Forwarding the News is taking the rest of the week off. You’ll still get an email with the top stories in your inbox each morning. And this newsletter will be back on Monday. Today: Adidas sued over Kanye mess, Hasidic sect bans artificial intelligence, Jew who fled persecution in Iran is running against George Santos, and Barbra Streisand wins the 'Jewish Nobel.' |
'In dating and in life, humans are human,' said Aleeza Ben Shalom, the star of 'Jewish Matchmaking.' (Netflix) |
I’m beginning to think Netflix is run by rabbis. Shtisel. Fauda. Unorthodox. My Unorthodox Life. Last week: a Yiddish crime drama. And on Wednesday, the debut of a show called Jewish Matchmaking. It stars Aleeza Ben Shalom, a real-life matchmaker who has successfully sent 200 couples to the chuppah. Laura E. Adkins and I interviewed her yesterday for our new podcast, That Jewish News Show.
Low-percentage shot: “Dating is a failure every single time until you meet the one,” she said. “You could date 100 people; 99 are wrong. What kind of track record is that? It’s lousy. That’s why I say matchmaking is the most difficult job to do.”
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Tall, dark and handsome: Ben Shalom said she is “mostly not shocked” when her clients describe their perfect mate with surface details about physical looks. Yet she advises seekers to “put chemistry aside,” saying “fireworks, to me, are a red flag.” About time: “If you want to find your person, never stop looking,” she told us. “You can take a break. You can go on vacation, you can do other things. You can have your job, you can have your work, but don’t give up hope.” Subscribe to “That Jewish News Show” on your favorite podcast app. Related: Watch our interview with with Julia Haart, the star of Netflix’s My Unorthodox Life. |
Former New York State Sen. Anna Kaplan is running against Rep. George Santos, inset. (Kevin P. Coughlin; Getty) |
Meet Rep. George Santos’ latest Jewish challenger: Anna Kaplan, a former Democratic state senator from Nassau County who fled persecution in Iran as a girl, presents herself as a stark contrast to Santos, a freshman Republican who has lied about his grandparents fleeing anti-Jewish persecution during World War II. Kaplan filed campaign paperwork on Monday, and has previously said she would like the chance to “represent this community with honor and distinction.” Read the story ➤ For a Native American playwright’s Broadway debut, this superstar Jewish director got the call:Tony winner Rachel Chavkin is helming Larissa FastHorse’s The Thanksgiving Play, a searing satire about well-meaning white people’s attempt to stage a woke Thanksgiving pageant. While initially hesitant, as a white woman, to take on the play, Chavkin told our contributor Mervyn Rothstein that her upbringing made this project special. Read the story ➤ Plus… A Hasidic sect in Rockland County, New York, banned the use of artificial intelligence programs like ChatGPT, saying the technology poses a “terrible danger.”
Succession, the popular HBO drama, has a great mind for history. Nothing proved it quite so well as an offensive Holocaust meme from Sunday’s episode.
New York officials are set to open the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospital today in South Brooklyn. The 11-story complex can withstand a storm worse than Hurricane Sandy. |
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
Former Adidas CMO Eric Liedtke, left, and Kanye West, in 2016. (Getty)
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👟 Adidas is being sued by its shareholders over the company’s $534 million in lost revenue after severing its partnership with Kanye West. Their lawsuit claims the company knew about the rapper’s antisemitism and other “extreme” views, including that slavery was a “choice,” before it severed ties with him. (CNN) 👑 King Charles decided his coronation on Saturday will include leaders of faiths beyond Christianity. It’s the first British coronation to do so. The U.K.’s chief rabbi and his wife plan to sleep over at Clarence House, a short walk from Buckingham Palace, so they do not have to violate their Shabbat observance to attend. (Washington Post, AP) 🇵🇸 A Palestinian prisoner died Tuesday morning after an 86-day hunger strike. Gaza militants fired three rockets toward southern Israel after news of the death was announced, and Israeli prisons are preparing for riots. (Haaretz) 💻 Israel is increasingly using facial recognition software to track Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, according to a report released today from Amnesty International. An IDF spokesperson said it performs “necessary security and intelligence operations.” (Times of Israel) 🇺🇸🇮🇱 House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said in a speech to the Knesset on Monday that “in a democracy, you want to have checks and balances, and you want to have separation of powers.” But he also said that Israel alone “can decide what it wants to do” about the judicial overhaul that has sparked mass protests nationwide. (Haaretz) ✝️ Pastors for Trump, a group planning 2024 campaign events for the former president in swing states, is under fire for embracing Christian nationalism. One critic called it “a threat to our democracy.” (Guardian) 😞 Jeremy Gordin, a prominent South African journalist, was murdered in a burglary at his Johannesburg home. Gordin, 70, wrote ominously about the rise in crime in the country; in a recent column, he suggested that his children “need to consider seriously going to live elsewhere,” invoking Jewish history by saying: “We’ve been doing it for centuries.” Seven people have been arrested for the March 31 killing, which the authorities describe as a robbery gone wrong. (JTA) 🎭 Actor Steve Guttenberg (Cocoon, Police Academy, Three Men and a Baby) has turned his memoir, The Guttenberg Bible, into a stage production. It’s playing through May 21 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and Guttenberg hopes to bring it to other cities. (JTA) Quotable ➤ “As a proud Jew and gay man, this fight is personal to me.” – State Rep. Noah Arbit, a Michigan Democrat, introducing legislation to strengthen hate crime laws. Mazel tov ➤ To Barbra Streisand who is set to receive this year’s Genesis Prize, sometimes called the “Jewish Nobel.” Streisand said she plans on donating the $1 million prize to charity. (JTA) Shiva call ➤ Rabbi Meir Hershkowitz, the head of Yeshiva Bais Binyomin of Stamford, Connecticut, died at 89.
What else we’re reading ➤ A star of Netflix’s Stranger Things proposed to his girlfriend in front of the Western Wall … Church buildings in North Carolina are being turned into homes for refugees … A coronation was once a time to weep for the Jewish community, but today, it is a time for great celebration, writes the U.K.’s chief rabbi. |
On this day in history (1860): Theodor Herzl was born in Budapest. Before becoming widely recognized as the father of modern Zionism, Herzl worked as a journalist, playwright and lawyer. Derek Penslar, author of a 2020 biography of Herzl, said that he was surprised by Herzl’s charismatic appeal not only to Jews but to non-Jews who saw him as “a kind of Moses figure.”
In honor of National Teacher Appreciation Day, check out this recent essay by a teacher who works in a prison and whose student had a swastika tattoo.
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I’m headed to Toronto today for the world premiere of The Man Who Stole Einstein’s Brain, a documentary about the pathologist who performed Einstein’s autopsy and absconded with the brain in what is perhaps the greatest heist of the 20th century.
I wrote about the missing brain in my forthcoming book about Einstein. The brain was kept in a beer cooler in the doctor’s basement for decades and I was able to track it down. (Spoiler alert: It’s mushy.) I appear in the film, which should be available to stream later this year. In the meantime, you can watch the trailer above.
--- Thanks to Laura E. Adkins, PJ Grisar, Rebecca Salzhauer and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com. |
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