her existence.”