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JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.

Good morning! I’m Talya Zax, the Forward’s innovation editor, filling in this week on the Forwarding desk. Today: An antisemitic sanitation manager in Chicago, rumored Nazi gold in a confirmed Nazi brothel and the latest in politics from our Jacob Kornbluh.

BUFFALO SHOOTING

A memorial near a Tops Grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y,, where a gunman killed 10 on Saturday. (Usman Khan/Getty)

President Biden said on Sunday that the 18-year-old who killed 10 people and wounded three others at a Buffalo supermarket on Saturday was “armed with weapons of war and a hate-filled soul.” He plans to travel to Buffalo on Tuesday to meet with victims’ families.

With news that the gunman had been investigated last June after making a threatening remark at his high school, Gov. Kathy Hochul promised a crackdown on hate speech. And Buffalo’s police commissioner said Sunday that the attack would “be prosecuted as a hate crime.” Jewish groups responded with statements of outrage and solidarity.

While the shooter targeted Black people, his manifesto included antisemitic rants: The teenage gunman said in his screed posted online that he was inspired in part by the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue massacre and a 2019 attack on a synagogue in Germany. The manifesto denounced Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn, Lakewood, N.J., and other places and tracked the “great replacement” conspiracy theory that posits nefarious forces are deliberately working to “replace” white people with immigrants, people of color and Jews. Read the story ➤

Our language columnist, Aviya Kushner, explained the antisemitic roots of “replacement theory” last year. With Tucker Carlson and others openly talking about this conspiracy on television, she said, “we are witnessing the platforming of a melding of racist and sexist ideology, powered by anti-immigrant sentiment and virulent antisemitism — and it is a combination that is increasingly comfortable in the public eye.” Read the column ➤

THE WEEK IN POLITICS

A makeshift memorial to Shireen Abu Akleh in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. (Mandel Ngan/Getty)

Israel is facing criticism from Washington for the police violence against mourners at Friday’s funeral of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. The Biden administration has urged Israel and the Palestinian Authority to engage in a joint investigation of the killing of Abu Akleh while she was covering an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank that prompted Palestinian protest.

In an appearance on CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” Israel’s consul general in New York, called the killing a “tragedy” but also said that 19 Israelis had been slain by Palestinians over the past month “just sitting in their cars, having beers, walking in the park — just for being Jewish and living in Israel.”

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett seemed to have found another lifeline for his fragile governing coalition last week. Bennett convinced an ally to resign a cabinet post and return to the Knesset, providing a key vote there. But on Friday, a senior Bennett adviser resigned amid tension.

Five states have primary elections on Tuesday: Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Kentucky, Idaho and Oregon. Here are some of the races to watch:

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Trump-endorsed television star vying to become the first Muslim member of the U.S. Senate, faces David McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO, and Kathy Barnette, a hard-right conservative who’s surging in the polls, for the Republican Senate nomination in Pennsylvania.
In that state’s governor race, Trump endorsed Doug Mastriano, who would face Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in the general election.
In the 12th Congressional district, which includes Pittsburgh pro-Israel groups have spent at least $2.8 million on the Democratic primary, aiming to hurt Summer Lee, an ally of Sen. Bernie Sanders, and boost Steve Irwin, a former aide to the late Sen. Arlen Specter and former cantor at the Tree of Life Synagogue.
In North Carolina, the groups have spent $2.3 million backing State Sen. Valerie Foushee against Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam, a critic of Israel, in the 4th Congressional District; and $4 million opposing Erica Smith, a progressive backed by J Street, in the 1st district.
In Texas, Jessica Cisneros, who is also endorsed by J Street, is challenging Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, who is co-chair of Congress’s Caucus for the Advancement of Torah Values (though he is not Jewish).

Speaking of Senator Sanders, he engaged in a rare exchange with AIPAC Friday on Twitter, accusing the group of using the money of billionaires to defeat progressive candidates. And in a new book, a former aide says Sanders took pride in being a Jewish presidential candidate, despite his reluctance to discuss it. The aide, Ari Rabin Havt, also reveals some behind-the-scenes moments of Sanders’ unconventional 2020 campaign. Read highlights from the book ➤

And back in New York, Governor Hochul hired a new director of Jewish outreach: Yoel Lefkowitz, who is Hasidic and formerly advised Attorney General Letitia James. Hochul is competing for Orthodox support with U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi in the June 28 gubernatorial primary.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Police tape outside Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods, California. (Ringo Chiu/Getty)

😢 A mass shooting at a California church on Sunday continued a troubling trend of attacks on houses of worship. A gunman opened fire during a lunch event, killing one and wounding five — four critically — before congregants subdued him. The assault came four months to the day after a gunman took hostages at a synagogue in Texas. (Reuters)

😞 The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned Israeli police violence at Friday’s funeral of the Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.Separately, Al-Jazeera, for with Abu Akleh worked, marked the first anniversary of an Israeli attack on its Gaza office, and a 21-year-old Palestinian man died Saturday of an injury sustained from a rubber bullet fired by Israeli police last month. (The Hill, Al-Jazeera, Washington Post)

😩 A German 16-year-old arrested on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack had antisemitic materials at home — and explosives. The authorities said he planned to bomb a high school. Germany reported a 28% rise in antisemitic hate crimes in 2021; last week, arson was reported at a Jewish cemetery near Cologne. (JTA)

😨 A Chicago sanitation official retired after being caught calling a rabbi a “f***ing Jew” in a voicemail message. A city government investigation had recommended he be fired. (Block Club Chicago)

🤷 Is a palace-turned-Nazi-brothel hiding secret Nazi treasure? Treasure hunters have pursued rumors of long-hidden Nazi loot for decades. Now, some think they’ve struck gold — sorry — under the Minkowskie Palace in southern Poland, which during World War II was a hush-hush brothel servicing SS officers. (Insider)

🕍 Philadelphia’s Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History is reopening for the first time since the pandemic. The museum closed its doors in March 2020, just two weeks after beginning bankruptcy proceedings. A gift from footwear icon Stuart Weitzman helped the museum back on its feet, and led to its renaming. (WHYY)

😔 A Jerusalem auction house is planning to sell items related to the 1913 lynching of Leo Frank, including a postcard depicting his hanging body. Frank was accused of murdering a 13-year-old girl. He was posthumously pardoned in 1986.

Mazel tov ➤ Manchester’s Jewish Museum Cafe took home the coveted award for Cafe of the Year at the U.K.’s 2022 Museum and Heritage Awards. The year-old restaurant features vegetarian takes on Jewish classics, including a vegetarian matzo ball soup (Manchester Evening News)

What else we’re reading ➤ Does it really matter who betrayed Anne Frank? … Meet the first Reform rabbi in the Knesset … After two years of COVID shutdown, a Jewish festival on a Tunisian island returns.

ON THE CALENDAR

Police examine the decimated terrace of a restaurant after terrorists targeted Jewish sites in Casablanca. (Getty)

On this day in history: Suicide bombers in Casablanca, Morocco, killed 33 people on May 16, 2003. None of the victims were Jewish, but three of the five bombs had targeted Jewish sites: a cemetery, community center and Jewish-owned restaurant. Before the attack, “we had confidence in the future,” the restaurant owner told The Washington Post at the time. “I think all that has collapsed.” Today, Morocco’s Jewish population is about 2,000, down from about 280,000 in 1948.

On the Hebrew calendar, it’s the 15th of Iyar when, in 1945, the Dachau concentration camp was liberated.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Orthodox Jews attended a Sunday march for the Naqba and a slain Palestinian journalist. (Alex Kent/Getty)

A Brooklyn march marking the anniversary of the Naqba, the 1948 eviction of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in the war that led to the establishment of the modern state of Israel, honored the Palestinian-American journalist killed last week while covering Israeli military operations in the occupied West Bank. Orthodox Jews were among the hundreds who attended the Brooklyn event.

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Thanks to Lauren Hakimi and Jacob Kornbluh for contributing to today's newsletter.

You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com.

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