What the Johnny Depp news portends for an upcoming trial involving antisemitism, President Biden sets date for Mideast trip, California bill allows some swastikas, and a review of new Israeli spy thriller. Plus: Play today's Vertl puzzle, the Yiddish Wordle |
Rachel Strugatsky with her Territorial Defense Forces I.D. card. |
She could leave Ukraine, but stays to preserve its Jewish future Today is the 100th day of war in Ukraine. To mark the grim milestone, our Kyiv correspondent, Helen Chervitz, tells the story of one woman, Rachel Strugatsky. There and back: Strugatsky, now 46, was born in Eastern Ukraine, where the Russian onslaught has flattened the landscape. Her family made aliyah when she was a teenager, and she worked as a nurse in Jerusalem for a few years before returning to her native country. She got married and became a teacher at a Jewish day school.
A new war, an old job: Since the Russian invasion, many of her students have moved away. She signed up for the Territorial Defense Forces, and mentioned her previous career at Hadassah Hospital in Israel.
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Strugatsky with other volunteers in the kitchen of Kyiv's Brodsky Synagogue in May. |
Sanctuary in a sanctuary: Strugatsky has spent the past 100 days — and many nights — in Kyiv’s central synagogue, heading up its efforts to treat casualties of war. She went into triage mode, treating injuries from shrapnel and blunt force, and administering pills and injections as supplies allow. Nourishing the soul: She also feeds anyone who shows up hungry. For Shabbat, Strugatsky cooks in the synagogue’s kitchen for her own family and people she has never met. Around Purim she convinced a bakery, which had closed when the war began, to open temporarily so she could bake mounds of hamantaschen. In her words: “I wholeheartedly believe in Ukraine’s bright future.” Read the story ➤ |
Johnny Depp sits in his vehicle as he departs the Fairfax County Courthouse. (Getty) |
Opinion | The Johnny Depp verdict spells trouble for upcoming trial with Jewish overtones: This week’s court ruling that Depp was defamed when his ex-wife, Amber Heard, described herself as a representative of domestic abuse, does not bode well for Evan Rachel Wood, the Jewish actress who faces a parallel lawsuit by her ex-fiance, the musician Marilyn Manson. Wood has accused Manson of abuse, saying he used a Nazi whip and drew a swastika on her nightstand. Manson is close friends with Depp, and Depp’s fans are now gleefully tweeting that they “can’t wait” for the public humiliation of Wood to begin. Read the essay ➤ What we’re watching this weekend: For fans of “Fauda,” the second season of “Tehran,” an Israeli spy thriller from the same producer, is now available on Apple TV+. The New York Times described the series as “24” meets “The Americans” in Iran. Glenn Close has joined the cast and the international budget increased — where the first season featured cramped apartments, this one showcases pool parties at opulent mansions. “‘Tehran’ is no longer a show that gives insight into the frustrations of Iranian youth or the identity conflict of Israeli immigrants,” writes our digital-culture critic, Mira Fox. “It’s just a Bond ripoff with a dash of Farsi.” Read her review ➤
And one more: A new book explores why the oldest Jewish ghetto in the world still matters.
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WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
✈️ President Joe Biden will arrive in Israel on June 23, Hebrew news outlets reported this morning. The White House has not yet released details of the trip but the news reports said his itinerary includes meetings with both Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Biden will also visit Saudi Arabia, a state he had vowed to make a “pariah,” and meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. (Times of Israel, New York Times) ✍️ A new California hate-crimes bill differentiates Nazi swastikas and a similar-looking symbol that has religious and peaceful meaning for Hindus, Buddhists and Jain. Displaying the Nazi version with the intent to terrorize would be a crime under the new law, but the other would be allowed. (J. The Jewish News of Northern California) 💰 Twenty-eight senators signed a letter calling for an increase in the budget of the office of the antisemitism envoy to $1.5 million from $1 million. Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota was the only Republican who signed the letter, which cited a global rise in antisemitism. Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada, who led the effort, said that it's critical that Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt “have all of the resources her office needs to succeed in the mission to protect Jewish communities around the world.” (Jewish Insider) 🤦 Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor, defended his remarks comparing gun-control legislation to Hitler’s policies. “Historically, this is accurate,” Mastriano said in response to a Forward article by our senior political reporter, Jacob Kornbluh about a 2018 video in which Mastriano likened Democratic-proposed gun laws to the Nazis’ confiscation of weapons from political opponents and Jews. (Penn Live) ✝️ The New York and Washington bureaus of the Catholic News Service, founded in 1921, will close at the end of the year. The wire service, run by the U.S. Catholic Bishops, provided articles to publications worldwide; the Rome bureau will continue to operate. Pope Francis said the service had “provided an invaluable contribution to the English-speaking world.” (Religion News Service) Shiva call ➤ Boris Pahor, a novelist who survived the Nazi camps, died at 108. “Pahor’s extraordinary longevity,” Benjamin Ivry writes in our appreciation, “allowed time for even longtime neglect by literary career-makers to be finally resolved in an old age of eminence and continued ardent advocacy.” Another shiva call ➤ Andrée Geulen-Herscovici, a Belgian teacher who hid Jewish children during Holocaust, died at 101.
Long weekend reads ➤ The rise of the online synagogue … The inside story of the NSO Group, Israel’s notorious commercial spyware, and the big tech companies waging war against it … What happens when a group of Mormons decide to stage a production of “Fiddler on the Roof”?
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Print out a copy of our weekend magazine: In this issue: How the war in Ukraine is making young Americans reconsider their Soviet Jewish identity; a look at Jews who were among baseball’s all-time greats – but converted after their careers ended; and 10 Jewish things you probably didn’t know about Superman. Did you know he was partly modeled after Samson and the Golem of Prague? Get your copy now ➤ |
Rabbi Sally J. Priesand, America’s first female rabbi, was ordained on June 3, 1972. (Courtesy) |
On this day in history: Sally J. Priesand became the first woman to be ordained as a rabbi in the United States on June 3, 1972. Born in Cleveland, Priesand graduated from Hebrew Union College at its then-thriving Cincinnati outpost and eventually became the rabbi at a Reform synagogue in Monmouth, New Jersey. “Early on, I developed a protective shield around myself so that hurtful comments (such as why women shouldn’t be rabbis) would simply bounce off,” Priesand wrote in the Forward last November. “I was very much aware that many people thought I came to marry a rabbi rather than be one.”
Last year on this day, we reported that Jon Scheyer, a star college basketball player who also played for Maccabi Tel Aviv, would replace the legendary Mike Krzyzewski as Duke’s basketball coach. In Scheyer’s first year, the team was 32-7 and made it to the Elite Eight in the NCAA tournament.
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The festival of Shavuot begins Saturday after sundown. For centuries, Jewish children in eastern Europe had a memorable way of celebrating the spring festival: they decorated their homes with greenery and original paper cuttings, known in Yiddish as shvueslekh (little shavuoses) or reyzelekh (little roses). It’s a tradition that many families still observe, as you can see in the above examples, sent in by our readers.
If you or someone you know hangs shvueslekh — or did years ago — please email photos of them to our Yiddish editor, Rukhl Schaechter (schaechter@forward.com), and we’ll share more. Chag sameach!
––– Thanks to Nora Berman, Rukhl Schaechter, Eliya Smith and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com. |
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