Sen. Tim Scott, co-founder of the Black-Jewish caucus, enters 2024 presidential race: The Republican from South Carolina has worked across the aisle in his decade in office to combat both racism and antisemitism, writes our senior political reporter, Jacob Kornbluh. Scott has also been a staunch supporter of Israel and credits several Jewish mentors for helping him early in his career. Read the story ➤

It was the novel that shaped a generation of Jews — does anybody still read it? Leon Uris’ Exodus was a cultural phenomenon that did double duty as an advertisement for the new state of Israel. For decades after its 1958 publication, the book’s sexy, violent prose was required reading for Jews. But mulling over its impact around Israel’s 75th anniversary, Jenny Singer found that “the moral superiority that helped make Exodus appealing in the 20th century” is “exactly what makes it suspect in this one.” Read the story ➤

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Jonathan Van Ness of ‘Queer Eye’ gives Dan Stein a makeover. (Netflix)

Dan Stein is a New Orleans icon. Netflix’s ‘Queer Eye’ just didn’t get his Jewishness: In their latest season, the Fab Five worked their magic on a Jewish deli owner known for his prickliness. But in making Dan Stein over, did they miss what made him so beloved in the first place? Our Mira Fox says the Queer Eye team urging him to be more authentic “didn’t seem to consider the fact that Stein is being authentic — authentically Jewish.” Read the story ➤

Portrait of an artist: Thirty years ago, on the 50th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, photographer Jill Freedman traveled to Poland to document sites of destruction and the resurgence of Jewish life A new exhibit of her work features 36 of her most vivid and evocative black and white shots never before been seen in public. Read the story ➤

Mel Brooks in a film about the American dream, and coffee. (Courtesy Slice of Pie Productions)

• HBO Max and Discovery+ are merging today into Max, the first streaming service to share the name of many a beloved zayde. Among the movies available is a 2022 documentary narrated by Mel Brooks.
  
  
• A new album blends klezmer and American folk. Our PJ Grisar spoke with the two musicians behind it.
  
  
• Meet the Israeli artist who brings Shabbat flowers to thousands every week. “People ask me if it’s my hobby — it’s not,” he told our editor-in-chief Jodi Rudoren in her latest column. “It’s part of me.”
  
  
• Ice cream at Auschwitz, Christian billboards in Rhode Island and kosher food in the metaverse. Take our latest news quiz.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

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??  Israeli news outlets reported that a significant breakthrough is imminent in negotiations over the government’s judicial overhaul plan. (Haaretz)

??  If the plan goes through, a new poll shows, 60% of Americans think Washington should reassess its relationship with Israel. Meanwhile, a new survey of Israelis out this morning finds that 31% named the cost of living as their top concern — more than twice the 15% who cited the country’s future as a democracy. (Times of Israel, Israel Democracy Institute)

?️  In a policy shift, the Conservative movement ruled that it’s kosher to eat at vegetarian and vegan restaurants even if they don’t have kosher supervision. (JTA)

✍️  From our colleagues at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: “Wikipedia has banned three editors from working on articles related to Jewish history in Poland during World War II, in a bid to resolve editing disputes and safeguard its credibility. But the online encyclopedia stopped short of taking more aggressive action in response to allegations of widespread Holocaust distortion on the platform.” (JTA)

?  A community theater committed to colorblind casting is doing Fiddler on the Roof. Is casting non-Jews cultural appropriation? The New York Times’ “Ethicist” weighs in. (NYT)

?  And speaking of Jewish theater: Steven Spielberg is reportedly in the early stages of adapting the Broadway hit Leopoldstadt into a TV series. The play, by Tom Stoppard, follows multiple generations of a Jewish family in Vienna before and after the Holocaust. (JTA)

?️  Martin Amis died on Friday, the same day that a film adaptation of his Holocaust novel, Zone of Interest, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. It has become an early favorite to win this year’s Palme d’Or on Saturday. (JTA)

Quotable ➤  “What this trial offers, not just for Pittsburgh’s Jewish community and not just for America’s Jewish community, but for America itself, is the opportunity to wrestle with how we got to this place, where in an open democracy, violence against one group can skyrocket so dramatically — and what to do about it,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL’s chief executive, in a Washington Post deep dive into the upcoming trial of the alleged shooter in the Tree of Life attack.

Shiva call ➤  Rick Wolff, a former professional baseball player turned coach, sports psychologist, radio host and bestselling author, died at 71.

ON THE CALENDAR

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On this day in history (1980): The Shining, Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of the Stephen King horror novel, was released in theaters. The film starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall has since gone on to great acclaim, but it earned Kubrick a Razzie nomination for Worst Director. Forward contributor Lisa Amand writes that “indirect references” to the Holocaust make The Shining “the most Jewish of Kubrick’s movies.”

Thursday at 11:45 a.m. ET: Watch a live recording of our weekly podcast, where we’ll be joined by Jonathan Freedland, author of The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World, now a New York Times bestseller. Bookmark this page ➤

VIDEO OF THE DAY

(Leanne Italie)

Some of the masterminds behind our Bintel Brief advice column spoke Sunday at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Chana Pollack, the Forward’s archivist, described how Bintel helped immigrants solve problems and learn about life in America a century ago. And Beth Harpaz, who shepherds the column now, noted that readers today often leave hundreds of comments on social media discussing the latest quandary. The audience weighed in on a couple of letters from Bintel’s inbox. Watch the video ➤

Want more? Catch up on two seasons of our Bintel Brief podcast.

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