This article is part of our morning briefing. Click here to get it delivered to your inbox each weekday. On the ground at a raucous Jerusalem protest
As tens of thousands of Israelis marched in the streets this weekend to voice their concern that the future of Israeli democracy is at stake after the Knesset passed a controversial law limiting the power of the country’s courts, our reporter Mira Fox was in Jerusalem to take in the scene. An unexpected holiday mood: “In some ways, the anti-government protest in Jerusalem on Saturday night felt like a Purim spiel,” Mira writes. Any time a speaker “said the name of a minister they detested, the crowd of thousands erupted, drowning out the speech with noisemakers — drums, pots and pans they brought from home, or shrill plastic horns in an array of bright colors.” A country divided: “The current discord is exacerbating issues that had seemed settled,” Mira explains. “Divisions between Sephardim and Ashkenazim; the right and left; the residents of cities and settlements; the religious and the secular.” One friend told her that “Israel is now two countries.” Larger issues: One faction of the protesters held signs criticizing Israel’s occupation of the West Bank — an issue that they see as deeply connected to the current constitutional crisis. One protester told Mira that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is “seeking increased power and control, and trying to mold Israel into a homogenous, totalitarian state.” |
Related: A Wall Street billionaire funded a think tank that devised key aspects of Israel’s controversial judicial overhaul reforms. Now, he has said he will stop bankrolling the group because of concerns over the future of Israeli democracy. |
Inspired by Chabad and a teenage mom, he’s given more than a million books to kids in need: The Philadelphia–area nonprofit Booksmiles opens its doors every Sunday to teachers, many of whom struggle to stock their classroom libraries, and some who travel from two hours away to collect boxes of books divided by age level. Our intern Gall Sigler paid founder Larry Abrams a visit at his 4,300-square-foot warehouse in Pennsauken, New Jersey. Abrams said that an experience he had as a child, of reading a book sent to his home by Chabad, “really sparked something in me.” Read the story ➤
Opinion | How you get to shul is not as important as whether you live a Jewish life: The Conservative movement recently issued two opposite rulings on whether it is permissible to use electric cars to drive to synagogue on Shabbat. “But given the movement’s declining numbers,” writes Roberta Rosenthal Kwall, a professor who has studied the cultural influences on halacha, “it seems as though it would be a better use of the leadership’s time to focus on empowering Conservative Jews to deepen their connection to traditional observance.” Read the essay ➤ |
‘Dirty Dancing’ and the Yiddish Camelot it captured: Dirty Dancing, which turns 36 this summer, struck a chord with many American Jews who recognized the characters, the Borscht Belt comedy and the Catskills resort experience as quintessentially Jewish. We asked our resident illustrator, Dennis Eisenberg, to capture the movie’s religious, cultural and political moments. See the drawings ➤
Have you been following the headlines? Kanye West returns to Twitter; the takeover of an Orthodox shul in Budapest; and a fast food restaurant nixed its Holocaust-themed menu. Take our weekly news quiz. |
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
Jamie Foxx in March at the 2023 Miami Open tennis tournament. (Getty) |
? Academy Award-winning actor Jamie Foxx deleted and apologized for an Instagram post that some saw as antisemitic. Foxx also reached out privately to the Anti-Defamation League. “His message of love for the Jewish community is crucial in this time of rising hate,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL. (USA Today, Twitter) ?? An Israeli security guard was killed by a Palestinian gunman in Tel Aviv on Saturday. The attack came after a Palestinian man was shot and killed by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank on Friday night. (JTA) ?? An Israeli missile attack targeting Damascus, Syria’s capital, killed four soldiers, wounded four more and caused “some material damage,” Syrian state media reported early on Monday. While Israel doesn’t comment on specific actions taken within Syria, it has conducted targeted strikes in the country aiming to stop Iran-backed groups from gaining influence. (Times of Israel) ?? The city of York in northeast England has welcomed its first resident rabbi since a pogrom wiped out the Jewish community 800 years ago. (Guardian) ? Teachers, and students returning to school in Louisiana this fall will see some new classroom décor: The state last week passed a law requiring public schools to display a poster bearing the motto “In God We Trust” in every classroom. (The Hill) ? A new reality series on the streaming service Max follows nine people lost at sea for three weeks, including a Messianic “rabbi.” Spoiler alert: He suffered an on-camera seizure on the first episode and left the show. (JTA)
Shiva calls ➤ Florence Berger, a Cornell professor who had a second career as a successful matchmaker, died at 83 … Mark Margolis, the character actor best known for playing the mute, wheelchair-bound Hector Salamanca on Breaking Bad, died at 83. |
On this day in history (1888): Jack the Ripper committed his first murder in London’s East End. As the serial killer gained infamy and Scotland Yard detectives worked to discover the Ripper’s identity, suspicions turned to Aaron Kosminski, a Jewish hairdresser. Despite a 2015 book claiming mitochondrial DNA proved Kosminski’s guilt, the question of whether Jack the Ripper was a member of the tribe is still up for debate. |
Israel’s Inbar Lanir, second from left, won the gold medal Sunday at the Hungarian Masters 2023 Judo championship in Budapest. Lanir, 23, is on a hot streak: She previously won gold at the Grand Slam tournament in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, in June, and at the World Judo Championship in Doha in May. She represented Israel at the 2020 Olympics, and plans to do so again in Paris in 2024. — Thanks to Rebecca Salzhauer and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected]. |
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