This article is part of our morning briefing. Click here to get it delivered to your inbox each weekday. Amar’e Stoudemire invokes antisemitic conspiracies — then says he didn’t mean it: Stoudemire, the NBA star who had an Orthodox conversion, said on a Hebrew Israelite talk show this week that Jesus was the Messiah, Jews of European descent are converts, and descendants of the transatlantic slave trade were Israelites. “The American government has never really told us who we are and where we came from, they’re keeping that a secret,” he said of African Americans. But in an interview with our Louis Keene, Stoudemire walked back the comments, and said he had gone on the show to debunk Israelites’ antisemitic rhetoric. “I was trying to keep it cordial,” Stoudemire said, “but I probably should have been more firm and concise with what I hold and what I believe.” Read the story ➤
Batter up: Team Israel begins its quest at the World Baseball Classic this Sunday in Florida. Here’s everything you need to know about the tournament and the team, which our sports reporter, Louis Keene, calls “the greatest collection of Jewish talent ever squeezed into one dugout.” (Maybe, though the team lost in an exhibition game against the Miami Marlins on Wednesday.)
Pray ball: One person rooting for the team will be Darryl Strawberry, the New York Mets legend who turned to religion after a career plagued by drug abuse and scandal. He’s now an evangelical preacher focused on promoting Israel. |
Remembering Topol, the people’s Tevye: When making the film version of Fiddler on the Roof, director Norman Jewison chose Chaim Topol over Zero Mostel, who played Tevye in the original Broadway production. The Associated Press estimates that the movie has been seen by more than 1 billion people – including, our Mira Fox found, the Mormon students at Brigham Young University who staged a production of Fiddler last year. “Topol’s Tevye,” she says, “shaped how they understood what it meant to be Jewish.” Read the story ➤ A tale of two Tevyes: Mostel’s Tevye was “plump, sweaty and vaudevillian,” wrote Andrew Silow-Carroll of the New York Jewish Week. Topol’s projected a “muscle Jew” reminiscent of a Zionist fighter.
Portrait of an artist: Topol was also an illustrator, whose drawings of Israeli presidents were turned into stamps. We shared some of those sketches, including Topol’s self-portrait, on our Instagram page. |
Actor Felix Kammerer in the Oscar-nominated adaptation of ‘All Quiet on the Western Front.’ (Netflix) |
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Israeli guards at the scene of a shooting attack Thursday night in the center of Tel Aviv. (Getty) |
?? It’s been a deadly 24 hours in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: The Israeli owner of a farm in the occupied West Bank shot and killed an armed Palestinian man who reportedly threw improvised explosives at the farm early this morning … A Palestinian gunman shot and wounded three people on Tel Aviv’s main drag of cafes and restaurants Thursday night, before being killed by the police; two Israeli Arabs suspected of aiding the attacker have turned themselves in to authorities … Earlier on Thursday, undercover Israeli forces killed three Islamic Jihad gunmen in the West Bank. (Times of Israel, JTA, Haaretz, Times of Israel) ? The man charged with federal hate crimes for shooting two Jewish men as they left morning prayers on consecutive days in Los Angeles last month pleaded not guilty on Thursday. (AP) ? The Orthodox Union said it would meet with Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister, when he visits the United States next week. More than 70 other Jewish organizations have signed a letter denouncing Smotrich, who is under fire for, among other things, saying the Palestinian village of Huwara should be “wiped out.” (JTA) ? More than a dozen Senate Republicans accused the the Department of Education of funding antisemitic programs on college campuses. They claim that professors who teach in Near East and Middle East departments at taxpayer-funded schools “indoctrinate students with anti-Israel bias and viewpoints.” (Jewish Insider) ✝️ The Republican governor of West Virginia on Thursday signed into law a “religious freedom” bill that critics claim can be used as a tool to discriminate against queer people and other marginalized groups. At least 23 other states have similar laws. (AP) ? Could the parking lots of houses of worship, which largely sit empty on weekdays, be a prime spot for charging electric cars? One company is partnering with Methodist churches in the Washington area for a trial run. (Religion News Service) ? CBS will air an episode of The Equalizer called “Never Again,” in which a wave of hate crimes strikes the heavily Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood of Midwood. Actor Adam Goldberg, whose character is part of the show’s team of vigilante justice-seekers, said he can relate to the antisemitism: “I’ve been on the receiving end of just an incredible amount of hate on social media.” (JTA)
Long weekend reads ➤ The cellist in Auschwitz who feared the world wouldn’t believe her … What active-shooter trainings steal from synagogues … Why a county in Utah could play a role in Israel’s judicial crisis. |
In this weekend’s edition of our print magazine: Could a new Tennessee law targeting drag shows make it illegal to host Purim celebrations where people dress as characters of a different gender? “Great rabbinic minds throughout the ages have defined this practice not as a biblical transgression but as an integral part of the holiday,” writes Mordechai Levovitz, the founder of Jewish Queer Youth, in a new essay. Plus: Why Jacksonville, Florida, became the epicenter of a new kind of antisemitism; four teen actresses reflect on the role of a lifetime: playing Anne Frank; and meet the Orthodox New Yorker who feeds more cats than you. Download your copy ➤ |
The cast of the first season of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer.’ (WB) | On this day in history (1997): Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon and starring Sarah Michelle Geller, premiered on WB Television. There’s a small but compelling tradition that suggests Jews once believed in vampires, a tradition in which Buffy seems to partake: Its Jewish elements include Buffy’s best friend, Willow, and strong anti-Nazi undertones.
Last year on this day, our colleagues at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that Miriam Adelson, the widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, loaned former Vice President Mike Pence a plane for a campaign-style tour of Israel. |
Laura E. Adkins, our opinion editor, joined me for our weekly conversation about the Jewish headlines — including a story about a Purim costume gone horribly wrong. Plus, we talked with our colleagues Beth Harpaz and Jacob Kornbluh who have two very different takes on the question: Should American Jews care about what’s happening in Israel? Watch the video ➤
Department of corrections: In Thursday’s newsletter, we incorrectly referred to Rep. Kathy Manning as a Democrat from Michigan. She’s from North Carolina. — Thanks to Samuel Breslow, PJ Grisar, Tani Levitt, Lauren Markoe and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected]. |
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