Tom’s exes in ‘ secret discussions’ to work together?
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IT’S AN A- LIST
encounter so colossal that it could be a scene straight out of Ryan Murphy’s award-winning BBC Two series Feud: Bette And Joan.
According to La-based insiders, Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes – who are both as famous for their marriages to Tom Cruise as their careers on screen – are quietly talking about working together on a Hollywood production.
‘Katie and Nicole have exchanged messages via their agents,’ said a source. ‘But out of respect to Tom it’s been kept private. Obviously, they share common ground, and feel it’s finally time for them to be able to work on something together. There have been covert communications.’
Katie has also apparently reached out to Nicole for advice on how to rebuild her career, which has largely flatlined after her high-profile divorce in 2012. In contrast, Nicole, 51, who was married to Tom, 56, from 1990 to 2001, saw her movie career soar after her divorce (winning the Best Actress Oscar in 2003 for The Hours and more recently plaudits for Big Little Lies and hotly-tipped new film Boy Erased). Last year, Katie, 39, took a business course at Harvard, prompting the suggestion she was considering leaving her film and TV work behind.
Sources have long noted the lack of animosity between Katie and Nicole. They were first seen together at a small LA event for the Special Olympics in 2015, where Nicole was a host and Katie a guest. While they weren’t pictured together, insiders at the time revealed there were no attempts to keep them apart. Both actors have also been reluctant to publicly discuss their experiences with Scientology. In September, outspoken former Scientologist Leah Remini said, ‘I assume they were forced to sign prohibitive documents,’ something the church refuted. ‘ There’s certainly nothing stopping them working together,’ added the source. ‘Nicole was wary about it at first, but as more time has passed, she has warmed to the idea. Nicole’s agents have stressed that if it does happen it should be an ensemble piece rather than casting them both as leads in a big drama. Either way, it would cause a huge spectacle.’ Oh, to be a fly on the wall in their dressing rooms.
Following the mass shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue last week, Amy Iggulden speaks to Jewish communities in the UK – and discovers that living behind bulletproof windows and having guards at children’s nurseries has become the norm
It was a ceremony
to name a new baby, held within a congregation known for its acts of love towards refugees. Yet into this innocent scene on 27 October came an act of destruction that will reverberate long after the infant has reached adulthood. Eleven worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, aged from 54 to 97, were slaughtered by the time alleged shooter, Robert Bowers, laid down his assault rifle and gave himself up to police. His apparent explanation for America’s deadliest ever anti-semitic attack was chilling in its echo of history: ‘All these Jews need to die.’
As devastating as the Pittsburgh attack is, for the Jewish community it was not wholly unexpected. Since the 2012 killing of three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in Toulouse in France; the murder of four hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris in 2015; and an attack on a bat mitzvah at Copenhagen’s Great Synagogue the same year that left one dead, campaigners have feared an atrocity on the scale of the Pittsburgh massacre.
Gideon Falter, chairman of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, told Grazia this week, ‘I hope that if anything comes of [the Pittsburgh attack] that is the least bit positive, it’s that people around the world recognise the seriousness of anti-semitism, and that it’s not just a threat to Jews but to the whole of society.’
As well as revulsion at the Pittsburgh attack, there is mounting concern at the levels of anti-semitic hate crime in Britain. Figures from the Community Security Trust charity reveal that a total of 1,382 anti-semitic incidents took place in 2017, equivalent to four every day. Separate statistics from police in England and Wales show a surge in religiously motivated hate crime – up 40% year on year, with Jews the second most common target after Muslims. This summer, up to 70 graves at Manchester’s Urmston Jewish Cemetery were desecrated, causing £100,000 worth of damage and untold heartbreak for relatives. And, barely a year ago, a 70year-old Jewish woman was left with concussion after a man, calling her ‘ Zyd’ (Polish for Jew), smashed her head into a wall in Stamford Hill, North London.
Baroness Julia Neuberger, senior rabbi at West London Synagogue and author of an upcoming book on UK anti-semitism, told Grazia, ‘People simply aren’t aware enough of what is going on, or why. They need to understand this is the oldest hatred. It started as “Jews are Christkillers”, became an issue of “race” – though Jews are not a race – and has morphed into attacks on Israel’s right to exist.
‘No one denies the right to criticise the state of Israel, just as one can criticise any other state... But I think it is far older and simpler than Israel and Middle Eastern politics. It is simply about difference, and having had the effrontery to survive despite all attempts to destroy us.’
In the past five years, security has been stepped up at all Jewish institutions in the UK, including nurseries, schools and synagogues. Gideon Falter told Grazia that guards, concrete bollards, CCTV, bullet- and bomb-proof windows, airlockstyle doors and voluntary parental patrols are now standard. ‘It’s completely normal
now for kids to be passing through airportstyle security at schools. In literally all Jewish locations there is security.’
Since November 2016, the Government has provided £13.4m a year towards these measures following the rise in anti-semitic incidents. Dave Rich of the Community Security Trust, which helps protect the Jewish community from threats, said, ‘ We take it for granted, but when other people find out about it for the first time they find it quite shocking – it’s not a reality they are familiar with.’
In addition to the focus on physical safety, however, is the frightening spread of online hate. Dame Margaret Hodge, who lost many relatives in the Holocaust, spoke to Grazia about the row that engulfed her party earlier this year, following Jeremy Corbyn’s initial refusal to fully adopt the international definition of anti-semitism. She saw a surge in online attacks. ‘I was taken aback by the increase. A lot of the nasty things I got were, “You Zionist bitch.”’ While Corbyn has spoken out against ‘anti-semitic poison’, Dame Margaret added, ‘ What is so horrific is that under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership it has become permissible to be anti-semitic – and that is new and that is different.’ (In response, a Labour Party spokesperson told us, ‘ That claim is ridiculous and categorically untrue.’)
In the days after the Pittsburgh attack, a search for the word ‘Jews’ on Instagram returned 11,696 posts with the hashtag ‘#jewsdid911,’ claiming that Jews had orchestrated the September 11 terror attacks. Against this backdrop, Falter says, ‘It’s absolutely appalling that not only are we victims of attack but are then blamed for those same attacks. Our calls for action against anti-semitism must be understood not as smears but as genuine cries for help from a community that desperately needs it. What begins with Jews never ends with Jews – it is time for the world to wake up.’