? A one-time Olympic table-tennis star from Taiwan, Fei Ming Tong, went on a tirade against her daughter’s doubles partner, an Orthodox Jewish woman, over her modest dress. The Jewish player, Estee Ackeman, 20, and her father, said that Tong called Ackerman’s outfit, which had long sleeves and a skirt, “disgusting” and “unprofessional” and withdrew her daughter from the national doubles tournament. Ackerman, who beat Rafael Nadal at table tennis when she was only 11, was left partnerless, and was disqualified. (New York Post)
? A white man in Michigan accused of shooting at a Black man has a stash of Nazi memorabilia. Police said that Anthony Mangiapane, 53, yelled racial epithets including the N-word while he shot at his victim, who is 37, last week. He has been charged with felonies including assault with a dangerous weapon and ethnic intimidation. (WXYZ)
? An unarmed Palestinian man shot by Israeli soldiers last week died of his injuries. Soldiers say Hussein Qawariq, 59, did not respond to instructions to stop approaching a West Bank military checkpoint; the IDF is investigating. Separately, three Israeli Jews were charged with terrorism for a June incident in which they threw Molotov cocktails at an Arab man in Hadera. (Times of Israel, Haaretz)
? A European Jew purchased a watch from a Maryland auction house that once belonged to Hitler for $1.1 million. The watch was expected to fetch nearly double that amount, and Jewish leaders objected to the auction. The auctioneer, who did not reveal the buyer’s identity, said he and his family received death threats because of it. (Washington Post)
✈️ Lufthansa, which apologized in May for barring more than 100 visibly Orthodoz Jews from boarding their flight from New York because some refused to wear masks, is establishing a senior corporate role focused on fighting antisemitism. The move comes after Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the Biden Administration’s antisemitism czar, said she would be meeting with Lufthansa executives over the incident. In a July 22 letter to Jewish leaders, the airline said its crew members had been “insensitive and unprofessional” but that an internal investigation found no evidence of “prejudice or premeditated behavior.” (JTA)
? In London, a woman was attacked by a woman who yelled “I am doing it because you’re a Jew,” one of three antisemitic incidents in one area of the city over 24 hours. No arrests have been made in the incident, in which a local neighborhood watch spokesperson said the perpetrator hit the victim with a stick and threw an unknown substance at her as she ran away. (MyLondon)
? Herman Heukels took some of the most striking photographs of the Holocaust in the Netherlands, documenting frightened Jews as they were gathered to be deported. But new research showing that Heukels was himself a Nazi, who aimed for his photos to degrade Dutch Jews, not stand as a testament to the horrors they suffered, has made scholars reassess the images. (New York Times)
? File under “oy:” After a U.K. city debuted its football team’s new jerseys, social media pointed out that, uh, the background design looks a bit like a swastika. It doesn’t help that the shirts, which Birmingham City’s players will wear for away games, are tomato red, like the Nazi flag. (Express & Star)
? …And another one for that “oy” file: An Israeli contestant on the reality TV show “Big Brother” performed a Nazi salute on air. The contestant, Natanel Rudnitzky, lifted his arm in imitation of the salute and said “Heil Hitler” while making fun of housemate Diane Schwartz for removing facial hair. Channel 13, which airs the show, declined to oust Rudnitzky despite public outrage. (Jerusalem Post)
Shiva call ➤ Lucy K. Smith, a Polish Holocaust survivor, died at 89. Smith, who spent six years in hiding during the Shoah, made a home for herself as a single mother in St. Paul, Minnesota, after fleeing Soviet control of her home country for Paris in the 1960s. (Yahoo! News)
What else we’re reading ➤ Paul Auster’s son, Daniel, inspired his father’s fiction — until tragedy struck … Why did Hitler hate Esperanto, which aspired to be a universal language? Hint: It was invented by a Jew … One way to cope with being a queer Jewish teen in Utah: Recreate the crafting of a 12th-century Jewish poem about queer love, down to the deer hide parchment.
