Students littering New York with Jewish Messiah signs, 101-year-old Nazi guard sentenced to prison, primary results, Woody Allen, and biblical swarms of Mormon crickets attacks the American West. Plus: Play today's Vertl puzzle, the Yiddish Wordle |
Sam Greenberg, left, and Zach Cohen got married in 2017. (Courtesy) |
Observant couples reimagine gendered wedding rituals The Jewish marriage ceremony that dates back thousands of years remains a stubbornly gendered ritual. But LGBTQ Jews who feel bound by Jewish law are, increasingly, finding rabbis and rituals that work within it rather than around it. A sense of obligation: “We believe Jewish law obligates us to certain things,” said Sam Greenberg, who married Zach Cohen in 2017. “We keep kosher, we keep Shabbat, and while we believe those things enrich our lives, we do them because we believe we are obligated. And if this is the way we walk through life, it would actually make less sense to say the most important piece of our lives is not going to be bound by that discourse at all.” A ceremony redefined: For their wedding, Greenberg and Cohen turned to Rabbi Steve Greenberg, the first openly gay Orthodox rabbi, to develop a ceremony that combined business contracts with biblical traditions of vow-taking to create a binding agreement of obligations under Jewish law. A marked increase: The shift builds on decades of work by rabbis, scholars and others who have plumbed the vast canon of Jewish history and legal precedent to create ceremonies both unabashedly queer and firmly rooted in tradition. Once marginalized, Jewish queer weddings are entering the mainstream, with announcements in synagogue bulletins and in alumni newsletters from Jewish day schools. Quotable: Rabbi Dena Bodian once thought weddings could be either queer or Jewish, but not both. But now, she said, people have “started to really recognize that it was possible to be deeply committed Jews” and “have a richly Jewish home and want to take Jewish law very seriously, and also be married to someone of the same sex.” Read the story ➤ More Pride Month stories… A Muslim and a Jew: Meet the only two doctors in Alabama providing gender-affirming care to trans youth
A new book, featuring Jewish poets Allen Ginsberg and Siegfried Sassoon, explores LGBTQ love and friendship
How a pathbreaking Jewish gay congressman earned his nickname |
In certain parts of New York, the signs are inescapable. (Gaby Grossman) |
Those ‘Messiah Is Here!’ signs popping up in New York? Here’s who’s behind them: Almost every night for the past few months, a nondescript crew of yeshiva students has plastered 6,000 posters onto the back of traffic signal boxes. They say they have another 6,000 to go. But the leaders of Chabad-Lubavitch, where the boys are studying, say the posters are a “shame” to the movement. Read the story ➤ Opinion | I should never have experienced rape and illegal abortion. Neither should anyone else:In 1972, months before Roe v. Wade established the right to abortion, TaRessa Stovall was raped at gunpoint — and then had an illegal abortion at an off-road storefront that, she writes, “sounded and felt so much like the rape itself.” Stovall, who is Black and Jewish, argues that the new decision ending the constitutional right to abortion disproportionately harms Black women, and that Jews must unite against white supremacy to fight it. Read her essay ➤ Opinion | We were once illegal immigrants, too:With the horrific discovery of 51 migrants dead in an abandoned trailer in Texas, Rob Eshman reminds us of a robust smuggling operation that brought some 18,000 Jews to the U.S. from Cuba to skirt immigrant quotas in the 1920s. “Perhaps if we acknowledge how so many of our ancestors got to this particular Promised Land,” he writes, “we’ll be better equipped to understand and address the causes behind the tragedy unfolding in Texas.” Read the column ➤ But wait, there’s more… Her great-grandfather led Israel. Starting this Shabbat, she’ll be leading a congregation in Minneapolis
Defeat of ‘most senior’ Jewish House member will have ‘national implications,’ says campaign of Jerry Nadler
Alec Baldwin interviewed Woody Allen on Instagram – the tech issues were the best part |
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
Yehuda Meshi-Zahav at a conference in March 2021, shortly before he attempted suicide. (Gil Cohen-Magen) |
😮 Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, the founder of Israel’s ZAKA emergency service and the target of numerous allegations of rape and sexual assault, has died, after more than a year in a coma following a suicide attempt. Investigations were ongoing into the allegations, which included assaults on minors. He was 62. (Haaretz) ⚖️ A 101-year-old former Nazi death camp guard was sentenced to five years in prison – although whether he serves time remains to be seen. The trial was postponed several times due to his ill health, and his lawyer said he would likely appeal. (JTA) 🙏 In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of prayer at school, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is running a television ad promoting religious freedom in Iowa and South Carolina. “Let’s make sure that our religious freedom and our right to pray is never canceled,” Pompeo says in the 30-second commercial. Its use in two early presidential primary states suggests a Pompeo run for the White House in 2024. (Twitter, NBC News) 🇩🇪 A group tracking antisemitism in Germany said Tuesday it documented more than 2,700 incidents in 2021 – an average of seven per day, and an increase of 40% over the previous year. Most were incidents of vandalism or hate speech, but the tally included 63 attacks and six cases of extreme violence. (Jerusalem Post) 🐜 Swarms of Mormon crickets, giant insects that can destroy crops, are showing up all throughout Western states. One rancher calls the outbreaks “truly biblical.” (AP) 🎾 As you watch the Wimbledon tennis tournament, which kicked off this week, let us remind you of the story of Dick Savitt. He never took a tennis lesson, yet in 1951, he stunned the world by becoming the first Jewish champion of both Wimbledon and the Australian Open. “There was no money in tennis back then,” said Savitt, now 95, “so everyone was an amateur.” (New York Times) What else we’re reading ➤ Israel national youth soccer team upsets France to reach historic first European final … In Hungary, a palace tied to political scandal became a refugee camp for Jewish Ukrainians … A runner from the so-called “pope’s team” will compete at a half marathon Friday, the biggest event yet for the Vatican Athletics department.
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Judge Hilary Gingold, center, strategizes with campaign volunteers. She won her primary on Tuesday. (Courtesy) |
Our senior political correspondent, Jacob Kornbluh, was up late tracking elections across five states. Here are some of the highlights: New York Gov. Kathy Hochul will face U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, a Jewish Republican from Long Island, in the November election. Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado also beat his progressive opponent on Tuesday.
In local Assembly races, most Democratic incumbents beat back challenges from the left, including four candidates who were backed by the Democratic Socialists of America. One DSA candidate, Sarahana Shrestha, pulled an upset, against longtime incumbent Kevin Cahill, in the Hudson Valley. Longtime Bronx Assemblyman José Rivera, who had a close relationship with the Jewish community, lost reelection for the seat he has held since 2000.
In Borough Park, Pinny Ringel, former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Jewish liaison, ousted David Schwartz, a Hasidic activist who worked on Andrew Yang’s mayoral campaign, for Democratic Party leader in the area. And Hilary Gingold, a Jewish civil court judge, won a competitive primary for Manhattan Surrogate’s Court.
In Illinois, Darren Bailey, a far-right politician endorsed by Donald Trump, won the Republican gubernatorial primary, to the delight of Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Jewish Democrat, who spent $35 million attacking Bailey’s more moderate opponent.
In incumbent-vs.-incumbent races for Congress, Sean Casten, a moderate backed by the Democratic Majority for Israel, beat Marie Newman, who voted against the replenishment of the Iron Dome, to keep a seat in Chicago’s western suburbs; and Mary Miller, who celebrated last week’s overturning of Roe v. Wade as “a victory for white life,” defeated Rodney Davis, a more moderate Republican, in downstate Illinois. In a new, predominantly Latino Chicago district, Delia Ramirez, who was endorsed by J Street, beat the DMFI-backed Gilbert Villegas. And Longtime Democratic Rep. Danny Davis, who had President Joe Biden’s endorsement, won his reelection bid in a close race against Kina Collins.
In Colorado, Joe O’Dea, a moderate who expressed support for abortion rights, won the Republican primary and will challenge Sen. Michael Bennet, who is Jewish and considered one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents in the midterms. |
Apple CEO Steve Jobs at an event that unveiled the first iPhone. (Getty) |
On this day in history: Apple released the first iPhone model on June 29, 2007. While Steve Jobs, Apple’s visionary founder, was not Jewish, our Seth Rogovoy in 2013 unearthed some Jewish connections in both the man and his company. Among them, Jobs emphasized form over function in what some have argued is a rendition of the Jewish concept hiddur mitzvah, beautification of the good deed. “This theory is often suggested by Jews looking for some religious justification for owning every product Apple ever manufactured,” Rogovoy wrote. |
We started today’s newsletter with a wedding photo, and we’re ending with one as well. Elisheva and Gabriel Grigoriev stood under the chuppah at a ceremony hosted by the Chabad of Berlin on Tuesday. The bride and groom are Ukrainian refugees from Odessa. ––– Thanks to Rob Eshman, PJ Grisar, Jacob Kornbluh, Beth Harpaz, Rudy Malcom and Robin Washington for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com. |
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