At core of ‘Oppenheimer,’ a debate over how to be Jewish + Meet the MiraBot, an A.I. version of one of our reporters

My boyfriend made me into an A.I. bot. It’s really, really Jewish: We already know artificial intelligence engines can write rabbinic sermons. Here in the very niche world of Jewish journalism, our culture writer Mira Fox felt fairly safe. Isn’t she too unique for an A.I. to steal her job? Maybe – except her boyfriend had been feeding her articles to a robot for months, resulting in a very specific, far more intelligent version of the A.I.: the MiraBot. It knows an awful lot about the Talmud. And it reviewed its own, made-up Jewish Indiana Jones movie. Read the story ➤

Hey Donald Trump, Israel called – it wants its ancient oil lamps back: First the National Archives couldn’t get the former president to return classified documents. Now, the Israeli Antiquities Authority has revealed it’s been trying unsuccessfully to get ancient ceramic oil lamps returned. Rabbi Jay Michaelson wonders if a sock drawer full of menorahs might provide a peek into Trump’s inner psyche. Read the story ➤

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Cillian Murphy as the titular physicist in ‘Oppenheimer.’ (Universal Pictures)

At the core of ‘Oppenheimer,’ a debate about how to be Jewish: In Christopher Nolan’s monumental biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Jewish physicist’s main inquisitor is Adm. Lewis Strauss. The true story of these men — Strauss a self-made Southern businessman and proud Jew; Oppenheimer, a thoroughly secular and wealthy product of the elite Ethical Culture school — is a study in contrasts. Was their different approach to Jewishness behind their explosive relationship? Or, as our PJ Grisar asks: “Did Strauss look at Oppenheimer and see a shanda?” Read the story ➤

Free rides — and a comforting hand — to the cemetery: Irene Weiser, 96, tried to hail an Uber, but couldn’t figure out how to use the app. But thanks to the nonprofit Dorot, Weiser was able to pray at her husband’s headstone last month for the first time in more than a decade. Read the story ➤

Jason Aldean performs at the 2023 CMA Fest in Nashville. (Getty)

Off key: Country music star Jason Aldean sparked controversy with his song “Try That in a Small Town,” with lyrics in support of guns and militias, and a music video filmed at a lynching site. Our music columnist, Seth Rogovoy, thinks Aldean could learn to be less xenophobic by listening to songs about small towns by Bob Dylan and Paul Simon.

Talmudic tricks: Asi Wind is considered one of the finest close-up card magicians in the world. He credits the yeshiva culture of study for why there are so many Jews in his field. “We’re studying something that has a magical power. Or a mystery to it,” he said. “We’re obsessed with secret knowledge.”

Plus…

• Russia has detained a Jewish journalist for 113 days. His friends are reading his work aloud in protest.
  
  
• The Roald Dahl museum on Wednesday said that a plaque acknowledging his antisemitism would soon be displayed at its entrance.
  
  
• Amid a year of historic protests in Israel, new data suggests that American tourism to Israel is higher than before the pandemic.

The Borscht Belt is Back! Join us for the day-long festival taking place in downtown Ellenville and featuring stand-up comedy, art, live music, film, educational programming – and of course food. Visit https://www.borschtbeltfest.org/ to purchase tickets to the ticketed events and get more info about the event.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

The 2018 funerals of Cecil and David Rosenthal, two brothers killed at the Tree of Life synagogue massacre. (Getty)

⚖️  Survivors of the attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh testified Wednesday in the sentencing phase of the trial of Robert Bowers. A police officer who was shot in the head and hospitalized for months said he contemplated suicide. (AP)

??  The king of Morocco has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a visit, a first in the history of the modern Jewish state. Israel this week became the second country in the world to recognize Morocco’s annexation of oil-rich land in the Western Sahara that it annexed in 1975. The two countries normalized ties as part of the Abraham Accords in 2020. (JTA)

?  A growing number of researchers say the work of Chiune Sugihara, often called the “Japanese Schindler” and credited with providing thousands of life-saving visas for Jews fleeing the Nazis, has been exaggerated. (JTA)

?  A South Carolina school district is considering banning The Fixer, Bernard Malamud’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about antisemitism. The book was the subject of a landmark 1982 Supreme Court case that limited local school districts’ ability to censor books, but some experts say may be ripe for a challenge. (JTA)

✍️  A letter Albert Einstein wrote to American Jewish students in 1950, rebutting the biblical story of creation, is up for auction. The document is valued at $125,000. (Religion News Service)

?  The Escape Artist, the award-winning 2022 book about the first Jew to break out of Auschwitz, is set to be turned into a limited TV series. Watch our interview with the book’s author. (Deadline)

What else we’re reading ➤  A new musical spotlights the Nazi persecution of LGBTQ+ people … A visit to the Lower East Side’s Tenement Museum inspires a new picture book … Why Jews are flocking to Loop, a new dating app where users do the matchmaking.

What we’re listening to ➤  Beth Harpaz, who shepherds our Bintel Brief, and Chana Pollack, the Foward’s archivist, gave a behind-the-scenes look at our century-old advice column in this podcast from the Canadian Jewish News.

ON THE CALENDAR

On this day in history (1901): Ida Mett, a Belarusian anarchist and physician, was born. Mett spent the years leading up to World War II advocating for the working class as a writer and activist in Europe, and later found refuge in France with another Jewish activist, Boris Souvarine. 

It’s National Moon Day, which commemorates the day humans first walked on the moon in 1969. An Israeli startup is now working on a way to get back to the lunar surface.

‘THAT JEWISH NEWS SHOW’

Comedian Alex Edelman’s one-man show on Broadway tells the incredible true story of how he infiltrated a meeting of white supremacists. He joined Laura and I on Wednesday to chat about antisemitism, the Christmas movie he’s writing and why he wants to spend quality time with Louis Farrakhan. Watch our conversation above, or subscribe to That Jewish News Show wherever you get podcasts to listen on the go.

—

Thanks to Mira Fox, PJ Grisar, Gall Sigler and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected].