Ben & Jerry's big chill, mazels to Milwaukee, and Max Einstein's Civil War heroism

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In today’s briefing: Texas' strange new KKK law, the Jewish psychiatrist you'd never want to meet, Tel Aviv cracks down on dog poop and much more...

THE FRONT PAGE 🍦

THE BIG CHILL: Some Jews have decided to no longer enjoy a pint of Ben & Jerry's. (Photo by iStock)

Who knew ice cream could be this divisive?

Could New York ban Ben & Jerry’s? That’s just one of the questions our reporter Arno Rosenfeld asks in his new article about the Ben & Jerry’s meltdown.

Catching you up: The ice cream company announced on Monday that it would stop sales in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The decision immediately drew ire from pro-Israel advocates: some kosher supermarkets removed Ben & Jerry’s products from their shelves and rabbis posted pictures of themselves tossing Cherry Garcia into the trash. Online memes circulated with suggested new flavors like “Antisemint” and “Jihadi Coffee Toffee.”

So what does this mean? As my colleague Arno points out, this is the first high-profile test of new state “anti-BDS” laws which, to some degree or another, restrict business by companies that restrict business with Israel. New York is one of 35 states with such laws on their books – enacted to show support for Israel. “If those laws are applied in the case of Ben & Jerry’s,” Arno writes, “it could have repercussions far beyond whether or not workers are able to dig into a bowl of Cherry Garcia at state cafeterias in Albany. The Vermont company is owned by Unilever, a multinational company based in London with $50 billion in revenue from sales of products like Hellmann’s mayonnaise, Lipton tea and Dove personal care products.” Read the story >

Related: Abe Silberstein, a Forward contributing columnist, argues how the meltdown over Ben & Jerry’s may expose some fissures between the American Jewish community and Israel’s new government. Read the column >

Your turn: Are you going to stop buying Ben & Jerry's to protest the decision? Or, perhaps, congratulate the company for the move by stocking up? We want to hear your thoughts (and your favorite flavor). Send us an email at editorial@forward.com.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE 🪴

Martin Markowitz, showing off his apiary in the backyard of his Southampton home. (Photo by Debra Nussbaum Cohen)

His psychiatrist took control of his house, his bank account and his life. Now Will Ferrell is portraying him in a true-crime TV series: Martin Markowitz thought he was just going to see a psychiatrist for a routine appointment. Boy, was he wrong. Over 30 years, the doctor inserted himself into every aspect of Markowitz’s life. He named himself the sole recipient in Markowitz’s will. He convinced Markowitz to break off family relationships and reduced Markowitz to manual labor. He even hosted summer soirees for New York’s Jewish elite at the Markowitz Hamptons estate – guests thought poor Marty was a waiter. The story – which, we promise, has a satisfying ending – is now being turned into a TV series starring Will Ferrell as Markowitz and Paul Rudd as the doctor. “All I want is a nice quiet life,” the real Markowitz told us. “I am going to retire and travel the world with my girlfriend.” Read the story >

In Lakewood, N.J., a garden blooms: Amid raised beds of carrot tops and purple kale, Tova Herskovitz is on a mission. She’s trying to unify the Orthodox, Black and Latino residents in her community. Herskovitz said she was motivated by the pandemic, and escalating tensions through Black Lives Matter protests, the 2020 presidential campaign and the Jan. 6 insurrection. “A garden is about camaraderie and coming together over nature,” she said. “The more interaction and engagement we have with others helps humanize everyone.” Read the story >

6 OTHER THINGS AMERICAN JEWS ARE TALKING ABOUT ⚖️

John T. Earnest attacked the Chabad of Poway synagogue in 2019. (Photo by Nelvin C. Cepeda/Getty Images)

1. A former university student pleaded guilty Tuesday to shooting congregants at a Poway, Calif., synagogue during a Passover service in 2019, killing one person and injuring three others, including a child. John T. Earnest, now 22, will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. (CNN)

2. Mazel tov to Marc Lasry, co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, whose team defeated the Phoenix Suns to win the NBA championship Tuesday night. Lasry, who grew up in the Jewish community of Morocco, immigrated to the U.S. when he was 7. “You couldn’t do what I did anywhere else,” he once said at the Milwaukee Jewish Federation. (CBS News, Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle)

3. Three Brooklyn men have been charged with hate crimes. The defendants allegedly stated, “Kill all the Jews,” demanded that a Jewish man say, “Free Palestine,” punched him when he refused, and then chased him and a friend while holding a cricket bat. (Brooklyn D.A.'s office)

4. The Texas Senate has passed a bill to eliminate a requirement that public schools teach that the Ku Klux Klan is “morally wrong.” That same bill dropped Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech as a curriculum requirement. (HuffPost)

5. Tom Barrack, chairman of the Trump inaugural committee, was arrested Tuesday on charges that he unlawfully influenced the foreign policy positions of the campaign and administration to advance the interests of the United Arab Emirates. (Politico)

6. Tel Aviv moved this month to set up a dog DNA database – to help identify scofflaws who don’t pick up their pet’s poop. The city said the new law “will make it possible to perform samples for feces on the street, thus enforcing the law against the dog owner even after the offense has been committed.” (Times of Israel)

What else we’re reading: Yad Ezra, Michigan's only kosher food pantry, serves more than 1 million pounds of food a year … A new Israeli drama about an autistic boy is receiving high praise … Ancient Hebrew love poetry finds new audiences on YouTube.

FROM OUR YIDDISH SECTION 👇

“I was a Hebrew school nerd,” said Miriam Udel, 'It was like I suddenly had this new superpower.” (Photo by Yael Katz)

The Yiddish professor and female Orthodox rabbi sharing Yiddish children’s literature with the world: Yiddish speakers often say: “A sakh malokhes, veynik brokhes,” meaning that a jack-of-all-trades is typically blessed with few successes in life. Miriam Udel’s career runs contrary to the proverb. Udel teaches at Emory University and writes Yiddish children’s books. And she’s one of the fewer than 100 Orthodox female rabbis. Forverts deputy editor Jordan Kutzik spoke with Udel about her multi-hyphenate life. Read our profile >

The escapades of the worst shoemaker in the shtetl of Ostralenka: “To be fair, my father wasn’t the only bad shoemaker in Poland,” writes memoirist Harry Perkal. His dad was such a poor cobbler that, the joke went, the shoes would rip apart after a vigorous polishing. But his courage and determination helped their family survive the war in Russia. “A seemingly ordinary man, even a bit of a shlemazel, can still, when time demands it, be capable of rising to the occasion.” Read the essay >

ON THE CALENDAR 🗓

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

🐎 On this day in the 1800s: At the first battle of Bull Run at Manassas Junction in Virginia, Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson defeated the Union Army. As the soldiers from the north retreated, Colonel Max Einstein stayed behind to make sure his compatriots could safely escape. Einstein “returned to the field of battle at 11 o’clock on Sunday night and brought off six pieces of artillery, which he delivered to the commanding officer on the Potomac,” reported the Philadelphia Inquirer, adding that Einstein also captured 18 horses belonging to Confederate troops. “Einstein reports that the field was then clear, and not an enemy in sight.”

🎻 On this day in the 1900s: Violinist Isaac Stern, who received the the Presidential Medal of Freedom and six Grammy Awards, was born on July 21, 1920. He died in 2001.

🌭 Happy National Hot Dog Day! From our archives: Who makes the best kosher hot dog in America?

📚 Today at 3 p.m. ET: Join the Forward Book Club for its (virtual) discussion of "The Art of Leaving" by Ayelet Tsabari. Praised for its "vivid storytelling" in our review, it’s a memoir of a young woman leaving her family in suburban Tel Aviv for the United States, Canada, India, Thailand and other countries, fleeing grief and loss. Email bookclub@forward.com to register for the free event (or to get notified of the next book club selection).

🥇 Thursday at 12 p.m. ET: Join us for our Olympics pre-show broadcasting on both Facebook and YouTube. We’ll be joined by Team Israel experts David Wiseman and Shari Wright-Pilo to talk about the country’s chances at the Summer Games and which storylines they’ll be following in Tokyo.

🎭 Looking ahead: A Yiddish Renaissance / Monday, July 26-Friday, July 30 @ 2 p.m. ET / 11 a.m. PT. The Forward is proud to sponsor this virtual concert series celebrating the revival of Yiddish in culture, the arts and learning across the globe. National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene has more than 140 actors, singers, and musicians on the docket. Register here.

VIDEO OF THE DAY 🤸♂️

Meet Agnes Keleti, former Israeli gymnast and Holocaust survivor. At 100, she is the oldest living Olympian. The official Olympics YouTube channel shared Keleti’s inspirational story to help show how much has changed in sport and society in the past century.

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