White supremacists are driving the jump in antisemitic incidents: The Anti-Defamation League’s annual report, just out this morning at 7 a.m., documents a dramatic escalation in antisemitic propaganda activity in 2022, bringing it to a level unprecedented in recent decades. Hateful banners, fliers, laser projections of swastikas onto buildings and similar hate-speech activities increased more than assaults, vandalism or any other form of antisemitism the ADL tracks. Read the story ➤

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Republicans compare gun-control proposals to Nazi laws targeting Jews (again): Matt Brooks of the Republican Jewish Coalition called social media posts by the Michigan GOP making the comparison “absolutely inappropriate and offensive,” asking: “Haven’t the victims of the Holocaust suffered enough than to be shamefully exploited in death by this vile post?” The Michigan Republican party’s newly elected chair, a Trump-backed election denier who has a history of invoking antisemitic tropes, refused to apologize. Read the story ➤

This is not a picture of Rabbi Mendel Weiss making a kitchen kosher, but it’s not far off. (iStock)

Flamethrowing rabbi goes viral for making kitchens kosher for Passover: Many Jews pour boiling water on countertops to clean them for the holiday. Rabbi Mendel Weiss, who leads a Chabad in South Florida, uses a blowtorch. In videos that went viral on TikTok, his process could be mistaken for someone clearing out Nazi bunkers on the beaches of Normandy. Weiss can clear six homes in one night this time of year, and also does big hotels. Asked if he takes any precautions, he said: “Well, I pray a lot.” Read the story ➤

In other Passover-prep news, New York’s attorney general warned of potential price gouging at local car washes where Orthodox Jews flock to flee their vehicles of chametz. The consumer alert said some car washes have jacked up rates by as much as 50% and some are billing the higher prices as holiday specials. 

Trader Joe’s, the grocery store beloved for its fun products and aloha shirts, is launching its own matzo brand. Our Mira Fox spun up some snack recipes using other specialty items from the store, including a salad pizza and a mille-feuille.

Plus: 

• Scientists have known for a while that Haredi men have a much higher rate of nearsightedness than their peers. A new study may offer clues as to why.
  
  
• Young Latino leaders are unlikely to see Jews as targets of systemic discrimination, according to a new poll from the American Jewish Committee.
  
  
• The Pennsylvania legislature now has its first Jewish caucus. It follows the election of a Jewish governor after a campaign rife with antisemitism, and is modeled on similar groups in states including New York, California, Florida, Michigan and North Carolina.

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WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Protesters in Tel Aviv taking part in today’s ‘Day of Paralysis.’ (Getty)

?? The Knesset passed a law early this morning that would prevent the attorney general from declaring that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is unfit to serve. Meanwhile, 500,000 people are expected at protests throughout the country today over Netanyahu’s push to overhaul the judiciary, in what’s being billed as a “Day of Paralysis.” The Tel Aviv Museum of Art will darken its galleries today and cancel tours. And the IDF reported a “disturbing” decline in the number of ground force troops reporting for reserve duty.

✝️  Haredi lawmakers in Israel introduced a bill that would punish proselytizers with prison time. Evangelical Christians, one of Israel’s strongest and most influential supporters in the United States, urged Netanyahu to scuttle the legislation, and he tweeted that he does not plan to advance it. (Haaretz, Twitter, AP) 

??  The foreign ministers of Israel and Poland announced on Wednesday that the yearslong “crisis” between the two countries is over. In 2018, Poland’s right-wing government made it illegal to accuse the nation of having committed crimes during the Holocaust. Israel said it would now resume sending youth groups on trips to Holocaust sites there. (JTA)

??  The Borough of Manhattan Community College has apologized for hosting an exhibit that accuses Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and favorably portrayed the second Palestinian intifada in a prominent place on campus. Some Jewish students and faculty had complained about the exhibit, which was organized by two pro-Palestinian groups and funded by the college’s Social Justice and Equity Centers, and about students being granted credit for viewing an upcoming film that is part of a “Palestinian Solidarity Series.” (Times of Israel)

? Munich officials announced Wednesday that they had no legal authority to cancel a May 21 concert by Roger Waters, the Pink Floyd co-founder who is outspoken about about his anti-Zionist views. The city said it would set up areas for a public boycott. Waters has threatened to sue the city of Frankfurt after it canceled his planned concert there. (DW)

?  Portland’s oldest Jewish deli will close by the end of the month. The deli, Kornblatt’s, opened in 1991, when a reviewer raved that it had “the best pastrami sandwich in the vicinity” and was “the closest Oregon has yet come to New York.” (Oregonian)

What we’re listening to ➤  The new episode of the Exile podcast from the Leo Baeck Institute, which is hosted by Mandy Patinkin and features a candid conversation with Dr. Ruth Westheimer, about the diary she kept during her chaotic youth during the Holocaust. 

What else we’re reading ➤  Both sides of Israel’s debate say that a constitutional crisis is coming … Ukraine’s Hare Krishnas survive war by Zoom and serving neighbors … Walt Disney made Bambi a cute movie for kids, but the original story was an allegory by a Jewish writer who later fled the Nazis.

ON THE CALENDAR

That’s my 90-pound puppy, Jolene, who thinks she’s old enough to drive. She has her own Instagram account.

On this day in history (2006): Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sent the first-ever tweet. While Twitter has been, at times, a hotbed for antisemitism, many Jews have built community on the platform. Jewish Twitter, also known as JTwitter, often occupies the forefront of insider Jewish comedy, activism and cultural discourse.

In honor of National Puppy Day, we’ve got stories about why pets have Jewish names, what we can learn from a communist puppy puppet, and why I wouldn’t recommend feeding your pup kosher-for-Passover dog food.

Today at 6:30 p.m. CT: Our Adam Langer will be at the Holocaust museum in Skokie, Illinois, to talk about why he put The Diary of Anne Frank at the center of his novel about an abusive high school drama teacher in the 1980s — and then did a podcast tracing the cultural history of the original Broadway show. Get your tickets here ➤

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Chana Mlotek was for decades the music archivist at the YIVO Institute of Jewish Research. (Courtesy Avram Mlotek)

The Workers Circle has digitized 400 Yiddish songs, based on an out-of-print series compiled and written by the late Yosl and Chana Mlotek. Isaac Bashevis Singer, the Nobel laureate and Forward writer, referred to the couple as “the Sherlock Holmeses of Yiddish folk songs” for their investigations of Jewish music.

“I didn’t recognize until I got older that Yiddish songs are an incredible porthole into history, while also testifying to the vivaciousness of a people nearly destroyed and a culture almost erased,” Avram Mlotek, the couple’s grandson, writes in a new essay on our site.

Chana Pollack, our archivist, fondly recalls learning from Chana Mlotek, who created and produced the regular Vertershpiel, our Yiddish word-search puzzle. “Before there were blogs and Wikipedia, there were archivists like Chana Mlotek,” recalls Pollack. She was “humble, ever approachable and generous with her knowledge.”

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Thanks to Tani Levitt, Chana Pollack, Jake Wasserman, and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected].