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- A Jewish pitcher was tapped to start the MLB All-Star game. In a menschy move, he gave it up.

SPORTS | JUL 14, 2025, 3:40 PM EDT | UPDATED JUL 14, 2025, 4:02 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

A Jewish pitcher was tapped to start the MLB All-Star game. In a menschy move, he gave it up.

Louis Keene

Max Fried is one of two Jewish stars who were selected for this year’s Summer Classic but won’t play because of injury

Max Fried is delivering on expectations. Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

Max Fried has been living up to his record-breaking contract in his first season in pinstripes. The New York Yankees’ lanky lefty leads the American League in wins and has the lowest earned-run-average of his career (save the pandemic-shortened 2020 season).

His performance made him a natural candidate to start Tuesday’s All-Star game — as did the fact that his manager, Aaron Boone, would be coaching the American League team. Moreover, the game will be held in Atlanta, where Fried spent his first eight MLB seasons.

But in a move befitting the best Jewish southpaw since Sandy Koufax, Fried is letting a worthy rival take the mound in his stead.

Fried, 30, called Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal — last year’s AL Cy Young award winner — to gauge his interest in starting, according to MLive’s Evan Woodberry. At the time, it looked like Fried might not be able to pitch because his final start before the summer classic didn’t allow enough rest. (He has since been sidelined with a blister on his pitching hand.)

Skubal first deferred because of Fried’s Atlanta connection. But Fried, Woodberry reported, was insistent, saying, “I think you deserve it. I was just wondering if you wanted to start it.”

The day after they spoke, Boone called Skubal to give him the part.

“It’s a very professional thing to do, and you got a ton of respect for guys that do stuff like that,” Skubal told the Detroit Free Press of Fried’s call.

Asked why he did it, Fried said he was simply responding to a practical need. (Classic menschy behavior to downplay your own menschiness, I’d say.)

“I thought it would be way more streamlined if I just reached out and talked to him and explained what was going on from my end, or what I understood,” Fried told the Bergen Record. Whatever you say, Max.

The other Jewish player selected for this year’s game, the Boston Red Sox’s Alex Bregman, will miss it due to injury. The 2025 All-Star game begins Tuesday at 8:10 p.m. ET.

Louis Keene is a reporter for the Forward. His work has also been published in The New York Times, New York magazine and Vice. He is based in Los Angeles.

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This article was downloaded from https://forward.com/news/sports/755224/a-jewish-pitcher-was-tapped-to-start-the-mlb-all-star-game-in-a-menschy-move-he-gave-it-up/ at Jul 15, 2025 at 8:51 AM EDT.

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Culture

- Why is the Department of Homeland Security quoting the Bible on Instagram?

- Does the ‘Superman’ twist ruin his Jewish roots?

- Elmo went on an antisemitic tirade — and it strangely isn’t the first time

CULTURE | JUL 14, 2025, 3:47 PM EDT | UPDATED JUL 14, 2025, 4:16 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Why is the Department of Homeland Security quoting the Bible on Instagram?

Mira Fox

Christian nationalism has become an overt motivation for Trump’s deportation efforts

Officers gathered in paramilitary gear before a mass deportation effort in California. Photo by Getty Images/Mira Fox

In the Instagram video, uniformed border patrol personnel sling on vests and helmets. Grainy, night-vision footage of people, presumably migrants, moving through brush is spliced together with shots of helicopters hovering, all scored to a dark folk-harmony track that would sound at home in O Brother, Where Art Thou.

A twangy narration plays over the top: “And I heard the voice of the Lord saying: Who shall I send, and who will go for us? And I said: Here am I; send me.”

The clip was posted not by a church or religious leader, but by the Department of Homeland Security, the Border Patrol and the White House.

It’s nothing new for a government to make propaganda presenting their actions and policies as inspiring; Israel has been making videos of its military that feel like clips from Marvel movies for years, and using humor and memes to try to build goodwill. (The humor hasn’t always landed well.) The U.S. military, for its part, has long made recruitment videos that deploy action movie sequences to inspire young Americans to join the Army.

But the open invocation of the Bible to underscore the Trump administration’s deportation plan is new; the aesthetics of these videos suggest that the U.S.’s actions are not only exciting or noble, but also divinely ordained.

Not every post from DHS, Border Patrol or the White House cites the Bible, of course. Some are darkly joking memes, like one of a weightlifting skeleton with superimposed text reading: “My body is a machine that turns ICE funding into mass deportations.” Ha ha! Others capitalize on social media trends like ASMR, or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, videos meant to provoke a pleasant full-body tingle, usually using calming sounds, like whispering or gentle tapping; the White House version features the sound of handcuffs clanking.

Most posts are just pictures and videos of deportations, framed by cheery or triumphant messaging, including at least one set to the song “Ice, Ice, Baby.” A carousel of pictures of people being handcuffed by ICE agents is captioned “Summer Postcards from DHS” with a heart emoji. A video of “Alligator Alcatraz,” a new detention facility in Florida, shows chain-link fencing around metal bunk beds, an electric guitar solo playing in the background.

Still, the video invoking religion is far from a one-off. Trump has been justifying his policies via references to God with increasing frequency, particularly since the attempted assassination at a campaign event. “He’s on a mission from God, and nothing can stop what’s coming” reads one black-and-white image of Trump striding through the night in a long black coat.

It feels almost too obvious to mention that this is a sign of the role that Christian nationalism is playing in driving Trump administration policies and priorities. Despite numerous stories of people with no gang connections or violent history being arrested and deported, or American citizens harassed or wrongfully detained, the Christian narrative frames the ICE agents as soldiers of God. It plays in an emotional, religious register that implies their actions must be righteous, however violent they might appear. After all, God’s ways may be mysterious, it seems to imply, so the only thing people can do is trust in God’s ordained messengers — who are, apparently, ICE agents and Trump.

Christianity is, of course, not the only trend in the Trump administration’s online messaging; a cruel style of online humor and extremism is also clearly playing a large role in the Trump administration’s messaging. But even these seemingly nonreligious memes are connected to a religious undercurrent.

The meme style the DHS and White House accounts are leveraging was built, in large part, by groypers, the followers of white supremacist Nick Fuentes. And Fuentes, who is Catholic, promotes a militant Christian nationalism that explicitly targets Jews. Even though many of the government’s posts do not overtly reference a Christian-run government, they are still, implicitly, tied to Christian nationalism; those who are in the know recognize the aesthetic symbolism.

But perhaps more important than whether a post is promoting Christian nationalism — an influence that has long been an obvious part of the Trump administration’s motivations and messaging — is the way that they normalize violent imagery. The more people are inundated by joking memes about people being beaten and handcuffed by U.S. government forces, the less startling they are. And the easier it is to believe that, perhaps, this is the way things have been since the beginning — just as God made them.

Mira Fox is a reporter at the Forward. Get in touch at [email protected] or on Twitter @miraefox.

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This article was downloaded from https://forward.com/culture/755194/department-of-homeland-security-bible-instagram/ at Jul 15, 2025 at 8:51 AM EDT.

FILM & TV | JUL 14, 2025, 2:11 PM EDT | UPDATED JUL 14, 2025, 6:15 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Does the ‘Superman’ twist ruin his Jewish roots?

PJ Grisar

James Gunn’s changed origin for the character comes uncomfortably close to antisemitic talking points

Superman over Times Square. Photo by Craig T Fruchtman/Getty Images

The following contains spoilers for James Gunn’s Superman.

In a pivotal moment in James Gunn’s crowded but crowd-pleasing Superman, we see Clark Kent celebrating Christmas.

It’s in a home movie, part of a montage that Kent — played by David Corenswet — watches in the Fortress of Solitude, and it is a statement about his true parentage — and his true values.

Earlier in the film, a crew of Supes’ robot staff show him the message his biological Kryptonian parents sent with him to Earth. It soothes him, we’re told, and the dispatch is itself uplifting, with Bradley Cooper as Jor-El and Angela Sarafyan as Lara, telling him that, while they are doomed, he is their “hope.”

Though it’s delivered in Kryptonian, and part of the recording is missing, the message could certainly resonate with those who insist on a Jewish reading of the character, brought into this world in 1938 by the children of Jewish refugees. It reflects not just the hopes of immigrants for their children, but the story of Moses, sent out into the bulrushes to deliver his people.

But there’s a twist coming that is a major break with Superman’s film canon. Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor, looking to discredit Superman, invades the Antarctic Fortress and uncovers the full message.

In it, Kal-El’s parents insist that Earthlings are weak, the Kryptonian bloodline is strong and it is the duty of their son, who they believe is the last survivor of his race, to take many wives, produce Kryptonian children and to mercilessly “lord over the planet as the Last Son of Krypton.”

The DC universe’s answer to Fox News accuses Superman of taking a “secret harem,” infiltrating humanity in an attempt to rule them. This vision of Superman’s origins also lends itself to a Jewish gloss — one favored by white nationalists.

Sneaky Superman, who can pass for human, brought up to believe himself to be superior and encouraged to infiltrate his host planet and change the makeup of its population? It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a variation of the Great Replacement Theory!

All due disclaimers: Gunn isn’t intentionally advancing an antisemitic conspiracy theory. The way he treats the reaction to Superman’s directive could be accepted as a satire of this kind of canard, and the racist history of fears of so-called “miscegenation,” if not for the fact that the words are never challenged. We’re told the message is legitimate, even from Superman’s ally Mister Terrific, leading to a crisis for Clark.

The plot point — a variation of which appears in the comics — becomes truly problematic if you are committed to viewing Superman as Jewish by virtue of his ancient Kryptonian roots.

There’s something to be said for that perception in Richard Donner’s original film and even Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, where a heroic Jor-El (played by Marlon Brando in the former and Russell Crowe in the latter) exhorts his son to serve the people of his new planet, to be a beacon and ambassador of their lost civilization. The marching orders are basically an intergalactic tikkun olam and an example of a wholesome immigrant story.

Ironically, the nature of Gunn’s version, which he insists takes a positive view of immigration, leading to real-world tantrums on Fox News, seems to lend credence to what some anti-immigration hawks believe about those who come here: That they may be hostile to the values of the country they’re entering into based on the beliefs of their place of origin.

It’s very possible that Superman’s parents and their intentions for him on Earth may yet prove to be noble in subsequent films. Some online are speculating that Jor-El removed the objectionable part of the message because it was delivered under duress, possibly owing to the threats of General Zod or interference by Brainiac.

But going by the movie alone, the question of what makes Superman super has a pretty conservative answer.

In a poignant scene, following a sequence where Superman dodges black holes while holding an alien baby, Clark returns to the Kent farm in Smallville. He’s distressed that his birth parents had evil designs for him, and fears what that means for him as a person.

Jonathan “Pa” Kent (Pruitt Taylor Vince) tells his son “your choices, your actions, that’s what makes you who you are.”

But the film doesn’t really buy that — at least entirely.

In the final minutes, the Fortress of Solitude robots once again ask Clark if he’d like to see the message from his parents. Only now when he says “yes” do we see Ma and Pa Kent raising him. The takeaway is clear: It was these cornfed Americans, with their Christmas tree and their down-home values who guided his actions. They are the ones who made him who he is.

This was always part of Superman’s story, but it is traditionally blended with the heroism and pride of his Kryptonian background, the culture he was not free to celebrate but the ethics of which he internalized. Without that, we can’t really call Superman Jewish. Unless we let the Lex Luthors of the world define us.

PJ Grisar is a Forward culture reporter. He can be reached at [email protected] and @pjgrisar on Twitter.

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This article was downloaded from https://forward.com/culture/film-tv/755134/superman-parents-message-james-gunn-dc-universe/ at Jul 15, 2025 at 8:51 AM EDT.

FILM & TV | JUL 14, 2025, 11:24 AM EDT | UPDATED JUL 14, 2025, 2:40 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Elmo went on an antisemitic tirade — and it strangely isn’t the first time

PJ Grisar

The beloved Muppet’s X account was hacked

Elmo — or people posing as him — has a sketchy history of antisemitic statements. Photo by Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Headspace

This gives new meaning to the term “sock puppet account.”

On Sunday, less than a week after X’s AI rebranded itself MechaHitler, the account of the beloved Sesame Street monster Elmo issued these words onto the internet.

“Elmo says ALL JEWS SHOULD DIE. FUCK JEWS. DONALD TRUMP IS NETANYAHU’S PUPPET BECAUSE HE IS IN THE EPSTEIN FILES. JEWS CONTROL THE WORLD AND NEED TO BE EXTERMINATED.”

The message, part of a series appearing to allude to the conspiracy theory that pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad agent, was quickly deleted. But my memory is long.

This is oddly not the first time that Elmo — or rather, someone posing as him — has been caught in the middle of an antisemitic tirade. In 2012, a man in an Elmo costume was recorded spouting Jew hatred at New York’s Central Park.

“Read about International Jew by Henry Ford,” ranted the man, who it was later revealed introduced online pornography to Cambodia, leading to his deportation. “If you start your own business in this city, Jews will harass you.”

In an irony too rich to be believed, the Central Park Elmo, a man born Danny Mark Sandler, legally changed his name to Adam Sandler some time before his tantrum. (The movie star Adam Sandler once performed a duet with the real Elmo that included no bigoted invective.)

While Elmo himself appears to be innocent, it is strange that using the perennial toddler as a mouthpiece for such vitriol is something of a trend.

But, as many online have noted, this bizarre outburst lends some clarity to a televised assault from February 2024, when Larry David throttled Elmo during a Today Show segment.

Perhaps David had heard whisperings that the Sesame Street resident had some animus toward his people. In any case, I myself feel vindicated for having insisted Elmo is the least Jewish of all Muppets.

PJ Grisar is a Forward culture reporter. He can be reached at [email protected] and @pjgrisar on Twitter.

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This article was downloaded from https://forward.com/culture/film-tv/755029/elmo-antisemitic-x-twitter-rant-jeffrey-epstein/ at Jul 15, 2025 at 8:51 AM EDT.

Table of Contents

The Forward: 2025 Jul 14

News

A Jewish pitcher was tapped to start the MLB All-Star game. In a menschy move, he gave it up.

Culture

Why is the Department of Homeland Security quoting the Bible on Instagram?

Does the ‘Superman’ twist ruin his Jewish roots?

Elmo went on an antisemitic tirade — and it strangely isn’t the first time