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| Today's newsletter is sponsored by University of California Press JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT. Give a tax-deductible donation Starbucks chief makes bizarre Holocaust reference, Helen Mirren begins filming Golda Meir movie, Kanye West wants to start a Christian kibbutz and much more. OUR LEAD STORY Is a violent Marvel comics hero with Nazi symbolism inspiring Israeli soldiers?
Several Israeli soldiers and police officers have been spotted with a surprising emblem adorning their uniforms: the skull worn by the Marvel comics character “The Punisher” – and reminiscent of one used by the notorious Nazi-era S.S. We’ve partnered with Shomrim, a nonprofit investigative newsroom in Israel, to try and unpack what’s going on.
The backstory: The Punisher, launched in the 1970s, is known for a violent brand of vigilante justice. After the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the character gained renewed popularity among American law-enforcement officials and troops. Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL who inspired Clint Eastwood’s 2014 movie “American Sniper,” wrote admiringly of the Punisher in his autobiography. “He killed bad guys,” Kyle said. “He made wrongdoers fear him.” In 2017, Netflix produced “The Punisher” action series.
Co-opting a symbol: The Oath Keepers, a far-right group in the U.S. also embraced the Punisher and its emblem, along with neo-Nazis and supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theories.
Official response: When Shomrim asked about officers using the logo, a police spokesman brushed it off, saying “You want us to take disciplinary action because of some sticker?” The military, meanwhile, said it would instruct anyone with the insignia on their uniforms to remove it, and “hold conversations with soldiers regarding the historical significance of the symbol.”
ALSO IN THE FORWARD A Jewish prisoner, an S.S. officer, a forbidden relationship – and an absolutely stunning documentary. There seems little doubt that Franz Wunsch was intensely in love with Helena Citron, a pretty and talented Jewish inmate in Auschwitz. Her feelings for him, however, remain ambiguous. It is indeed the unanswered core question of the film that our reviewer, Simi Horwitz, says “is totally unfamiliar in subject and tone, and has the stature of great nuanced fiction.” Read the review >
In Brazil, 8,000 Christians have adopted Orthodox Jewish customs — a scholar is trying to figure out why.They study the Talmud, keep kosher and have rabbis perform circumcisions. “They are very interested in Jewish culture in general and the notion of nurturing its intellectual background,” says Manoela Carpenedo, an anthropologist, “because Pentecostal worship is usually seen as anti-intellectual, more charismatic.” Read the story >
But wait, there’s more… Jewish leaders and New York politicians mingled at a conference in Puerto Rico aimed at courting Latino voters. Our Jacob Kornbluh was there. A TV pundit known as the French Tucker Carlson is Jewish, may be a presidential candidate, and is flirting with an antisemitic dogwhistle. Becoming the 57th governor of New York earlier this summer came with a personal price for Kathy Hochul: canceling her family trip to Israel over Thanksgiving weekend. Elie Wiesel, who died in 2016, has published a new posthumous book about the lives of biblical prophets, talmudists and leaders of the Hasidic world.
A message from our sponsor: University of California Press Ruth Bader Ginsburg's last book is a curation of her own legacy Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue is a collaboration between Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Amanda L. Tyler, a Berkeley Law professor and former Ginsburg law clerk. This book brings together materials that share details from Ginsburg's family life and long career including briefs and oral arguments, speeches, and her favorite opinions that she wrote as a Supreme Court Justice. LEARN MORE
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY ☕️ Howard Schultz, Starbucks’ chairman emeritus, compared the camaraderie of working at the company to concentration camp prisoners sharing blankets during the Holocaust. “So much of that story is threaded into what we have tried to do at Starbucks is share our blanket,” said Schultz, who is Jewish. The company is fighting off a unionization effort in Buffalo. (Forward)
⚖️ The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in the religious-liberty case of a death-row inmate who is a Messianic Jew. The inmate, John Henry Ramirez, filed a lawsuit against Texas prison officials for denying his request to have his Baptist pastor lay hands on him and pray when he is executed. The high court halted his Sept. 8 execution to hear the case. (AP)
✝️ Kanye West is calling for a “Christian kibbutz” movement. “Jewish people have this type of circular community,” West, who has visited Israel several times, said on a podcast. “It’s better to have a grandparent taking care of the kids than a nanny taking care of kids – hired love.” (JTA)
🧬 One of the first tourists allowed back in Israel, after an 19-month shutdown due to the pandemic, was a man whose family thought he had died in the Holocaust as a toddler. It was a reunion decades in the making, after a simple DNA test revealed the man had cousins in the holy land. “I almost fell over,” one relative said. (WSJ)
🕎 Padma Lakshmi’s “Taste the Nation,” the acclaimed food docuseries, returned to Hulu this weekend – with schmaltz. In a special Hanukkah episode, Lakshmi visits Russ & Daughters, the Pickle Guys and other New York Jewish mainstays. Lakshmi also talks to a Holocaust survivor who took in the memory of her father openly reading the Forward on the subway. “I’m in America, I can do as I wish,” she imagined him thinking. (JTA)
📺 Season 4 of “Fauda” has begun production in Israel. No word yet on when it will be available for bingeing on Netflix. (Instagram)
What we’re listening to > The new true-crime podcast “Shadow of Truth,” based on the Netflix series of the same name, which takes a deep dive into a 2006 murder case involving a 13-year-old Israeli girl and a school janitor. New DNA evidence has raised questions about the janitor’s conviction.
ON THE CALENDAR On this day in history: Carl Sagan, astronomer and planetary scientist, was born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, on Nov. 9, 1934. Sagan is perhaps best known for his research into extraterrestrial life, and when NASA leaders wanted to send a message into outer space in 1977, they asked for his help. He came up with the idea to send a vinyl record filled with songs of humpback whales, crickets and frogs; brainwaves; and spoken greetings in 59 languages. It also included Beethoven’s Opus 130 and Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode. Plated in gold, it was constructed to survive for a billion years.
In honor of Louisiana Day, read about Abrom Kaplan, the founder of the town of Kaplan in the Louisiana bayou, who went from peddler to mogul within two decades.
PHOTO OF THE DAY Guy Nattiv, an Academy Award-winning Israeli director, began filming in London on the set of “Golda,” a biopic starring Helen Mirren. “This is more than just a movie,” he said. “It’s an important story about an incredible pioneer woman who made history and confronted unbelievable challenges.” The film, he added, is dedicated to “the 2,656 casualties of war who never came back home and the ones who are still living the horrors and nightmares of the Yom Kippur war.”
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