U.S. investigation finds Israeli bullet killed Palestinian journalist, social media influencers paid to tout Jewish menstruation laws, and a ketubah from one of the Three Stooges sold at auction. |
Jacki Sundheim, bnei mitzvah coordinator and former preschool teacher at a local synagogue, was among six people killed at Highland Parks's Fourth of July parade. |
‘We’re living in an imperfect world’: Highland Park rabbi after mass shooting When his wife called to tell him about the active shooter two blocks east of his synagogue, Rabbi Yosef Schanowitz raced outside to shepherd in four teenage boys who were preparing the Chabad booth for Highland Park’s July Fourth parade. A gunman had killed six and injured at least two dozen parade goers in the affluent suburb north of Chicago, whose population of 29,000 is about half Jewish. ‘There was chaos’: Schanowitz, 66, spent much of Sunday afternoon at the hospital, where he had volunteered as a chaplain before the pandemic. “You have to do what you have to do,” he said. “I thought I should at least make sure that there’s clergy on the premises.” As he went from room to room, Schanowitz said, he recited the Shema to himself. |
Four teenage boys – Mendy Zalmanov, Dovber Yarmove, Mendel Bukiet and Shlomo Bergstein – were prepping a Chabad booth at the parade when gunfire broke out. They arrived safely at the home of a community member afterwards. (Lifsha Weisman) |
In memoriam: Jacki Sundheim, the events and b’nei mitzvah coordinator at North Shore Congregation Israel, was among those killed. She is survived by her husband, Bruce, and daughter, Leah. “There are no words sufficient to express the depth of our grief for Jacki’s death and sympathy for her family and loved ones,” the synagogue, where she previously taught pre-school, said in a statement. “We know you join us in the deepest prayer that Jacki’s soul will be bound up in the shelter of God’s wings and her family will somehow find comfort and consolation amidst this boundless grief.” Searching for a motive: Officers took a 22-year-old white man into custody late Monday, describing him as a “person of interest.” Investigators will be sifting through his online activity to discern a possible motive, including whether he targeted Highland Park out of antisemitism. Videos from the man’s now-deleted YouTube channel and reviewed by the Forward show him wearing a helmet and bulletproof vest inside a classroom next to an American flag. A cartoon image of a gun also appears multiple times. Context: The shooting follows a pair of particularly horrific mass shootings by young white men in May. An 18-year-old who said he was motivated by the racist and antisemitic “great replacement” conspiracy theory murdered 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket, and another 18-year-old gunned down 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Read our interview with Rabbi Schanowitz ➤ and Read our latest on the shooting ➤ Related: When it comes to gun control, why can’t the U.S. be more like Israel?
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Photos of Holocaust survivors with their grandchildren are part of a new exhibit. (B.A. Van Sise) |
Portraits of Holocaust survivors show their strength, not their sorrow:B.A. Van Sise, a first-grade teacher-turned photographer, made his first portrait of a survivor in December 2016 and his last in April 2022. In between, he traveled more than 30,000 miles, took at least 100 COVID swabs, and logged hundreds of hours of interviews. Rather than focus on the terror, loss and immeasurable suffering of the Holocaust, the portraits emphasize the determination, strength and joy survivors found as they built new lives in the U.S. after the war. Several of the 140 portraits are now part of a new exhibit at the Center for Jewish History. Read the story ➤ Opinion | Israel welcomes Ukrainian refugees. Why won’t it do the same for Palestinians married to Israelis, like my spouse? Thousands of Ukrainian refugees have entered Israel in the last few months, including many without Jewish ancestry. For Sari Bashi, an Israeli citizen, these developments are maddening, given Israel’s ban on Palestinians like her husband entering the country. “In the nine years since our wedding,” Bashi writes, “the Israeli government has rejected or ignored requests to grant my partner even a temporary permit to join me in Israel.” Read her essay ➤ But wait, there’s more… An interfaith peace group whose past leaders helped spark the civil rights movement has named a Jewish executive director for the first time in its 106-year history.
While leading Orthodox groups cheered the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, some Orthodox women are panicking.
‘I spent years crying’: Four young Orthodox Jews share their coming out stories. |
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt at Yad Vashem on Monday. (Twitter) |
🇮🇱 Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the U.S. special envoy to combat and monitor global antisemitism, met Monday in Jerusalem with Yair Lapid, Israel’s interim prime minister, on the second leg of her Mideast tour. Israel’s antisemitism envoy, Noa Tishby, attended the meeting. (Twitter) 🛫 And speaking of Lapid, he went to France today, his first official trip as prime minister. Lapid is scheduled to meet in Paris this week with French President Emmanuel Macron as world powers revive efforts to restore a nuclear accord with Iran, which Israel opposes. (Haaretz) 🇵🇸 The U.S. State Department has determined after a forensic review that Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was likely killed by an Israeli military bullet. But the analysis found “no reason to believe this was intentional,” the department said in a statement on Monday. (CNN) 🇷🇺 Jews who remain in Russia fear a resurgence of antisemitism amid the Ukraine war. “In our congregation, we don’t talk about any political issues,” said a Moscow rabbi who asked not to be named. Moscow’s Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt fled the country and is now living in exile. (Politico) ✝️ Pope Francis denied on Monday that he is planning to retire soon. He called recent rumors and supposed evidence mere “coincidences” and said that the idea of resignation never entered his mind, adding: “For the moment no. For the moment, no. Really.” He is scheduled to travel to Canada later this month and said he hopes to soon visit Kyiv and Moscow “to try to help in some way.” (Reuters) 💰 A billionaire’s daughter has been paying celebrity social media influencers in Israel to promote Jewish laws around sex and menstruation. “Everything that happens today starts with internet stars,” said Ruthie Leviev-Yelizarov, who paid roughly $43,000 for the posts. “It does not matter if it is a product, or yogurt or anything else.” (Haaretz, Times of Israel) 💑 The ketubah from the 1925 Brooklyn wedding of Moe Howard, the “Three Stooges” actor, and Helen Schonburger, a cousin of magician Harry Houdini, sold for $21,889 at auction. (Times of Israel) Shiva calls ➤ Bruce Katz, the co-founder of Rockport and the pioneer of the walking shoe, died at 75 … Hank Goldberg, a longtime sports analyst on ESPN, died at 82 … Joe Turkel, a character actor best known for his role as the bartender in “The Shining,” died at 94. What else we’re reading ➤ France’s first female Parliament Speaker is a Jewish mother of five … Walmart to acquire Memomi, an Israeli augmented reality startup … Are U.S. prisons considering Torah study in exchange for early release?
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On this day in history: The first bikini debuted on July 5, 1946. The suit was designed by Louis Réard design and modeled by a showgirl at a popular Paris pool, bur nearly 15 years earlier, a Jewish designer named Jaques Heim had debuted a two-piece swimsuit that he called the Atome, or atom and advertised as “the world’s smallest bathing suit.” Heim relaunched the Atome in June 1946 in hopes women would have become more open to the daring design than they were in 1932. He was right – but it was Réard’s more scandalous design that won the day. Last year on this day, we reported on the story of one minyan coping in the aftermath of the building collapse in Surfside, Florida. The article was honored with a Rockower Award for news reporting last week by the American Jewish Press Association. On the Hebrew calendar, it’s the sixth of Tammuz, the anniversary of Operation Entebbe when, in 1976, soldiers from the Israel Defense Forces rescued more than 100 hostages from the airport in Uganda. In honor of National Hawaii Day, check out our secret Jewish history of the Aloha State. |
Anna Hinkelmann of Germany competed in the Women’s Heptathlon during the first day of the 2022 European Athletics Under 18 Championships on Monday at the Hebrew University stadium in Jerusalem. She came in third in her heat. The competition – which includes several track and field events – concludes on Thursday. ––– Plus: Play today's Vertl puzzle, the Yiddish Wordle Thanks to Nora Berman, Jordan Greene, Jacob Kornbluh, Lauren Markoe, Robin Washington and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com. |
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