JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Antisemitism spikes at two colleges, Israel rejects converts for not going to shul enough, the Hasidic village loved by Christians and the Chabad house loved by Azerbaijanis.
THE CRISIS IN UKRAINE Some Ukrainians stand at the door to their basement, which they are using as a bomb shelter. (AFP/Getty Images) Russian troops have now entered Ukraine, sparking condemnation from world leaders and consternation among the country’s Jews. We’re covering the story from several angles…
Eastern Ukraine’s Jews brace for food shortages and antisemitic attacks: “We are working on safety precautions for all the rabbis, communities, schools and synagogues,” said Rabbi Meir Stambler, who is leading efforts to distribute emergency food kits to 20,000 Jewish families across the country. Meanwhile, Rabbi Moshe Azman left a prerecorded message on the phones of thousands of Jews living in Kyiv, inviting them to take shelter at a refugee center he built in Anatevka, should they need to flee the capital. Read the story ➤
The stormy yet rich history of the Jews in Ukraine: There are an estimated 100,000 Jews in the country, including its president, Volodymyr Zelensky. That gives Ukraine Europe’s fourth largest Jewish population (after France, Great Britain and Russia). It’s home to many Hasidim and about 30 Chabad houses, and was the birthplace of Sholom Aleichem (1859), Golda Meir (1898) and Natan Sharansky (1948). It was also the site of the Babi Yar massacre in 1941. At its high point before the Holocaust, Ukraine had more than 1 million Jews, whose native language was Yiddish. Read the story ➤
Opinion | Amid conflict, Ukrainian Jewish women are thriving — and preparing for war:Vlada Nedak, who was born and raised in the country, writes that antisemitism used to be pervasive, but today the community is “empowered with the tools to advocate for ourselves.” She cherishes the “vibrant civic nationality” that has flourished post-communist rule, crediting it with empowering Ukrainian Jews to “openly embrace both our Jewish and Ukrainian identities in harmony.” Read her essay ➤
Meet Ukraine’s Jewish president: Zelensky was a 41-year-old comedian notable for playing a fictional president of Ukraine on a TV series when he was elected to that office in real life in 2019. Then President Donald Trump called him up and appeared to condition U.S. aid to Ukraine on Zelensky’s government digging up dirt on Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Zelensky weathered that infamous call (as did Trump), and went on to ban antisemitism inside Ukraine last year. A former film co-star believes that Zelensky, Ukraine’s first Jewish head of state, took “every turn of luck he’s had and used it to champion what he believes in.” Russia’s advance this week is the largest challenge of his tenure.
And more on Ukraine’s Jews …
ALSO FROM THE FORWARD Ceramics, Broadway, gay rights and ‘Fiddler’ — for Harvey Fierstein, they’re all parts of the same quilt: You may recognize his unmistakably gravelly voice – from his role of Tevye or countless others on Broadway. You could say he’s come a long way from his childhood in Brooklyn, but Fierstein said in this new interview that his current life – all of our lives, for that matter – are merely an extension of the past. “Who you were is who you are now,” he said. “We’ve learned stuff. We’ve modified stuff. We’ve gained stuff. We’ve lost stuff. But we haven’t changed who we are.” Read the interview ➤
A Hasidic village in New York is paving the way for a ‘white, Christian, conservative’ America:A new book, “American Shtetl,” provides the definitive study of Kiryas Joel – which has outsize influence given its 25,000 residents. Its poverty rate is four times the national average, with more than 93% of its residents on Medicaid. Kiryas Joel has also been the site of numerous court battles that aim to muddy the line between church and state – and have been supported by Christians. It’s “a recreation of a mythic past built on uniquely American features: above all, the power of religious freedom, private property, and state welfare,” Joshua Shanes writes. Read his review ➤
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY The campus of Indiana University in Bloomington, which has seen several antisemitic incidents this school year. 😮 Curry College, a small liberal arts school near Boston, is offering a $10,000 reward for information about a spate of antisemitic and racist grafitti appearing across its campus in recent weeks. Swastikas and threatening racist language began appearing on bathroom walls and in the laundry room on Jan. 27, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and continued into Black History Month. … Meanwhile, at Indiana University, another campus that has seen a string of antisemitic vandalism incidents this year, an anonymous post on a fraternity forum called Jews the “worst” people and said they should get back “to the gas chambers where they all belong.” In September, at least a dozen mezuzahs were stolen from the doors of Jewish students on the campus. (JTA, Forward)
🔥 A Chabad in Northern California was destroyed in a fire. The Azerbaijani government is helping it rebuild. The country’s consul general for the Western U.S. apparently saw news of the fire on social media and got in touch with the synagogue’s rabbi to make a contribution. “It’s a very powerful message that regardless of faith or affiliation, we are, after all, human beings created in the image of God,” said the rabbi, Mendel Weinfeld. (JTA)
🙏 Israel has denied citizenship to more than a dozen Jews converted by Reform or Conservative rabbis, despite a landmark court ruling last year that said such non-Orthodox conversions should be accepted. One of the reasons: The converts have been told they don’t attend synagogue often enough. (Haaretz)
⌨️ Google announced a $25 million investment to help train Haredi and Arab women in Israel for high-tech jobs. This follows a 2021 effort in which the company trained more than 30,000 people from diverse backgrounds across the country. “At Google, we believe that to have sustainable economic growth, you must have inclusive growth,” said Ruth Porat, the chief financial officer. (Calcalist)
Mazel tov ➤ Congrats to our friends at the Times of Israel on the publication’s 10th anniversary.
Shiva call ➤ Arthur Feuerstein, a chess prodigy who overcame adversity to play the game, died at 86. As a boy from the Bronx, Feuerstein beat the great Bobby Fischer. He left the game to get married, and started a career in technology. Then, in 1973, the car that he and his wife were in was struck by an 18-wheel truck. Feuerstein slipped in and out of consciousness for six weeks and when he awoke, he didn’t know what a toothbrush was, but somehow remembered all of his chess moves. He rejoined the chess circuit, sometimes beating grandmasters until his final years (his last tournament was in 2015). His wife, Alice, who broke her back in the accident, survives him. Read his obituary ➤
Another shiva call ➤ Gary Brooker, who co-founded and led the English rock group Procol Harum for more than five decades, has died at 76. Read our secret Jewish history of his band.
ON THE CALENDAR On this day in history: Debbie Friedman, beloved songwriter, was born on Feb. 23, 1951. Her tunes are still used at summer camps and congregations across denominations. “She gave non-traditional Jews the tools with which to open up a part of their spiritual selves that most of them didn’t know existed,” Deborah E. Lipstadt, a longtime close friend, said when Friedman died in 2011. “Her concerts were turned into services. People might have gone for entertainment, but came out having had a profound experience.”
Debra Nussbaum Cohen, a contributor to the Forward and another Friedman friend, recalls her life and work in the tribute video above.
VIDEO OF THE DAY “The Tinder Swindler” documentary on Netflix has captivated audiences since its release earlier this month. It tells the tale of a rabbi’s son who used the dating app to scam millions of dollars from women around the world – many are still in debt. Now the man at the center of the story, Shimon Hayut, has broken his silence. “I’m not this monster,” he told Inside Edition. “I’m the biggest gentleman in the world.”
Hayut, who has been banned from Tinder, Match.com and other dating sites, has hired a Hollywood agent and is reportedly pitching a podcast and, sigh, a dating show. Watch the Inside Edition interview above and then read our take on Hayut’s political aspirations in Israel.
––– Thanks to Laura E. Adkins and PJ Grisar for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com.
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