Latest news with #Purim
NDTV
05-05-2025
- NDTV
Freed Israeli Hostage Mia Schem Says She Was Drugged, Raped By Fitness Influencer
Quick Take Summary is AI generated, newsroom reviewed. Mia Schem, 22, accused a fitness trainer of rape in her Tel Aviv home. She claims the assault occurred shortly after her release from Hamas. She alleges she was drugged before the assault during a planned meeting. Mia Schem, the 22-year-old Israeli woman who was freed from Hamas captivity last year, has accused a well-known fitness trainer in Tel Aviv of raping and drugging her. Speaking to Israel's Channel 12, Ms Schem alleged that the assault took place inside her own home, shortly after her release. "This was my biggest fear my whole life, before captivity, during captivity. And it happened to me after captivity, in my safest place," she said, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Ms Schem said she met the personal trainer, known for his celebrity clientele, at a Purim party. After attending three training sessions with him, she claimed he offered to connect her with a Hollywood producer interested in making a film about her ordeal in Gaza. When the first meeting fell through, she agreed to host a second meeting at her home. However, Ms Schem alleged that the trainer arrived late and persuaded her friend to leave, saying the meeting was sensitive. She said she remembers little of what happened afterwards, but believes she was drugged. "My body remembers; it feels everything... but I don't know what happened," she said, adding that it took her days to process the physical and emotional trauma. Her mother, Keren, described her daughter's condition in the days after the alleged assault as worse than when she returned from captivity. "Now I was seeing a kind of distress that really scared me," she said. Following the interview, Ms Schem shared a message on social media: "It's not easy to stand in front of a camera and reveal the truth. But there comes a time when you realise your silence doesn't protect you, it protects others."
Hindustan Times
05-05-2025
- Hindustan Times
Freed Israeli hostage accuses Tel Aviv fitness influencer of raping her: ‘It happened to me after captivity'
Mia Schem, an Israeli woman who was held hostage in Gaza, has accused a popular Tel Aviv fitness influencer of raping her after she was released by Hamas. In a recent interview with Channel 12, the 22-year-old claimed that the personal trainer allegedly raped and drugged her inside her own home. 'This was my biggest fear my whole life, before captivity, during captivity,' Schem told the outlet last week, per Haaretz. 'And it happened to me after captivity, in my safest place.' She claimed to have met the trainer, who was well-known among celebrities in Israel, at a 'Purim party.' Schem told the outlet that after three training sessions with him, the trainer offered to introduce her to a Hollywood film producer who was interested in making a movie about her harrowing captivity in Gaza. However, when the said producer failed to show up at the hotel lobby, a second meeting was scheduled at Schem's home. The French-Israeli national recalled that the trainer arrived two hours late and told her best friend to leave the apartment because of how sensitive the meeting with the producer would be. However, Schem does not remember what happened afterwards. But her 'body' does. 'My body remembers; it feels everything,' Schem told the outlet, adding, 'But I don't know what happened.' 'It took me three days to connect the physical sensations to consciousness,' she further said. Her mother, Keren, described her to the outlet as 'completely broken' in the days following the alleged assault. 'My daughter came back from captivity in a very difficult physical and mental condition,' Keren said, adding, 'And even then, she wasn't like this. Now I was seeing a kind of distress that really scared me.' In a post-interview Instagram Story, Schem wrote, 'It's not easy to stand in front of a camera and reveal the truth. But there comes a time when you realize your silence doesn't protect you, it protects others,' per the outlet.
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
New Jersey ranks third highest in nation in antisemitic incidents last year
Antisemitism in America has continued to rise, shattering national records for the fourth-consecutive year, according to a report released Tuesday by the Anti-Defamation League. At the same time, hate incidents against Jews are also soaring at college campuses around New Jersey. In all, the Garden State reported 719 antisemitic incidents last year, and though that represents a 13% decline over the previous year, the state still remains the third highest in the nation in antisemitic activity after New York and California. The audit found that there were antisemitic incidents in all 21 New Jersey counties, with the highest number in Bergen (162), Middlesex (93) and Essex (78). 'We are entering an alarming new normal, in New Jersey and across the nation of reported antisemitic incidents at triple the rate of where they were just a few years ago. We cannot allow this level of antisemitic incidents to become normalized,' said Scott Richman, ADL New York/New Jersey regional director. 'World had lost its mind': New documentary by NJ filmmaker explores rise in antisemitism Among the Garden State's most alarming incidents were 17 reported assaults, seven directed toward Orthodox Jews and seven of which were related to Israel. Bergen County had the highest number of assaults, with six reported, the audit stated. Other disturbing incidents included a Maywood man who was arrested on multiple charges after police said he used an antisemitic slur and pointed a handgun at a customer outside a Paramus supermarket and a rapper from Hackensack who entered a Teaneck yeshiva on the Jewish holiday of Purim and assaulted a security officer. Bergen County led for the second year in a row with the highest number of reported antisemitic incidents. In 2024, Teaneck and Bergenfield, which both are home to a large Orthodox population, accounted for 56 incidents alone. The ADL also recorded 482 incidents of harassment and 220 incidents of vandalism in New Jersey last year. There was an increase of reports of antisemitism on college campus, with 78 reports, representing a 53% increase over last year, the audit stated. Most of them occurred on the Rutgers, New Brunswick campus. There were several encampments at Princeton and Rutgers in the spring of 2024, which caused the finals to be postponed and relocated. The 9,354 antisemitic incidents recorded nationally last year, represent an increase of 5% over the previous year and marks the highest number since the antisemitism watchdog group began tracking incidents in 1979. Nation: Majority of American Jews fear rising antisemitism, survey shows The audit calculated that there were more than 25 "targeted anti-Jewish incidents" every day in 2024, more than one each hour. Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the ADL said in a written statement that the report shows a "horrifying level of antisemitism" that has become "a persistent and grim reality for American Jewish communities." The Hamas Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, in which Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostages, sparked a rise in antisemitic activity in America and throughout the world, said the report. For the first time, the majority of the antisemitic incidents reported last year - 5,452 cases - were related to Israel or Zionism, according to the report. Many of these incidents occurred at rallies in the form of speeches, chants, signs and slogans. The ADL noted that it only tabulated antisemitic activity specifically targeting Jews, such as classic antisemitic tropes, blood libels, signage equating Zionism with Nazism, celebration of the Hamas attack and support for terrorism against Jews. "ADL is careful to not conflate general criticism of Israel or anti-Isreal activism with antisemitism. Legitimate political protest, support for Palestinian rights or expression of opposition to Israeli policies is not included in the audit." The report also found a 21% increase in assaults which targeted 250 individuals. This article originally appeared on Antisemitism in NJ report shows latest date for state
Boston Globe
13-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Suzanne Rand, half of a once-popular comedy team, dies at 75
They built sketches around suggestions from the audience -- settings, pet peeves, objects, occupations, film and television genres -- and performed scripted material. Advertisement Their male-female partnership and their quick repartee led to comparisons to Nichols and May, who met in the 1950s and whose collection of wry, savvy, and satirical improvisations, 'An Evening With Mike Nichols and Elaine May,' reached Broadway in October 1960 and ran for 306 performances. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Ms. Rand and Monteith were thrilled that critics and audiences saw something of Nichols and May in their work. But they themselves saw some differences. 'Nichols and May came across more like neurotics trying to deal with the world,' Ms. Rand told The Plain Dealer of Cleveland in 1984, 'while I feel that we view ourselves as two people dealing with a neurotic world.' In 1978, Monteith and Ms. Rand were warmly welcomed at Manhattan clubs such as Reno Sweeney and The Bottom Line, and at the off-off-Broadway Theater East. Advertisement 'To be sure, some of their material is likely to stick in the mind more than others,' Thomas Lask wrote in a review of their Theater East show in The New York Times. 'My own favorite is Miss Rand's solo encounter with a marijuana-smoking bee, never seen but aurally very visible.' That September, they got the call that all comedians coveted: Johnny Carson wanted them on 'The Tonight Show.' They performed Oct. 5, the first of their two appearances on the show. Their success at Theater East led James Lipton, the future host of 'Inside the Actors Studio,' who was then a producer, to take them to a higher theatrical realm. 'He took us to Elaine's and said, 'I'm moving them to Broadway,'' said Bill Russell, who helped put Monteith and Ms. Rand together and for many years was their assistant, working on their sound and lighting. The show opened in January 1979. The reviews were good, but it was not a hit: It closed after 79 performances. They reprised their act for a Showtime cable special that year and for three public television shows in 1985. One of their fans was conductor Leonard Bernstein, whose son, Alexander, said he invited them to his apartment at The Dakota in Manhattan. 'He was sure they were about to collaborate on something,' Alexander Bernstein said in an email. But they never did. Suzanne Lorraine Eckmann was born Sept. 8, 1949, in Chicago and grew up in nearby Highland Park with her mother, Flora, and her father, William, who worked at companies that produced films for television and later worked for the state of Illinois. Advertisement Suzanne made her acting debut at age 4 as Queen Esther in a nursery school Purim show. As a teenager, she sang in nightclubs and at charity events. She attended Stephens College in Columbia, Mo., and graduated with a bachelor of fine arts in theater in 1971. She was hired at The Second City, the celebrated improvisational theater in Chicago, but she did not enjoy her short stay there. 'I had a miserable time,' she told the Times in 1978, adding, 'It's a wonderful place if you have a background, but you can't learn there.' In 1972, she moved to another improvisational company, The Proposition, in Cambridge, where she met Monteith. They joined forces and, in 1976, were the warmup act for singers Janet Hood and Linda Langford, who performed as Jade & Sarsaparilla. Eventually, Monteith and Ms. Rand became headliners. They broke up in the early 1990s, Russell said, although he added in an interview: 'I'm not sure what happened. I think the gigs just dried up.' In addition to her stepson, from her relationship with Lanny Rand, a restaurant manager who died in 2020, Ms. Rand leaves a brother, William Eckmann. Ms. Rand's work fell off after she split with Monteith, who taught improvisation at the HB Studio in Manhattan for 25 years and died in 2018. She did voice-over work for advertisers and worked with Summer Salt, a group of writers and improvisers who meet every summer in Chatham, on the Cape, helping them tinker with scenes for new plays, screenplays, TV scripts, and sketches. Jeffrey Sweet, director of Summer Salt's Improv to Script program, recalled how Ms. Rand once displayed her quick wit by resolving a problem in a proposed play. When a bride falls off a mountain and dies on the Friday before her wedding, the groom matter-of-factly tells their immediate families that he's going to hold a celebration of life for her instead -- without informing the guests flying in from all over about her death. Advertisement 'The family around him is appalled,' Sweet said in an interview. 'Somebody says, 'When people show up, what on earth will we say to them?' 'And Suzanne said, 'Chicken or fish?'' This article originally appeared in
Fox News
06-04-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Rabbi speaks out after anti-Israel activists who accused him of stalking forced to pay $182K legal bills
Anti-Israel demonstrators accused of having deafened a Washington, D.C. rabbi as he was trying to pray for Israel's hostages outside its U.S. embassy have been ordered to pay his $182,000 legal bills after falsely accusing him of stalking. Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld went to the Israeli embassy in D.C. on March 21, 2024, near the Jewish holiday of Purim, to pray for the Israelis taken captive by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023. He went to the embassy because it was the closest place, in his mind, to Israel itself. When he arrived, the embassy was teeming with anti-Israel demonstrators. Among them were former UN official Hazami Barmada and Teachers Against Genocide founder Atefeh Rokhvand. Barmada and Rokhvand were staging daily demonstrations at the embassy at that time. As the rabbi solemnly prayed for the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza to return home, he encountered a "chaotic scene" of anti-Israel protesters who berated and mocked him. Ms. Barmada likened Herzfeld and his colleagues to "Nazis" and said his presence at the embassy was "hilarious." "It was the loudest outdoor scene I've ever seen in my life, it was ear-splitting, it was deafening… I never saw anything like that in DC," Herzfeld told Fox News Digital. At some point, the rabbi referred to the anti-Israel demonstrators as "wicked," court papers said. Barmada, who was wearing headphones and speaking into a megaphone, proclaimed "it's time for the sirens" and the protesters began blasting loud sirens that Herzfeld alleged caused him ear damage. He filed a federal suit against Barmada and Rokhvand. The two women later filed their own suit against the rabbi for stalking. "It was Shabbos, my parents were over, and my children were there, and I come home from prayers. And my wife was, you know, horrified that police had – she said police came to our door and they left and they – and they gave me, you know, this temporary restraining order," Herzfeld said. At the three-day trial, anti-Israel demonstrators swarmed the courthouse and taunted the rabbi as he entered and exited, he claimed. He said it was highly stressful and was extremely embarrassed at the thought that his neighbors, who saw police arrive at his door, could have thought there was merit to the case. In court, Herzfeld consoled himself with scripture. "I was reciting Psalm 121 to myself, 'I lift up my eyes to the mountains from where will come my help.' I was reciting Psalm 132 [sic] to myself from the depths to – you know, to God as a prayer – 'From the depths I call out to you, Please, God, answer me,'" he recounted. The judge ruled against Barmada and Rokhvand, and ordered them to pay Herzfeld's legal fees, which amounted to $182,000. The judge noted that the two often engage in constitutionally protected abrasive behavior, such as Barmada throwing fake blood in the direction of cars entering or exiting then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken's home, and that the rabbi's actions at the embassy were also constitutionally protected speech, and he had not in fact stalked them. "There is no evidence that Respondent ever threatened the Petitioners. There is no evidence that he ever followed, monitored or placed them under surveillance. The only times he ever saw them was at the location of the protests on three occasions (only two with regard to Ms. Rokhvand). The evidence suggests that his presence on those occasions was not an attempt to locate Petitioners or any other particular individuals; he was going to the embassy to pray, observe the protests and at times (March 21 and May 2) make his own comments regarding the protests," the judge wrote. The lawyer for Barmada and Rokhvand, Gregg Lipper, said his clients would appeal the ruling, claiming the court's decision arose from "serious errors of law, fact, and procedure." Lipper claimed the rabbi and his associates made his clients "fear for their safety." "The court's judgment, which orders my clients to pay nearly $200,000 to the law firm opposing their petitions, improperly punishes my clients for trying to protect their rights in court," the lawyer said. "It's an especially bad time to discourage people from asking the court for help, given spikes in threats and violence against (among others) women, Muslims, and advocates for civil and human rights," he added. Herzfeld vowed to collect "every single cent" from the two women and called their lawsuit "an abuse of the U.S. judicial system." The rabbi vowed that the incident would not stop him from praying and speaking up for the hostages still trapped in Gaza. "I had no idea who these people were before I met them at the embassy… I only had three interactions with them. Their whole strategy was to attack me and then claim they were the victims. You know who else did that? Hamas terrorists who attacked Israel on October 7." Barmada and Rokhvand did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
