| Supreme Court set to rule on school prayer case, Russia attempts propaganda campaign at Auschwitz, Jan. 6 rioters discussed 'Jewish Question,' and the Tinder Swindler faces lawsuit from Israeli family. Plus: Play today's Vertl puzzle, the Yiddish Wordle |
| Yair Lapid has an ambitious diplomatic agenda as he is set to become Israel's interim prime minister this week. (Getty) |
| Our senior political reporter, Jacob Kornbluh, shares what’s in his notebook… Yair Lapid is expected to become Israel’s 14th prime minister this week. In a desperate attempt to block him, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying to cobble together 61 Knesset members to present an alternative government. On Sunday, Netanyahu lashed out at Ra’am, the Arab party that was part of the previous coalition government led by Lapid and Naftali Bennett, calling it “antisemitic.” Lapid is taking office as interim prime minister, after their coalition dissolved last week, with another round of elections — the fifth in three years — slated for November. He is expected to soon meet French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris, a trip planned by Bennett, and to host President Joe Biden in Jerusalem in mid-July. He may also see a bipartisan Congressional delegation visiting Israel this week. Lapid, who has closer ties with the Democratic Party than either Bennett or Netanyahu, will face an interesting challenge if the Biden administration pushes forward on a nuclear deal with Iran. Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said on Saturday that talks with Tehran will resume in the coming days after a three-month suspension. Lapid reportedly criticized Borrell over his visit to Tehran. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Israel recently attended a secret U.S.-led summit with top security officials of Arab countries to discuss possible action against Iran. New York primaries |
| Ana Maria Archila (left) at an abortion-rights rally Friday with U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (Gili Getz) |
| Tuesday is primary day in five states — New York, Illinois, Colorado, Oklahoma and Utah — and the Supreme Court abortion ruling may give a boost to Ana Maria Archila, a women’s rights activist challenging Lt. Gov. Anthony Delgado in New York’s Democratic contest. Read the story here ➤ Here are other things to watch in tomorrow’s New York balloting: Gov. Kathy Hochul is touting “unprecedented, universal” support from major Orthodox voting blocs. Her Democratic rivals, U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi of Long Island and Jumaane Williams, New York City’s public advocate, both have close relationships with the Jewish community but have failed to snag a single Orthodox endorsement.
Meanwhile, Rep. Lee Zeldin, one of two Jewish Republicans in Congress, faces three rivals, including Andrew Giuliani, son of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani. On Friday, Giuliani was endorsed by Doug Mastriano, the GOP nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, who has compared the Jan. 6 riot to the 1933 Reichstag fire and gun control to Nazi policies. The Zeldin campaign reported Sunday that a swastika and a death threat were scrawled on the candidate’s lawn sign on Long Island.
Hilary Gingold, a Jewish civil court judge, is looking to replace retiring Manhattan Surrogate Court Judge Nora Anderson.
In Borough Park, there is a contentious race for Democratic district leader: Mayor Eric Adams is backing Pinny Ringel, his predecessor’s Jewish liaison, in an effort to oust David Schwartz, a Hasidic activist who worked on Andrew Yang’s mayoral campaign. |
| The Edelhart family in 1967: Arthur and Harriett, with twins Ashley and Courtenay. At right, Harriett's high school graduation photo. |
| Opinion | The underground abortion my mother had, and the one she didn’t: Courtenay Edelhart and her twin sister are here today because her parents – a Black Christian woman and a white Jewish man – decided against having an illegal abortion. She also writes of her father’s experience in foster care, which led her to become a licensed foster parent and help raise seven children over a decade. “I saw first-hand what happens to unplanned babies born to people who should not be parents,” Edelhart writes. Read her essay ➤ A trio of Forward journalists on the fall of Roe v. Wade: Jodi Rudoren, our editor-in-chief, discussed the repercussions of the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday with our opinion editor, Laura E. Adkins, and deputy opinion editor, Nora Berman. Here are snippets from their conversation: Adkins: “Restricting access to abortion when a woman’s rabbi requires or permits her to obtain one violates the religious liberty of Jewish women. But the bigger issue is that when religion is allowed a voice on the court, the rights of those who don’t follow that same religious tradition are trampled on.” Berman: “If we are looking to the Constitution to explicitly tell us that Beanie Feldstein and her (female) fiancee can get married, or that trans people deserve to make medical decisions about their own bodies, we’re looking in the wrong place.” Rudoren: “This Constitution was written by people who considered women to be property, and now it is being interpreted, at least in part, by women. So that’s what’s so shocking here, what’s unprecedented — the idea of a ruling that reverses a 49-year precedent in order to give us fewer rights.” Read their conversation ➤ More on the abortion ruling… This rabbi made the religious case for abortion 30 years ago – it didn’t go well.
Our columnist, Robert Zaretsky, says there’s a Yiddish word to describe the justices who said during their confirmation hearings that they wouldn’t overturn Roe — and the senators who believed them: gonif.
Israel’s ‘Roe v. Wade’ moment could be around the corner. |
| WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
| The Supreme Court still has a few cases to rule on this week before the justices adjourn for summer recess. (Getty) |
| 🏈 A Supreme Court decision expected this week could bring back “quasi-compulsory” school prayer, the American Jewish Committee warned. The court is expected to rule in favor of a high school football coach in Washington State who was fired for praying with his players after games. “There was significant evidence that there was real pressure on students on the football team to join in on the prayers,” said Marc Stern, AJC’s chief legal officer, adding that this could “really set us back in terms of religious liberty in the public schools.” (Jewish Insider) 💠 The Jewish con artist known as the “Tinder Swindler,” who was the subject of a Netflix documentary, is set to appear in court this week to face a lawsuit by the Israeli diamond-dealing family he was impersonating. Some of the women he defrauded have teamed up with the family to create a bracelet, with proceeds going to pay off their $700,00 debt. (Page Six) 🤔 A week before the Jan. 6 insurrection, the leadership of the Proud Boys held a video conference in which they discussed, among other things, the “J.Q.” — or “Jewish Question,” a phrase that harks back to Nazi ideology. The meeting was laden with antisemitic, homophobic and misogynistic language as the group formed a Ministry of Self-Defense. The Forward reported in 2016 on the emergence of the shorthand “J.Q.” in white-nationalist and other alt-right groups. (New York Times, Forward) 🇷🇺 Russian state agencies posted photos on social media of anti-Russian stickers around the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum, but museum officials say they’re fake. The posts claimed the stickers, which referenced Zyklon B — the gas used to kill Jews at the site — went up on the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22. The museum dismissed them as “primitive and gross propaganda.” (AP) 🔥 An apartment fire in Buenos Aires that killed a Jewish woman and her four children on Thursday was apparently caused by a faulty lithium battery in an electric skateboard. Dozens of other people in the building, including the husband and father of the deceased, were hospitalized with injuries. (Merco Press) 👶 Germany has abolished a Nazi-era law that criminalized doctors who provided information about abortion procedures. Lawmakers also voted to annul convictions under the law dating back more than 30 years. (DW, AP) ⛺ Testimony in a 2010 court case surfaced in which Oklahoma’s Sen. Chris Lankford said a 13-year-old could consent to sex. Lankford, then a new member of the House, was being deposed in his previous role as director of youth programming at the Falls Creek Baptist Conference Center, where the family of a 13-year-old girl sued a 15-year-old boy who was alleged to have had sex with her at the camp. Lankford is up for reelection this year and Oklahoma’s primary is tomorrow. (AP) 📹 Jason Greenblatt, a former Trump attorney who was involved with the president’s Middle East peace plan, reportedly connected Alex Holder, a British filmmaker, to the Trump family to record interviews with them after the 2020 election, footage that is now being reviewed by the House Jan. 6 committee. (New York Times)
🗞️ A Jewish editor of the Harvard Crimson is speaking out against the newspaper’s April endorsement of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel.“BDS’s strategy of ideological warfare is all the more frightening because of how well it works,” wrote the associate editor, Gemma J. Schneider, who said she missed the meeting where the editorial was voted on. “After all, it has led some of the most decent, kind, and thoughtful people that I know at Harvard to become patrons and propagators of antisemitism.” (Harvard Crimson)
|
| A statue of Joseph Smith in front of the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Getty) |
| On this day in history: Joseph Smith Jr., the founder of Mormonism, died on June 27, 1844. Smith’s study of Hebrew inspired his teachings; his teacher was Joshua Seixas, son of a prominent Jewish leader in New York. Later, Smith named a city in Illinois Nauvoo, borrowing the Hebrew word used for “beautiful” in Isaiah 52:7 — “How beautiful on the mountains.” He also assigned church leaders Hebrew code names and used Hebrew in the rituals with his closest associates. Related: Our digital culture reporter spent months reporting on an all-Mormon production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” Last year on this day, Rabbi Reuven Bulka – known as “Canada’s rabbi” – died at 77.
On the Hebrew calendar, it’s the 28th of Sivan, the date on which the Lubavitcher Rebbe and his wife, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, arrived in New York harbor in 1941 after escaping Nazi-occupied France.
|
| Raz Hershko of Israel (in white) competed on Sunday against Adiyasuren Amarsaikhan of Mongolia during the women’s +78kg weight category at the 2022 Grand Slam judo tournament in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. Hershko won the gold medal. ––– Thanks to Jacob Kornbluh and Rudy Malcom for contributing to today’s newsletter.
You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com. |
| Support Independent Jewish Journalism The Forward is a non-profit 501(c)3 so our journalism depends on support from readers like you. You can support our work today by donating or subscribing. All donations are tax-deductible to the full extent of US law. Make a donation ➤ Subscribe to Forward.com ➤ "America’s most prominent Jewish newspaper" — The New York Times, 2021 |
|
|
|
