Billboards urge people to convert to Christianity. Can Jewish ones convert antisemites?

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If you’ve driven along I-95 — or really any major stretch of highway in the U.S. — you’ve probably seen a billboard about Jesus, Christianity or the Bible, often threatening hellfire or eternal judgment to anyone who doesn’t believe.

Our Mira Fox always thought it seemed like a strange strategy. But now that groups like JewBelong and Shine A Light are putting up billboards about antisemitism, she decided to dig deeper. As in, to call those Jesus hotlines — and to consult advertising experts about whether billboards actually, well, do anything.

“Would anyone driving by really be converted?” Mira wondered. “Pulling off the highway to grab a mid-roadtrip lunch at the advertised Cracker Barrel is one thing, but changing your religion is a big decision to make off of a roadside sign.”

Read the story ➤

ALSO IN THE FORWARD

Marchers with tiki torches at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. (Getty)

Opinion | Vice Media valiantly covered the far-right. Jews should care that it’s on the verge of collapse: Our columnist Rob Eshman sees more than mere layoffs in Vice’s bankruptcy filing on Monday. The outlet’s reporting on the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, revealed the now infamous “Jews will not replace us” chant. Vice went on to consistently produce “some of the internet’s most important stories on domestic and international antisemitism,” Rob writes. The fact that it was progressive and multiracial, he adds, made this work more powerful. Read his essay ➤

Shocked about Rudy Giuliani’s attack on Passover? Don’t be: Dov Hikind, a former Brooklyn assemblyman and ally of the former mayor, said he was “not at all surprised” when he read the comments alleged in a lawsuit filed Monday by a former staffer who also accuses Giuliani of sexual abuse and harassment. “He was a great friend of the Jewish community,” Hikind said, “but sometimes when you rub a little bit on certain people, things come out.” Our senior political reporter, Jacob Kornbluh, dug through four decades of Giuliani and the Jews – including that time when, as a prosecutor, his office reportedly forced a Holocaust survivor to face a blackboard with the words Arbeit Macht Frei — German for “work will set you free” and what was on the gate to Auschwitz. Read the story ➤ 

Plus…

• Former Republican U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, whose New York gubernatorial bid last year provided the coattails George Santos rode to Congress, joined the growing chorus calling on Santos to resign.
  
  
• A fertility treatment in development turns skin cells into stem cells, and those stem cells into eggs — potentially opening the door for two men to share biological paternity of a single child. A leading Jewish bioethicist weighs in.
  
  
• Our intrepid reporter, Adam Kovac, was perusing patent filings the other day (you know, as one does) and came across something curious: an optical sensor that scans food to tell if it’s kosher or not. And this gizmo can be yours for just $10,000.

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WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

President Joe Biden at a White House celebration Tuesday marking Jewish American Heritage Month. (Getty)

??  President Joe Biden promised “over 100 meaningful actions” to combat antisemitism would be part of a new White House plan to be unveiled within weeks. “For some reason, it’s come roaring back in the last several years,” he said of the world’s oldest hatred. The comments came at a Jewish American Heritage Month reception where the Marine Corps Band played “Hava Naglia,” Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond performed songs from Parade, and Biden praised chef Michael Solomonov’s catered food as “both delicious and glatt kosher.” (JTA)

?  A day after comparing George Soros, the billionaire Holocaust survivor, to a mutant villain from the X-Men franchise, Elon Musk took aim at the Anti-Defamation League Tuesday afternoon. “ADL should just drop the ‘A,’” Musk said on Twitter. Several white supremacists’ accounts praised the post. (JTA)

??  The U.S. State Department urged “calm” and “restraint” ahead of Thursday’s annual Jerusalem Day parade, which celebrates Israel regaining control of the Old City in the 1967 War. Tens of thousands of Israeli religious nationalists typically march through the Muslim Quarter waving Israeli flags and singing patriotic songs. (TOI)

??  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Pope Francis over the weekend at the Vatican, part of a diplomatic tour through Britain and European countries. (AP)

?  The Times of Israel reports that an advertising circular in Beit Shemesh, the Orthodox commuter town between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv “is facing criticism and accusations of supporting pedophilia after running an advertisement demanding that young girls not play where men walking to synagogue can see them.” (TOI)

?  New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed a new law Monday requiring telemarketers to share their names, phone numbers, and addresses within the first 30 seconds of a call. It’s called the “Seinfeld Bill” after a famous scene from the 90s sitcom. (NBC New York, Twitter)

Quotable ➤  “I just bought a German car, because I feel like all the original Nazis are dead,” Sarah Silverman says in the new trailer for her HBO comedy special, which is set to air on May 27. “There are new Nazis but, you know, they don’t know how to make a car.”

Shiva call ➤  Amy Silverstein, an author who chronicled her long health battles in two memoirs and an April 18 essay in The New York Times, died at 59.

What else we’re reading ➤  Lea Michele has COVID and will miss a week’s worth of Funny Girl performances on Broadway … Church members are hoping whoever stole a truckload of organ pipes will repent … Rare, endangered seal named Yulia causes media stir on Tel Aviv beach.

ON THE CALENDAR

On this day in history (1900): The first copy of L. Frank Baum’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz came off the printing press. Baum’s story of Dorothy’s adventure in Oz went on to sell more than 1 million copies by the time the movie-musical adaptation starring Judy Garland was released in 1939. The film’s score, including the breakout song “Over the Rainbow,” was written by Harold Arlen, the son of a cantor from Buffalo, and lyricist E.Y. Harburg, whose parents read the Forverts aloud each night.

VIDEO OF THE DAY

The saga of U.S. Rep. George Santos, the New York Republican accused of lying about his Holocaust heritage and most everything else in his biography — and who is now under indictment charged with various financial crimes – continues to unfold and fascinate. Mark Chiusano, a reporter who has covered Santos for Newsday since 2019, has a book due out in November about the congressman. 

“It’s kind of a psychological study and a bit of a grifter thriller,” Chiusano told me and Laura E. Adkins on a new episode of our podcast That Jewish News Show. “How did this man continue to keep hustling even when he knew eventually he was going to get caught?” Watch now ➤

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Thanks to Beth Harpaz, Rebecca Salzhauer, Jake Wasserman and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected].