Rabbi Steve Leder, a technical advisor behind Netflix’s “Nobody Wants This,” called out the series star Adam Brody on Tuesday for saying he believes Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza.

“Hi Adam, you might not remember me. My name is Rabbi Steve Leder, and I was the technical advisor for Season 1 of ‘Nobody Wants This,'” Leder began in an Instagram video to the actor.

“My job was to make sure that your character was authentic and that everything in Season 1 about Judaism was authentic.”

Leder criticized Brody and called his comments “ignorant,” arguing that Brody had mischaracterized the situation in Gaza and treated the issue flippantly.

“Your pronouncement the other day about a ‘genocide in Gaza’ was truly shocking,” Leder said. “Not only because of your misuse and mischaracterization of your use of the word genocide — there is no genocide in Gaza, there are genocides in other countries happening, but you failed to mention any of them.

“You, by your own admission, are a relatively ignorant Jew, and your ignorance really showed the other day.

“If you’re going to use a word like ‘genocide,’ you ought to know what it means,” he added. “And, by the way, being so flippant about a word like ‘genocide’ — ‘Hey, put me down for genocide,’ like you’re asking for a table for two at Craig’s — is disgusting. Here’s some more technical advice: If you know nothing about something, you should say nothing about it.”

Brody, who plays a rabbi in the series, recently suggested in an interview with GQ magazine that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza.

“Put me down as thinking it’s a genocide,” Brody said. “Put me down as wanting a free Palestine. It’s awful that it’s taken so much death and misery, but it does feel like it’s reaching a breaking point that it should have a while ago. I’m hopeful that another administration can really do some good and correct some of these policies that are helping that situation be as awful as it is.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Brody’s representatives for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

In a comment to Fox News Digital, Rabbi Yaakov Menken, executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, also called out Brody as “ignorant” for calling Israel’s actions in Gaza “genocide.”

“One of the hallmarks of antisemitism is to irrationally regard Jews as a threat. While Hamas was holding, torturing, raping and murdering hostages, only a bigot would call the effort to free those hostages ‘genocide.’ An ignorant Jew is no less likely than anyone else to fall prey to hateful indoctrination,” Menken said.

“As even photographer Motaz Azaiza now admits, Hamas could have ended the conflict in Gaza at any moment, simply by releasing the hostages,” he added. “In no genocide in history have the victims controlled the off switch. On roughly a daily basis, a prominent Jewish leftist goes on X (formerly Twitter) to say ‘As a Jew’ and then follow it by expressing antisemitic nonsense.”

In another comment from the Israeli-American Council, the organization expressed “revulsion at the ignorant and harmful statement” made by Brody.

“Lies like this are not just fake news, they incite violence that can lead to the murder of innocent Jews. Just today, Israeli passengers narrowly escaped death from what is being called an attempted terrorist attack on a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv. That’s the reality Israelis and Jews live with every day,” the organization said.

Photo: Adam Brody by Kevin Paul, licensed under CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama has joined a Senate resolution that would designate Sept. 27 through Oct. 3 as “Religious Education Week.”

Senate Resolution 891 was introduced Sept. 23 and referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The resolution has not yet been adopted by the Senate.

The measure was introduced by U.S. Sen. Darline Graham of South Carolina and is backed by Tuberville and more than two dozen other senators, including Alabama Sen. Katie Britt.

The proposal is supported by School Time Bible Ministries, the Foundation for American Christian Education, Agudath Israel of America, the Association of Christian Schools International, the Coalition for Jewish Values and Catholic Education Partners, according to Tuberville’s office.

Read the full article at Wiregrass Daily News
Photo: Official Senate portrait of Sen. Tommy Tuberville, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Darline Graham (R-South Carolina) today introduced a resolution to designate the week of September 27th through October 3rd, 2026, as “Religious Education Week” to highlight the importance of religious education in the United States.

“I am proud to introduce this resolution celebrating the schools, churches, and organizations that help shape our children’s character. Faith-based schools and those that allow time for off-campus religious instruction are a testament to the right of parents to choose an education that reflects their family’s faith and values,” said Senator Darline Graham. “Religious education plays an instrumental role in providing spiritual growth, moral development, and academic excellence to the next generation of South Carolinians. I’m grateful to lead more than a quarter of the U.S. Senate in support of religious education in our country.”

Senator Darline Graham is joined by U.S. Senators Jim Banks (R-Indiana), John Barrasso (R-Wyoming), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee), Katie Britt (R-Alabama), Ted Budd (R-North Carolina), Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia), Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), Kevin Cramer (R-North Dakota), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Steve Daines (R-Montana), Bill Hagerty (R-Tennessee), Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Mississippi), Jim Justice (R-West Virginia), James Lankford (R-Oklahoma), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyoming), Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), Pete Ricketts (R-Nebraska), James Risch (R-Idaho), Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri), Rick Scott (R-Florida), Tim Scott (R-South Carolina), Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama), Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), and Todd Young (R-Indiana).

The resolution is supported by School Time Bible Ministries, the Foundation for American Christian Education, Agudath Israel of America, the Association of Christian Schools International, the Coalition for Jewish Values, and Catholic Education Partners.

The full text of the resolution can be found HERE.

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Support for Senator Darline Graham’s Religious Education Week resolution:

Grayson Hartgrove, Director of School Time Bible Ministries in Columbia, SC:

“We support and applaud the US Senate effort to pass a US Senate Resolution on Religious Education Week. Parents of public-school students want the option of providing faith-based programming during the public-school day. The legal practice, known as Released Time for Religious Education was started in 1914 by a school superintendent. He knew the importance of parents having options in directing the upbringing of their children. Currently over 13,000 public school students with parental permission in South Carolina leave campus every week for a faith-based class off campus at a church or non-school building. The number of students participating continues to grow as more parents learn of this option.”

Rabbi Lerner, President Emeritus of the Coalition for Jewish Values:

“Judaism places the education of our children at the center of religious practice. We are happy to endorse this resolution, which underscores the intrinsic connection between religious education and the free exercise of religion guaranteed by the Constitution, and celebrates religious schooling as a method of civic and moral development.”

Photo: Official portrait of Senator Darline Graham by Rosa Pineda, United States Senate, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Children’s YouTube star Ms. Rachel doubled down on her Gaza advocacy Thursday, criticizing “uncancellable” celebrities who have stayed silent about Palestinian children and questioning why stars with secure careers would not “risk something” to help save lives.

Accurso, whose full name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, appeared on comedian Ilana Glazer’s “It’s Open” podcast to directly challenge major celebrities who have avoided taking public positions on the war.

“If you are so famous, and you’re uncancellable, and you’re so famous, and you won’t even say like, ‘Kids in Gaza should have schools, people in Gaza should have hospitals.’ Like you won’t say something so basic and like why can’t you risk something to help save lives,” Accurso said.

Accurso’s latest remarks came after Rabbi Yaakov Menken, executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, recently told Fox News Digital that he believed the amount of attention she devotes to Palestinian children compared to children suffering elsewhere was disproportionate.

“When 0.09% of starving children receive 90% of her attention, something is wrong,” Menken said.

Read the full article at Fox News

Also published in Yahoo Entertainment.

Photo: Rabbi Yaakov Menken, courtesy of Coalition for Jewish Values

U.S. President Donald Trump is making a “serious and dangerous mistake” by taking an increasingly warm tone toward New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Morton Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America, told JNS.

Seeing Trump appear alongside Mamdani at a press conference outside Gracie Mansion, the mayoral residence, on Monday was “horrifying,” according to Klein.

“Trump has praised bad actors like Putin, Kim Jong Un and Xi, apparently wrongly believing it will moderate their actions. Instead it mainstreams their actions,” Klein told JNS, of the Russian, North Korean and Chinese leaders.

Rabbi Yaakov Menken, executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, told JNS that Trump “has a history of meeting with those we consider hostile.”

“He was the first sitting president to visit North Korea to meet with Kim Jong Un,” Menken said. “He always has an eye on the political results, but I think he knows who Mamdani is and why those who value a Jewish presence in America so strongly oppose him.”

Eugene Kontorovich, a law professor at George Mason University and director of the international law department at the Jerusalem think tank Kohelet Policy Forum, doesn’t think the meeting was a big deal.

“I wouldn’t read too much into it,” he told JNS. “It’s not the first time they’ve met. Trump is in New York, which is a city which hosts the United Nations. It’s a polite thing to do.”

Trump “likes to meet people,” Kontorovich said. “He’s met all kinds of bad guys.”

Read the full article at JNS

Also published in Cleveland Jewish News.

Photo: Official White House portrait of President Donald Trump by Daniel Torok, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Prominent Gazan photojournalist Motaz Azaiza said in a September 2026 podcast interview that he filmed Palestinians beating and abusing Israeli hostages on October 7, 2023, but withheld the footage because he feared Israel would identify and target Hamas members shown in the videos.

Speaking with journalist Ahmed Biqui on the podcast Taqarrab, Azaiza said he encountered a vehicle belonging to the Al-Qassam Brigades that was carrying Israeli captives and followed it while filming what happened.

“I saw the vehicle of the Al-Qassam Brigades, and there were [Israeli captives] there,” Azaiza recalled. “People got out, watched, beat them, hit them, and I followed them and filmed. But I did not publish those videos. Why? Because I did not want to ruin the lives of the people who were filmed.”

Azaiza said he believed releasing the footage would allow Israeli authorities to determine the identities of those involved.

“I understood that Israel would use those videos to identify every person who was there and eliminate them,” he added. “I did not want to be responsible, even indirectly, for the deaths of those people in exchange for a few likes and views online.”

Azaiza, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee who was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, has become one of the most recognizable figures associated with the war and has amassed millions of followers on social media.

During the same interview, he also criticized Hamas’ leadership, arguing that its actions had failed to protect Gaza’s population.

His disclosure prompted criticism from media watchdogs and organizations including the Coalition for Jewish Values, which argued that withholding footage documenting abuse in order to protect those involved violated journalistic and moral standards.

The comments also renewed online scrutiny of public figures who have previously interacted with or expressed support for Azaiza. Past clips involving children’s YouTube personality Ms. Rachel were among those that resurfaced following the disclosure.

Photo: Motaz Azaiza by FeaturingDallas, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Children’s YouTube star Ms. Rachel faced renewed scrutiny on Sunday after a 2025 video of her calling Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza her “friend” resurfaced, days after Azaiza admitted he deliberately withheld footage of Israeli hostages being beaten by a crowd in Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023.

Azaiza, who amassed millions of social media followers documenting the war in Gaza, said he didn’t publish the footage because he feared using it could lead Israel to identify and target the Palestinians who appeared in it — not out of concern for the hostages. “I understood that Israel would use those videos to identify every person who was there and eliminate them,” Azaiza said. “I did not want to be responsible, even indirectly, for the deaths of those people in exchange for a few likes and views online.”

Rabbi Yaakov Menken, executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, told Fox News Digital that Azaiza’s disclosure raised questions about his journalistic judgment and his decision to withhold the footage.

“After years spent claiming to share what was happening in Gaza ‘unfiltered,’ Azaiza revealed that he hid footage — not, per journalistic norms, to protect victims from further harm, but because he didn’t want Israel to arrest the perpetrators. Innocent civilians had been kidnapped, already sexually abused, and his concern was with the people that beat them and rejoiced at Hamas’ crimes. That speaks volumes about his journalism and his moral character,” Menken said.

Read the full article at Fox News

Photo: Motaz Azaiza attends UNRWA USA’s Gaza 5k event in Dallas by FeaturingDallas, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Children’s YouTube star Ms. Rachel announced Thursday that she plans to match singer Macklemore’s $1 million donation to Palestinian causes and urged “every wealthy White celebrity” to do the same.

In an Instagram post on Wednesday, Macklemore shared his plans to donate his earnings from the “Loop Tour” with Ed Sheeran to six organizations, including the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF), HEAL Palestine, Gaza Soup Kitchen, Medical Aid for Palestinians, UNRWA USA National Committee and American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA).

Rabbi Yaakov Menken, the executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, previously said in a statement to Fox News Digital, “She claims to care about 35.5 million children suffering from acute malnutrition across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, but spends an inordinate amount of time speaking about 0.031 million children in Gaza. When 0.09% of starving children receive 90% of her attention, something is wrong.”

“She had nothing to say about Israeli children being held hostage until seven months later, when the backlash became too loud to ignore,” he added. “It is clear that her problem is not a deep concern for children, but that she is using her purported deep concern to mask something much darker.”

Read the full article at Fox News.

Illustration: Original graphic, Coalition for Jewish Values

Children’s YouTuber star Ms. Rachel told Rolling Stone magazine on Tuesday that the backlash she received for her social media posts on Gaza “doesn’t faze” her too much anymore.

The magazine reported that although Ms. Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, has spoken out on other political issues such as the Trump administration’s deportation policies or LGBTQ activism, her comments on the Israel-Hamas war drew the most “aggressive criticism.”

Accurso has been criticized by pro-Israel organizations and groups that say her posts have shared anti-Israel propaganda by repeatedly accusing the Jewish nation of committing “genocide.”

Rabbi Yaakov Menken, the executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, said in a statement to Fox News Digital, “To attempt to dress up Jew-hatred as a righteous cause is by no means new. No one is criticizing Rachel Accurso because she doesn’t ‘want kids to be killed and starved.’”

“She claims to care about 35.5 million children suffering from acute malnutrition across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, but spends an inordinate amount of time speaking about 0.031 million children in Gaza,” he added. “When 0.09% of starving children receive 90% of her attention, something is wrong.”

“She had nothing to say about Israeli children being held hostage until seven months later, when the backlash became too loud to ignore. It is clear that her problem is not a deep concern for children, but that she is using her purported deep concern to mask something much darker,” Menken concluded.

Read the full article at Fox News.
Also published in 930 WFMD.

Photo: Rachel Accurso, on her Instagram

FIRST ON FOX — A rabbinic group is calling out some Jewish entertainers for “whitewashing antisemitism” by supporting actor Mark Ruffalo after his harsh opposition to the proposed Warner Bros. Discovery-Paramount merger.

More than 170 Jewish entertainers and artists signed a letter Tuesday “proudly” voicing support for Ruffalo after he was accused of antisemitism when criticizing the proposed $111 billion merger.

Coalition for Jewish Values, which represents over 2,500 traditional, Orthodox rabbis in American public policy, said it typically does not respond when a Hollywood figure says something it finds hateful about Jews or Israel. But the group believes Ruffalo’s comments forced a group of Jewish Hollywood figures that have “little knowledge of Jewish history or the nature of antisemitism” to “deny obvious bigotry.”

“Ruffalo did not merely criticize a business deal. In an August 22 Instagram post tying the Paramount-Skydance/Warner Bros. merger to Oracle’s work with Israel, Ruffalo claimed that the Ellison family — who are Jewish — were ‘powering some of the most destructive and inhuman forces in the world,’ and framed a corporate transaction as built on ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid.’ That is not policy criticism, but mischaracterization of civil rights for Jews and Arabs as racism, and the rescue of Jewish hostages as murder,” the Coalition for Jewish Values said in a statement.

“Nonetheless, more than 170 Jewish entertainment figures rushed to sign a letter dismissing the antisemitism charge as an ‘outrageous smear campaign.’ To be certain, they are entitled to their ignorant and misguided views,” the statement continued. “They are not, however, entitled to be taken seriously when they engage in whitewashing antisemitism, or suggest that those with sufficient discernment to recognize the oldest of anti-Jewish tropes should deny the obvious.”

The group said that “America set itself apart from much of the world precisely by declaring hatred of Jews unwelcome, regardless of who dressed it up as righteousness,” and feels “Ruffalo would do well to remember that he owes much of his career to the Founding Fathers who made America so hospitable, and the Jews who fled persecution in Europe to build new homes for their children in a friendlier land.”

“It is some of those children, working in New York in the early 20th century, who created Marvel Comics and invented The Incredible Hulk,” the group said.

Rabbi Yaakov Menken, executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, told Fox News Digital that Ruffalo’s remarks were “embarrassing” and that Ruffalo presented a “mythical inversion” of the situation in the Middle East.

Ruffalo was accused of invoking “antisemitic tropes” by Paramount after the Marvel star shared a video from August of Safra Catz, an Oracle executive vice chair and Paramount board member, discussing technology Oracle used to assist Israel after the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack.

He linked Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, the father of Paramount CEO David Ellison, to financing behind the proposed acquisition and suggested the merger would be used to push “oppression.”

“These ‘really profoundly scary technologies’ will most likely be merged into one of the largest media conglomerates in the world and one day used on you,” Ruffalo said. “Look how she revels in what we now have come to see as a genocide, which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.”

Among the Jewish artists who signed the letter were Abbi Jacobson, Alex Winter, Gina Gershon, Ilana Glazer, James Schamus, Joel Coen, Larry Charles, Kate Berlant, Naomi Klein, Sarah Sherman, Jane Schoenbrun, Todd Haynes and Tony Kushner, denied Ruffalo‘s comments were antisemitic, arguing that the executives Ruffalo criticized had “themselves have explicitly linked to their support for the ongoing depredations being visited on the people of Palestine and their silencing of critics of those horrors.”

The celebrities also argued that a majority of American Jews now believe that Israel committed war crimes against Gaza, with a significant portion believing Israel is guilty of genocide. They called for an end to “spurious charges of antisemitism” against people like Ruffalo.

Ruffalo previously denied pushing antisemitism in a statement to Fox News Digital after Paramount’s original condemnation.

“The accusation that I am antisemitic is appalling and fundamentally dishonest,” Ruffalo said. “Criticizing the actions of the Israeli prime minister, a military technology contract or the executives who supply it is not the same as criticizing Jewish people.”

The proposed transaction would place CNN, HBO and Warner Bros. studio assets under the Ellison family’s control. A coalition of 12 state attorneys general sued to block it on antitrust grounds, and the companies agreed not to close until five days after a court ruling on the merits or June 1, 2027, whichever comes first.

Fox News Digital reached out to Ruffalo’s representatives for additional comment.

Fox News Digital’s Lindsay Kornick and CJ Womack contributed to this report.

Photo: Mark Ruffalo by Gage Skidmore, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons