This article is part of our morning briefing. Click here to get it delivered to your inbox each weekday. White nationalist broadcaster blames Jews for submersible’s implosion: Stew Peters, who is known for promoting conspiracy theories on his podcast, suggested that a cabal run by the Rothschilds destroyed the submersible and its five passengers last week in order to keep people away from the wreckage of the Titanic. He has previously accused Jared Kushner of being a Mossad agent. Read the story ➤
Opinion | Pretending to be a gay Haredi on TikTok does not help queer Orthodox Jews: Israeli actor Erez Oved, who was unmasked this month, says he did not mean to deceive or harm anyone. But Orit Avishai, a sociology professor and author of a book about Israel’s Orthodox LGBTQ+ community, said he “minimized, and potentially jeopardized” his stated cause of educating Orthodox Jews about queer people. “Changing hearts and minds requires honest portrayals of Orthodox LGBTQ+ realities, in all their complexities,” she says. “Queer Orthodox Jews don’t need the help of a performance artist whose work fails to capture, and effectively mocks, the very precarious lives it claims to uplift.” Read her essay ➤
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Doron Ben David of ‘Fauda’ plays a high school civics teacher in ‘The Lesson.’ (ChaiFlicks) |
In a searing new Israeli drama, a classroom dispute explodes into Greek tragedy: Loosely based on a real-life event, The Lesson features a a dispute over identity politics and free speech between a conservative student and a leftist teacher, played by Fauda’s Doron Ben David. “The acting is impressive,” writes our reviewer, Simi Horwitz. Maya Landsman, who plays the student, she adds, “is a revelation.” Read the story ➤
A week as a hostage, a lifetime of anxiety and traumatic memories: Martha Hodes was 12 when she and her sister were held for six days on a plane hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The children of divorce, they were returning to New York after a summer in Tel Aviv. Now a historian, Hodes explores the event and its impact on her life in a new memoir, My Hijacking. “It serves as an admirably thorough personal exorcism,” writes our reviewer, Julia M. Klein. “But its storytelling never really takes flight.” Read the review ➤ |
A scene from the musical ‘Monsoon Wedding.’ (Matthew Murphy) |
What Monsoon Wedding has in common with Fiddler on the Roof: Mira Nair, an Indian-American director, turned the 2001 film into a musical, which she hopes to bring to Broadway in 2025. She said the show, about an arranged marriage, shares the same DNA as Fiddler. “It’s about family and tradition, and the push and pull of so many human stories,” Nair told our Beth Harpaz, who saw it during a Brooklyn run that ended Sunday. “It’s entirely relatable, and so specific and local, and yet it’s become utterly universal.” Read the story ➤ Related: Sheldon Harnick, the lyricist who put words to the sorrows and simchas of Jewish life in Fiddler, died Friday at 99. Plus… - Our editor-in-chief, Jodi Rudoren, was on jury duty last week — via Zoom. It reminded her of that very Jewish concept, Hineini — “here I am.”
- Ethnic violence displaced thousands of Jews in India, Swastika Lake got a new name, and a Jewish prankster ended up in the NBA Draft. Test your knowledge of these and other Jewish headlines with our weekly news quiz.
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WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
Protesters outside a Chabad synagogue in suburban Atlanta on Shabbat. (Twitter)
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? The Goyim Defense League brought about a dozen protesters, some holding flags with swastikas, outside a Chabad near Atlanta on Shabbat. They also protested in Macon, Georgia, on Friday at the 165-years-old Temple Beth Israel. “We have lived through the Civil War,” said Rabbi Elizabeth Bahar. “We have lived through the civil rights movement, and there has been no incident ever of antisemitism directed against the Jewish community here in all those tumultuous times.” (Twitter, WSBTV, WMAZ, Haaretz) ⚖️ The trial of the man convicted of killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue begins its second phase today, to determine whether he face the death penalty or life imprisonment. It could last six weeks, with testimony expected about the effects of the massacre on survivors and about the mental health of the shooter, Robert Bowers. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) Related: Mark Oppenheimer, author of a book about the aftermath of the Tree of Life killing, argues in a New York Times essay that Bowers did not didn’t just kill 11 Jews – he destroyed a minyan. ? Arnon Milchan, the Israeli film producer behind such hits as Pretty Woman and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, testified Sunday at the corruption trial of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Prosecutors say Milchan gave Netanyahu a steady stream of luxury gifts in exchange for favors involving tax relief and U.S. residency. (Times of Israel) ? More than 2 million Muslim worshippers from 160 countries are expected to descend on Mecca, Saudi Arabia, this week as part of the annual hajj, or pilgrimage. Authorities expect it to be the largest in history. (AFP, AP) ? “Hava Nagila” has gone mainstream, blasting from sound systems at sporting events, private parties, night clubs and trendy bars, The New York Times reports. “It is this very simple, very easy, very ubiquitous thing,” said a professor of Jewish history at the University of Virginia. “That’s why it works at the ballpark.” Related: Our complete ranking of every pop song that samples “Hava Nagila.” Mazel tov ➤ After nearly 25 years as the spiritual leader of Sinai Temple, the largest Conservative congregation in Los Angeles. Rabbi David Wolpe on Saturday delivered his final sermon. Watch it here. Shiva call ➤ Harry Markowitz, whose research revolutionized investment strategies and who won the 1990 Nobel Prize in Economics, died at 95.
What else we’re reading ➤ A Hulu horror movie is influenced by the post-Holocaust pressure to have children …. How Apache opposition to a copper mine became a religious liberty test … New book explores the connections between the circus and the study of Jewish text. |
A same-sex marriage supporter at the Supreme Court in 2015, as the justices debated the issue. (Getty) |
On this day in history (2015): The Supreme Court decided Obergefell vs. Hodges, ruling that same-sex marriage is a fundamental right protected by the U.S. Constitution. While some have grappled with how to align the concept with Jewish law, U.S. Jews have been among the strongest supporters of same-sex marriage, according to data gathered in 2014 by the Public Religion Research Institute.
In honor of National Coconut Day, our food columnist Liza Schoenfein offers up a recipe for coconut sorbet with summer berries. |
Confetti flies in the air during the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Pears Jewish Campus on Sunday in Berlin. (Getty) |
Germany’s biggest Jewish educational and cultural complex since the Holocaust opened Sunday in Berlin. It will be home to a Chabad-run kindergarten, elementary and high schools, as well as a movie theater, library, gym and kosher deli. — Thanks to Tani Levitt and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected]. |
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