This article is part of our morning briefing. Click here to get it delivered to your inbox each weekday. What do you do with a Jewish cemetery in a town with no Jews?
Some people inherit money. Janice Apple Malett inherited a cemetery. Malett was born in Shenandoah, a central Pennsylvania town with 4,000 residents. None of them are Jewish. Long history: Jews fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe settled in Shenandoah, a coal mining town. The Jews “didn’t work in the mines,” Malett said. “They sold donuts. They had a jewelry store, and a clothing store.” They called themselves the Sons of Abraham, and they called their shul and cemetery Kehillat Israel: 480 graves dating from 1888 to this year. Secret schnapps: The stories of the community can be found in a book of minutes, including 200 pages in Yiddish, dating back well over a century. During Prohibition, for example, the synagogue’s caretaker operated an illegal liquor still out of the mikvah and was run out of town. In the family: Malett’s mother and step-father managed the cemetery for years, and before they died, she agreed to take over. The whole family is buried there – including a great-uncle who was killed by a bullet that went through the jewelry store during a coal miners’ riot. “My DNA is in that ground,” she said. A sustainable future: Shenandoah’s synagogue is now a Latino church. Malett and some friends partnered with the Jewish Community Foundation of Central Pennsylvania to manage upkeep and future burials. “The cemetery,” she said, “has become more than the cemetery.” |
Kehinde Wiley’s portrait depicts Alios Itzhak, a young Jewish Israeli of Ethiopian descent. (The Jewish Museum)
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In this striking portrait of an Ethiopian Jew, she found a surprising connection to her family history: While researching her genealogy, Amy Shimshon-Santo discovered that her great-great grandfather’s mizrah, a cut-paper shul decoration, inspired the background of a portrait by Kehinde Wiley, the artist commissioned to portray President Barack Obama for the National Portrait Gallery. Santo is an Ashkenazi Jew; her children’s father is Brazilian, with a family line stretching back to Africa. So discovering this connection was especially meaningful. “It felt like the ancestors were knocking on my door,” Shimshon-Santo said. Read the story ➤ Opinion | He used to be a Christian Holocaust scholar. Now he’s a Jew: Stephen Smith spent more than a decade as the head of the USC Shoah Foundation, warning that antisemitism is an existential threat to American Jews. Then he decided to become one. “I have never felt safer,” he told our senior columnist, Rob Eshman. “I have never felt more protected. I have 16 million new friends who understand the world the same way that I understand it.” Read the essay ➤ Plus… |
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
Roseanne Barr in February at Fox News studios in New York. (Getty) |
? Appearing on Piers Morgan’s TV show, Roseanne Barr said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is “not a good” Jew. “Talk about antisemitic!” she said. “Just ‘cause the guy’s a Jew doesn’t mean he likes Jews or that he is doing anything good for the Jews.” Barr recently caused an uproar when she denied the Holocaust while spouting other conspiracy theories on a podcast — and later explained she was being sarcastic. (Daily Beast) ⚖️ Is hating Jews a mental illness? That was the question lawyers and expert witnesses are addressing this week in the trial of Robert Bowers, the man found guilty of killing 11 Jews at the Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, in the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history. Jurors must decide whether to sentence him to death. (JTA) ? An Israeli man in his 70s was kidnapped in Ethiopia, and is being held for ransom. The Israeli foreign ministry said it is working with Interpol to get him released. (Times of Israel) ?? Dozens of people were arrested Tuesday in Israel during mass protests in response to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to weaken the judiciary advanced in the Knesset. (Haaretz) ? The Anti-Defamation League is offering a $50,00o reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in the 1994 murder of Ari Halberstam and the shooting of 14 Jewish teenagers on the Brooklyn Bridge. (JNS) ? Twitter was alerted in January to a series of antisemitic tweets – some of which denied the Holocaust – but failed to remove them. The European Union of Jewish Students and HateAid, a nonprofit in Germany — where Holocaust denial is illegal — now plan to sue the social media company. (Guardian) Quotable ➤ “I want people to feel like I did at Shabbat dinner. I want them to get blessed.” – Barbie director Greta Gerwig, on how she wants people to feel after seeing her movie. Gerwig grew up Christian but often visited Jewish friends on Friday nights. Mazel tov ➤ To Cindy Seni, who was unsuccessful in finding a boyfriend on Netflix’s Jewish Matchmaking series, on her engagement to Eldad Cohen, whom she met at work.
Shiva call ➤ Marlena Spieler, the globetrotting writer of Jewish cookbooks, died at 74. |
Then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, at a news conference on July 12, 2006. (Getty) |
On this day in history (2006): The second war between Israel and Lebanon began. After a Hezbollah excursion into Israeli territory left eight soldiers dead and two captured, Israel launched air raids that reached into Beirut. Some 1,200 Lebanese were killed in the war along with 165 Israelis. It ended after 34 days with a U.N.-mediated truce.
Today is the second anniversary of Forwarding the News. Take our quick survey and let us know what you think of this newsletter. |
Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, Britain’s chief rabbi, was knighted by King Charles on Tuesday at Windsor Castle. Mirvis is close with the monarch, who invited the rabbi and his wife to stay at his home during the coronation in May so that they could be within walking distance to the event on Shabbat. |
DEPT. OF SELF CONGRATULATIONS |
We’re honored and humbled to have taken home 33 Rockower Awards last night at the American Jewish Press Association’s convention in New Orleans! Mazel Tov to our staffers Laura E. Adkins, Nora Berman, Benyamin Cohen, Rob Eshman, Mira Fox, Beth Harpaz, Louis Keene, Jacob Kornbluh, Matthew Litman, Arno Rosenfeld, Jodi Rudoren, Robin Washington and Talya Zax; our contributors Jackson Arn, Larry Cohler-Esses, Howard Fineman, Dina Gachman, Ellen Himmelfarb, Michael Koplow, Elijah Marche (who is still in high school!), Andrew Silverstein, Jim Sullivan, Alan Teller, Kyla Kupferstein Torres and Anya Ulinich; and their editors Laura E. Adkins, Benyamin Cohen, Adam Langer, Lauren Markoe, Jodi Rudoren, Rukhl Schaechter and Talya Zax. You can click here to check out all the winners, including a whole lot of wonderful work from our partners at J Weekly in San Francisco, TC Jewfolk in Minneapolis, the St. Louis Jewish Light and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. We’re especially proud of our 10 first prizes: |
These people seem as excited to read the Forward as the judges at the Rockower Awards. (Forward Archives) |
— Thanks to PJ Grisar, Jodi Rudoren, Gall Sigler and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected]. |
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