This article is part of our morning briefing. Click here to get it delivered to your inbox each weekday. How a Jewish TikToker with no basketball experience made it to the NBA draft: Jordan Haber is looking forward to starting law school this fall at Yeshiva University. But this Thursday, his career might take a turn. That’s because Haber put his aspiring legal mind to use by sifting through more than 100 pages of the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement and discovered a loophole: Nearly any college graduate can apply to enter the draft. It started as a joke, went viral on TikTok, and it turns out that getting into the NBA draft was easier than scoring Taylor Swift tickets. Haber, who is 6-foot-2, described his draft-night fit as “a basic blue suit like you would see at a bar mitzvah.” Read the story ➤
Did Netflix’s teen comedy ever get its one Jewish character right? Never Have I Ever is beloved by audiences for its humor, and by critics for its nuanced treatment of diverse characters. Except for one: Ben Gross. After its first season, culture writer Mira Fox wrote that the show had “a Jewish problem,” and outlined all the stereotypes that made up the character. But after its fourth and final season, she writes, the character has become … kind of nuanced? Though there are still jokes about his circumcision. Read the story ➤ |
Joseph Rabinowitz, seen here in 1896, found Jesus – but he always kept his Jewish name. (Courtesy) |
Meet the church preacher who gave sermons in Yiddish: Joseph Rabinowitz, raised in a well-to-do Hasidic family, had an unusual response to the antisemitism of the Russian empire in the late 1800s. He found Jesus, and created a hybrid congregation that preached the gospel but had members who observed Shabbat, practiced circumcision and spoke Yiddish. He believed he had found the perfect solution, writes our Rukhl Schaechter. Read the story ➤
Opinion | My family fled Jewish persecution. Decades later, I may have to leave my home because I’m trans: “It’s deeply frightening and personal,” writes Rabbi Micah Buck-Yael, who came out as transgender shortly after being ordained. He lives in Missouri, a state that this year enacted laws banning trans youth from playing on sports teams that match their identities and access to gender-affirming care. It reminds him of his mother leaving Cairo in the 1950s amid hostility toward Jews. “I never thought that my family’s experience of persecution and exile would be my reality. And yet, here I am, choosing to stay for now, but knowing that I need to keep one hand on the door.” Read his essay ➤ |
The memorial site for victims of the Surfside collapse in the summer of 2021. (Getty) |
Watch Fauda star Doron Ben-David in new TV series ‘The Lesson’, winner of Israel’s Best Drama Series Award 2023. The series traces a classroom argument between a high school civics teacher (Ben-David) and his student (Maya Landsman) which quickly spirals out of control and puts the two protagonists — and later the whole country — on a collision course. |
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this month in Saudi Arabia. (Getty) |
? The Biden administration is trying to broker a long-shot diplomatic deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel. “When you’re talking about Middle East peace, it takes three to tango,” said Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel. (New York Times) ?? The student who spoke out against Israel at last month’s CUNY law school graduation helped lead a 2022 pro-Palestinian rally in Manhattan where a Jewish man was beat up. Another leader of that rally spoke at CUNY’s law school commencement last year. (Times of Israel) ? Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is challenging Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination, compared COVID vaccine mandates to Nazi experimentation, in a newly surfaced video from 2020. The remarks are part of Kennedy’s long history of using the Holocaust to spread conspiracy theories about vaccines. (Haaretz) ? A Jewish middle school teacher in Massachusetts has resigned after facing antisemitic harassment by a student. The student, who is 12, was charged with criminal harassment after the teacher reported him making Nazi jokes and showing him drawings of Hitler standing over a dead person with the heading, “Sorry, Jew.” (Berkshire Eagle) ? An Israeli Jewish man threw stones that shattered a stained-glass window in the room where the Last Supper is believed to have taken place. The attack is part of a sharp rise in vandalism and assaults on Christian holy sites and Christians in Jerusalem since the start of 2023. (Haaretz) ? The president of Uruguay has scuttled his plan to turn an 800-pound eagle-and-swastika crest from a former Nazi ship into an artistic display of a peace dove. One historian had criticized the plan by saying it would be like if “Mexico turned its Aztec sacrificial stones into camping tables.” (JTA) ? Uber will cease operating in Israel by the end of the week, citing regulatory hurdles and competition from local taxi drivers and app-based ride services like Gett and Yango. (Globes)
? Israel is ranked seventh among 30 teams set to compete at the World Lacrosse Men’s Championship this week in San Diego. “They’ve punched above their weight by like 3 million percent,” said David Wiseman, who tracks Israeli sports. (JTA) |
On this day in history (1942): Kazimierz Piechowski, a Polish engineer and political prisoner, escaped Auschwitz with three other inmates. They dressed up as SS officers, stole a car, and drove out through the infamous gate with the sign Arbeit Macht Frei, “Work sets you free.” At least two documentaries have been made about Piechowski, who died at 98 in 2017.
It’s World Refugee Day, and for the first time in decades, a new initiative allows private groups – including synagogues – to help resettle refugees. |
Summer doesn’t officially begin until Wednesday, but we’d like to go ahead and declare this the “Summer of George.” — Thanks to Mira Fox, Tani Levitt, Rukhl Schaechter and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com. |
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