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Israeli astronaut returns to Earth after Passover in space, dispatch from a Warsaw cemetery, new exhibit charts Jewish deli's cultural influence, and HBO sets comedy with Hasidic rapper.
OUR LEAD STORY ‘Simply shocking’: ADL received record reports of antisemitism in 2021
There was a 10% increase in recorded incidents of antisemitism in 2021 compared to 2020, the most such incidents in a single year since the Anti-Defamation League started tracking them in 1979, the group reports this morning.
By the numbers: The ADL received 2,223 reports of antisemitism – mostly harassment and vandalism — last year. Among them were 88 antisemitic assaults, the highest level of violence against American Jews since 2009 — and an increase of 60% from 2020. The report also mentions 494 additional instances of antisemitism counted by other organizations including Hillel, and the Reform and Conservative movements.
The Israel factor: The ADL said the audit documents how last year’s violence in Israel and Gaza spurred a backlash against American Jews. “We had always sensed that incidents against American Jews increased in moments of conflict in the Middle East but the numbers here were simply shocking,” said Aryeh Tuchman, director of the ADL’s center on extremism.
Cause and effect: Some of the increase may be attributable to more reporting of incidents by a public increasingly concerned over an increase in antisemitism during the past several years. “My sense is when people become aware of more antisemitism, they report more antisemitism,” Tuchman said.
ALSO FROM THE FORWARD A new exhibit on the American deli reveals some Jewish truths: In the 1930s, there were 5,000 delicatessens in New York City. By way of comparison, Starbucks had 241 outlets in Manhattan in 2019. “I’ll Have What She’s Having,” a new exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, explains that delis were how a generation of Jewish immigrants acculturated to America, and how America grew to accept and understand those immigrants. Our Rob Eshman went for a tour. Read the story ➤
Will Putin become the third Fuhrer? Boris Sandler, a former editor at the Forward and a Yiddish novelist, grew up in Moldova during the Soviet era and has been glued to the news about the war in Ukraine. He’s deeply concerned that President Vladimir Putin might become a ruthless dictator like Hitler or Stalin, perhaps opening the door to World War III. “As children, we boys all loved to play war,” he writes. “Putin, who’s of the same generation we are, surely played these games too.” It seems, Sandler adds, “he’s still playing it.” Read the story ➤
Related: As she watches the images of Russian cruelty in Ukraine, the child of a Holocaust survivor recalls her father’s experiences at the hands of Soviet soldiers who liberated the camps.
But wait, there’s more… When Rafael Ortega stepped up to the plate for the Chicago Cubs on Sunday, a few Jewish fans couldn’t believe their ears: the music Ortega had chosen to play over the loudspeakers was “Thank You Hashem,” a song by a Haredi musician. More than 52% of Jewish American Millennials believe there is a viable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, compared to 24% of their Israeli peers, according to new surveys. Netflix’s ‘Russian Doll’ features a Hungarian ‘Gold Train’ filled with Nazi loot. Is that based on a true story?HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE WEEK Our Nora Berman is attending this year's March of the Living and sent in this dispatch from her first day in Poland…
At the Jewish Cemetery of Warsaw, tall birch trees with neon green leaves make a canopy over the headstones, which are in varying stages of being restored: some brand-new black marble, others covered with moss and jutting diagonally into the sky. At one point I tripped over what I realized was a submerged headstone.
In the center of the cemetery, a narrow stone path is bordered by two fields of rocks. They are walled off by rusty iron planks, and represented approximately 100,000 Jews buried in a mass grave during the Holocaust. It was eerie but strangely beautiful – there was no trash or cigarette butts lying around.
Jewish tradition teaches that when a life is lost, an entire world vanishes. I looked at all of these jumbled white rocks under a flat gray sky, and imagined the 100,000 lost worlds that lay beneath my feet.
We had dinner at the Chabad of Warsaw, where Rabbi Shalom DovBer Stambler painted a picture of contemporary Polish Jewry as a community finding its way, slowly discovering and celebrating each new piece of Yiddishkeit.
On Thursday, we’ll walk from Auschwitz to Birkenau, arguably the largest Jewish cemetery of them all.
See more photos from Nora’s first day ➤ WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY 🎬 A comedy based on the life of Nissim Black, the Hasidic hip hop star, is in development at HBO Max. The series is expected to follow Black’s unlikely journey – the son of drug dealers, he was raised a Sunni Muslim, converted to Christianity as a teen, and converted again, to Judaism, as an adult. The series is called “Motherland Bounce,” after one of Black’s hit songs. (Deadline)
📈 The world’s Jewish population now totals 15.2 million, with nearly half living in Israel, according to data published Monday by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics. The number is 1.4 million fewer than the 16.6 million Jews globally in 1939. (Haaretz)
🔥 A Chabad house in Louisville, Kentucky, was destroyed by a fire this weekend that began in an adjoining building. Nobody was injured and the Torah scrolls were rescued. Meanwhile, a crowdfunding campaign has raised more than $186,000 fora Brooklyn Jewish family with eight children who lost their home to a fire on the last night of Passover. (Courier Journal, New York Jewish Week)
🗳️ A bill that would require the state to monitor compliance with Holocaust education requirements in New York secondary schools appears stalled in Albany. The bill was removed from the agenda of an Assembly committee on Monday; last year, some argued it was redundant since the curriculum is already required by state law. (Jewish Insider)
✒️ Wassim Razzouk, a Palestinian Christian whose family has owned a tattoo parlor in Jerusalem’s Old City for 27 generations, sees his tiny store as a haven amid the recent unrest in the area. “I have tattooed Christians, Palestinians, Ethiopians, Israelis — believe it or not, I’ve tattooed an Orthodox Jew with sidelocks,” he said. “I’ve tattooed nuns, atheists and bishops.” (New York Times)
🚀 How do you say “Welcome back!” in Hebrew? An Israeli businessman, Eytan Stibbe, and three other civilians splashed down to Earth on Monday after a 17-day trip. It was the first privately-funded mission to the International Space Station and the first time a Passover Seder was held in space. (CNN, Algemeiner)
Transitions ➤ Kenneth Roth, whose work heading Human Rights Watch was inspired by his family’s suffering at the hands of the Nazis, is stepping down as its executive director after three decades. HRW made headlines last year when it accused Israel of committing “crimes of apartheid.”
Shiva call ➤ David Sharif, an autism awareness advocate and motivational speaker, died suddenly at the age of 24. For his bar mitzvah project, Sharif wrote a speech about what it was like to be autistic; it was later turned into a claymation video that has been viewed more than 800,000 times. His funeral will be livestreamed today at 1 p.m. ET. Read his obituary ➤
ON THE CALENDAR Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Twersky; the destroyed fourth power block of Chernobyl's nuclear power plant. (Wikimedia/Getty) On this day in history: The Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded on April 26, 1986, releasing large amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere and making the city unsafe. Roughly 330,000 people were relocated and the area was dubbed a “ghost city.” Before it became the site of the worst nuclear disaster in human history, Chernobyl was a center of Hasidic Judaism dating back to the 18th century. Rabbi Yaakov Yisroel Twersky was the last of the dynasty to live there; by 1938 he had moved to the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Last year on this day, we watched as Mandy Patinkin broke down in tears when he learned on PBS’ “Finding Your Roots” that he lost family in the Holocaust.
VIDEO OF THE DAY An Israeli artist has built a 13-foot globe out of plastic waste. “It’s beautiful, but it’s about garbage,” said the artist, Beverly Barkat. The globe will be on display at the Jerusalem aquarium until the summer, then move to its permanent home in the lobby of a building in the World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan. Watch the video above to see how she made it, or read this interview to learn more.
––– Play today’s Vertl puzzle (aka the Yiddish Wordle)
Thanks to Laura E. Adkins, Nora Berman, Jacob Kornbluh, Rudy Malcom, Arno Rosenfeld and Amanda Rozon for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com.
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