This article is part of our morning briefing. Click here to get it delivered to your inbox each weekday. Can the execution of a Jewish prisoner in Texas be stopped? Supporters are praying for a miracle Attorney Alan Dershowitz, known for his defense of controversial high-profile clients, has joined a last-ditch effort to stop the execution of a Jewish man on death row, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Oct. 10. Our Beth Harpaz has the details. The case: Jedidiah Murphy, now 48, murdered 79-year-old Bertie Cunningham on Oct. 4, 2000. Dershowitz, a former Harvard law professor, argues that very few cases in Texas merit the death penalty, and are usually “reserved for the most heinous repeat offenders,” which, he says, Murphy is not. He also cites Murphy’s history of mental illness. Jewish response: Several synagogues and Jewish groups put appeals for Murphy’s case in their High Holiday messages and have organized letter-writing campaigns on his behalf. “He is remorseful,” said Abraham Bonowitz, co-founder of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty. “He can be a productive member of the prison community. Nobody is advocating that he be freed.”
Book of life: Dershowitz hopes to plead his case directly to the Texas governor, and says that he spent part of Yom Kippur working on the case. “I went to shul, I fasted, but the saving of human life — pikuach nefesh — is more important than davening.” |
The campus of the University of Alberta. (Wikimedia) |
The spiraling scandal that began Friday when Canada’s parliament gave a standing ovation to a 98-year-old war vet who fought with the Nazis shows no sign of slowing down. First in Forwarding: We’re breaking news this morning that the University of Alberta in Canada is returning a donation from the family of the vet, Yaroslav Hunka. His sons created an endowment in their parents’ honor in 2019 totaling $30,000 Canadian (about $22,237 U.S.). “The university recognizes and regrets the unintended harm caused,” the provost told us late Wednesday night. Read the story ➤ Previously in this saga… How you can help: This coverage is part of our larger effort to catalog monuments around the world that honor Nazis and their allies. Our reporting has led to several cities removing or making changes to these displays. Your donation can help support our continued work on this project. |
Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb at a protest in 2015 in New York. (Courtesy) |
AIPAC said that Sen. Bob Menendez “deserves the presumption of innocence.” (Getty) |
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
GOP presidential candidates Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott on Wednesday night. (Getty) |
?? The topic of Israel, which featured prominently in the first Republican debate, barely got mentioned on Wednesday night in the second debate, as candidates instead talked about George Soros, former President Donald Trump and TikTok. (JTA) ?️? An LGBTQ+ student group at Rice University has cut ties with the school’s Hillel over its stance on Israel. The decision comes at a time when students at a range of universities say their support of Israel makes them feel unwelcome on campus. (JTA) ?? Israel’s High Court is hearing a case today about a new law passed by the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last March that makes it more difficult to remove the prime minister from office. (Haaretz) ? Roger Waters, the former Pink Floyd frontman known for using Nazi symbols on stage and for his anti-Israel views, sent his staff antisemitic emails and taunted a musician whose grandmother was murdered in the Holocaust, a new documentary claims. (USA Today, Ynet) ? The largest indoor water park in the United States, located inside a New Jersey mall, canceled its mixed-swimming hours next Monday and Wednesday to accommodate gender-segregated time for Orthodox clientele celebrating the festival of Sukkot. (JTA) ?️ “Three Jews walk into a bar” could be the setup of a joke. It’s also the name of a new art exhibit. (New York) Shiva call ➤ Dora Zaidenweber, a Holocaust survivor who lived in Minnesota since 1950, died at 99. What else we’re reading ➤ Amid rising antisemitism, Yiddish makes a comeback … New documentary follows Israeli who discovers family’s past as Egyptian spies … Meet the Jewish champion who helped invent modern boxing in 1700s England. |
On this day in history (1945): The film Mildred Pierce, a neo-noir starring Joan Crawford as a woman striving to secure a better life for her daughter, premiered. The film was directed by the Jewish Romanian director Michael Curtiz, who two years earlier won the Oscar for best director for Casablanca. Curtiz was born Manó Kaminer in Budapest in 1886, and became a highly renowned director in Europe before being lured to Hollywood in 1926.
Previews begin today for Stephen Sondheim’s final musical, Here We Are. “Making theater or film, or any kind of art, is a way of playing God,” writes our Talya Zax in a story about the show. |
You’ve read our recent stories by reporter Lev Golinkin about how a standing ovation for a 98-year-old war vet who fought with the Nazis led to the swift resignation of a top politician, and what deeper lessons can be learned about the tiny fragment of Ukrainians who fought alongside the Nazis. Lev joined our opinion editor, Laura E. Adkins, for a deeper dive into the story. — Thanks to Jodi Rudoren and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Beth Harpaz for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com. |
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