Fans of the original better hold onto their hats, because this version's going to look a little different: Curly and Laurey will be women, Will and Ado Annie (make that Ado Andy) will be men, and Aunt Eller will be transgender, as other supporting characters help round out the wider LGBTQ spectrum.

"The goal is to adapt as little of the text as possible," Rauch said, though he added that gender pronouns will change. "I think as a gay man myself, I just thought a lot about, 'could a musical like this be made to be inclusive as far as sexual orientation and gender identity?'"

This result means that for the first time in modern French history, the second round will not include a candidate from either of the two political families — the Socialists and the Republicans — that have held the presidency since the Fifth Republic was established by Charles de Gaulle in 1958.

The selection of Ms Le Pen and Mr Macron for the run-off, on a high turnout of around 80%, is remarkable in several respects. In effect, it turns the final round of the election into a direct contest between two rival world views. Campaigning under the slogan “In the name of the people”, Ms Le Pen calls herself a “patriot” and spreads an essentially nationalist message.

She vows to hold a referendum on taking France out of the European Union, and thus the euro; to introduce protectionist trade barriers; to tax firms that hire foreigners; to strengthen ties with Vladimir Putin’s Russia; to close the borders to immigration; and to strip jihadist suspects with dual citizenship of their French nationality.

By contrast Mr Macron, who set up his party, En Marche! (On the Move!), only a year ago, advocates keeping France central to the liberal Western order. A former Socialist economy minister, he is a zealous pro-European who wants to reinforce ties with Germany, to keep France part of the global trading system, to build cross-party support between left and right in order to “unblock” the French economy, and to support the transatlantic alliance.

Polls taken before first-round voting consistently suggested that he would beat Ms Le Pen by some 20 points in a head-to-head contest. Although no surprise can be ruled out, voters from the centre-right and far left are expected to rally to him, whatever their reservations, in order to keep her out.

This first-round result could also presage the break-up of the French party system. It is a measure of the anti-establishment mood that neither Ms Le Pen nor Mr Macron belong to a mainstream, established party. On May 7th, France faces a choice that will determine not only its future but that of the EU. It will become the most crucial test case in Europe for whether a liberal Western democracy can defy the trend and face down nationalist populism. The political alternatives on offer in this run-off could scarcely differ more.

“If Marine Le Pen is elected president of France, the Jews must leave,” Lazar said, according to a transcription of his address at the conference provided by Limmud FSU. Lazar was a keynote speaker of the event, which drew 2,500 participants — a record attendance since Limmud FSU began holding conferences across the former Soviet Union.

“We are in a real danger of seeing the arrival to power of someone who will only use democracy to destroy it,” Kalifat said. “We are in a state of total chaos. There is a real sense of urgency that all should be aware of us, and we should all assume our responsibility to go and vote to exclude these candidates, these parties of hate from reaching power.”

Marine Le Pen recently said France “was not responsible” for the murder of Jews whom French police helped round up for the Nazis. She has also vowed to ban kippahs and the right of French citizens to have an Israeli passport – prohibitions she said were necessary to enforce similar limitations on Muslims. She has however softened the National Front’s image since taking over in 2011 the leadership from her father, the party’s founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, who is a Holocaust denier and inciter of racial hate against Jews.

Jewish support for National Front rose from negligible levels under Jean Marie Le Pen to 13.5 percent in 2012, according to a poll. Kalifat in the interview flagged the rise in support for National Front by Jews who fear Islamists as particularly worrisome. “I am deeply concerned. I see the polls but I also hear the discussions of people around me who say, ‘why not give him – or her – a chance, perhaps she has the solution’,” Kalifat said. “But the enemies of our enemies are not our friends, not this time.”

During a speech about Israel and French Jews in 2014, Melenchon said: “We do not believe that any people is superior to another,” adding: “France is the opposite of aggressive communities that lecture to the rest of country.” A supporter of a blanket boycott of the Jewish state, in 2014 he praised participants of violent protests against Israel, calling their behavior exemplary despite the fact that some of them tried to burn down several synagogues. He condemned French Jews who demonstrated peacefully in support of Israel, suggesting their actions were tantamount to taking up arms “for a foreign country.”

The results of the first round of voting on Sunday in France’s presidential election could sound the death knell for Europe as we know it today. If the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen and the far-left’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon overtake the front-runner Emmanuel Macron, who is leading them by a very slim margin, it is hard to see how France will remain in the EU for much longer. And without Britain and France, two of the three largest economies in Europe, it is hard to see the EU last for long at all.

Neither candidate intend to take France out of the EU or the euro currency group immediately, if elected. Le Pen has spoken of holding a Brexit-style referendum first while Mélenchon plans to introduce an economic program which will smash the rules that underpin the joint fiscal responsibility of the euro. Both favor a protectionist trade policy which contradicts the European single market’s fundamental freedom of trade. In their speeches, they both regard leaving Europe not only as a possibility, but a desired outcome. Le Pen has said how she wants France to be “more French and less European.”

These women and girls are being sold into sex slavery and will likely spend the rest of their lives being raped, abused and sold again and again, until they no longer have a saleable value (at which point they will likely be executed). This is real, it is happening today, yet it seems America’s Feminists have more important things to worry about (for example Bill O’Reilly).

The price list shows that a 40 to 50 year old woman can be bought for as little as $43. As the age goes down, the price goes up. A girl between the ages of 0 and 9 carries the highest price at $172. Whether a young child is worth more because of a potentially longer life-span, or because child “brides” are very popular in this part of the world is unclear. But here’s the thing… ISIS are selling these women and children, but it is not ISIS that is buying them.

So who is buying them? There is clearly enough of a “market” to warrant printing price lists, therefore we can assume that there are a lot of buyers. Is it regular folk? Is this something that is seen as acceptable in their society? Apparently so. And if this is the case, why are the governments of Europe and the US so keen to import this disgraceful “cultural practice” (I call it “cultural” because the sale of children as sex slaves and the “marriage of child brides” has been going on since the beginning of Islam, and as far as records show, has never really stopped) to our shores?

“Customers are allowed to purchase only three items with the exception of customers from Turkey, Syria and Gulf countries.” Is the last sentence perhaps the most shocking one? That regular customers are restricted to only three slaves at any one purchase, but Turkish, Syrian and Gulf Nation customers can get as many as they want. Where is the outcry? Who is going to save these people? And who is going to stop this practice from coming to the US and Europe?

As chair of the Central Military Commission, Xi is also commander-in-chief of China's armed forces. “This has profound and significant meaning in building a world-class military,” President Xi told commanders of the new units at the PLA headquarters in Beijing, according to the official Xinhua news agency report late on Tuesday. 

Beijing has been moving rapidly to upgrade its military hardware as it grows increasingly assertive about its sovereignty claims in the South China Sea and as it seeks to expand its military prowess overseas. Chinese media reports have speculated that the country's second aircraft carrier - and its first built at home - will be launched on Sunday, the navy's founding anniversary.

A flurry of military activity in Russia's far east came as the UN Security Council strongly condemned North Korea's latest missile test and threatened to impose new sanctions against Pyongyang for its "highly destabilizing behavior."

In a unanimous statement, the council demanded that North Korea "conduct no further nuclear tests" and said Pyongyang's "illegal missile activities" were "greatly increasing tension in the region and beyond."

North Korea carried out a failed missile test on Sunday, a day after displaying missiles at a parade in Pyongyang.

The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North's ruling Workers' Party, said in an editorial on Thursday: "In the case of our super-mighty preemptive strike being launched, it will completely and immediately wipe out not only US imperialists' invasion forces in South Korea and its surrounding areas but the US mainland and reduce them to ashes".

While North Korea has presented several intercontinental ballistic missile mockups, the North has yet to demonstrate that it has a functional long-range weapon capable of striking targets in the US. Furthermore, it is unclear whether the North Koreans have developed a suitable nuclear warhead for their ballistic missiles.

North Korea does, however, have a number of reliable short and mid-range missiles that could be used against American forces in South Korea and Japan. The North also has a strong artillery force that could wreak havoc on its southern neighbors. Additionally, there is evidence suggesting the North Koreans have combat-ready chemical and biological weapons.

While North Korea continues to represent a serious threat, its bluster, especially in publications like the Rodong Sinmun, is often exaggerated.

The research was conducted aboard the Tara, a vessel that completed a trip around the North Pole from June to October 2013. Data from two additional sites, which was gathered during a previous trip in 2011, was also used.

Although the researchers found that most of the ice-free surface waters in the Polar Circle were only “slightly polluted” with plastic debris, such garbage was “abundant and widespread in the Greenland and Barents Seas.”

The study’s lead author, University of Cadiz biology professor Andres Cozar Cabanas, called the Greenland and Barents Seas a “dead-end for this poleward conveyor belt of plastic.”