? Controversial antisemitic online posts surfaced this week written by Abraham Hamadeh, the Republican nominee for attorney general in Arizona. Hamadeh, the son of a Syrian immigrant who was indicted in 1994 in connection with the fire-bombing of a Chicago synagogue, wrote the posts on an online message board in 2007, when he was 16, and his campaign has complained that he is now being judged for comments he made “well before their minds were even fully developed.” But it turns out that Hamadeh, now 31 and an officer in the U.S. Army Reserves, posted antisemitic tropes about George Soros during this year’s campaign. (Forward)
? It’s been nearly four years since the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, and the building remains closed. Now a nonprofit overseeing its redevelopment has hired a team of 10 lobbyists to help secure federal funding for a museum-memorial planned for the site in hopes of breaking ground next year. (Jewish Insider)
?? Russian Jews are in “distress,” and fear a return to Soviet-era policies, according to Doron Almog, the new head of the Jewish Agency. In his first interview since taking office in July, Almog said that the agency is trying to help hundreds of thousands of Russian Jews escape the Putin regime and move to Israel. Meanwhile, new data shows that half of the 29,000 Ukrainian refugees who have fled to Israel since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion have left the country. (Times of Israel, Haaretz)
?? From the Associated Press: “The Israeli military said Wednesday it has discharged four soldiers for attacking Palestinians without cause, after video circulated on social media showing them beating and kicking two detainees.” (A.P.)
? The Texas church that staged an unauthorized production of the Tony-winning musical “Hamilton” and changed the script to include references to Jesus and Christianity has apologized. Church officials promised to “destroy any and all video or sound recordings and images” of the performances and rehearsals, and will pay damages. (Entertainment Weekly)
? A favorite cream cheese of Jewish Montrealers is being discontinued. “Liberté cream cheese is part of a long legacy of foods brought to Montreal by Ashkenazi immigrants that changed the food culture of the city,” writes Kat Romanow, the co-founder of the Wandering Chew and a Jewish food historian. (MyJewishLearning)
Shiva call ➤ David Povich, a longtime criminal defense attorney and the brother of Maury, the television personality, and Lynn, a journalist, died at 87.
Department of self congratulation ➤ The Forward got a grant from the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies to partner with JewishGen to find, translate and publish records from our “Seeking Relatives” advertisements. These listings, which ran in our pages between 1920 and 1960, helped Eastern European Jews get in touch with family members in the United States, and helped Holocaust survivors reconnect with missing relatives. Chana Pollack, the Forward’s archivist, will lead the project. Learn more here ➤
