Terror attack in Israel, Supreme Court nominee talks about Black-Jewish alliance, critiquing the new season of 'Mrs. Maisel,' and honoring one of the most important women in math.

WAR IN UKRAINE

A couple from the Ukrainian city of Mariupol arrived on Tuesday at the border crossing into Poland.

Our editor-in-chief, Jodi Rudoren, sent this dispatch from Ukraine’s border with Poland, which she visited Tuesday with a group of leaders from the Jewish Federations of North America:

The very first thing Ukrainians see as they walk into Poland at the Medyka checkpoint is a large Israeli flag. Two, actually – one pinned to the army-green tent of the Jewish Agency, another waving on a pole above the tent of the emergency-medical group Hatzolah Without Borders. Asked how they got such prime real estate, the men running these operations hoisted their elbows and shrugged, “We’re Israeli.”

Medyka is the largest of Poland’s nine border-crossing points with Ukraine, and on Tuesday, the number of aid workers, volunteers and visitors outnumbered the relative trickle of refugees compared to the crush that was pouring in a week ago. Those arriving were given a shopping cart to carry their belongings the last kilometer into Poland, and greeted by a bevy of helpers, including one in a furry mouse-character costume you’d normally see at an amusement park.

“Best food and coffee,” a man called from an Indian-food truck labeled “United Sikhs – Recognize the Human Race as One.” Another man at another tent was offering, “Soup, soup” – two huge homemade pots, one tomato-based, one clear broth. The World Central Kitchen table and the Egypt Red Crescent both had fresh apples. The Red Cross table was laden with cookies and water. There were stands with baby food and diapers, wool hats and jackets, SIM cards and even a cotton-candy machine with remnants of the blue stuff at the bottom.

Eitan Cohen, an Israeli farmer, making pizza for refugees as they cross the border. (Jodi Rudoren)

Down a little hill from the main drag, under a string of paper British flags, there was, improbably, a wood-fired pizza oven, where Eitan Cohen, a pomegranate farmer from Moshav Be’er Milka in the south of Israel, was garnishing a pie with fresh basil and sea salt. “I’m making pizza all day,” said Cohen, who is 52 and had shown up Friday with a neighbor, Adva Kishinovsky, 39, who counsels young people about relationships.

They are freelance volunteers, without connection to an official aid agency, and took over pizza duty from the Brits who’d brought the oven to the border. Asked where they were staying, Cohen said: “In one of the tents – we improvise each night.” He was placing clumps of cheese atop sauce. “The important part is we support the people who are having a hard life now.”

And more from our Ukraine coverage...

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered new details about his family’s history during the Holocaust – including that his grandfather’s parents “were killed in a terrible fire” while their sons served in the Red Army. “The Nazis set ablaze the entire village where they lived and where my grandfather was born,” he said in an interview on CNN. “When Russians are telling about neo-Nazis and they turn to me, I just reply that I have lost my entire family in the war because all of them were exterminated during World War II.” Read the story ➤

ALSO FROM THE FORWARD

Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky with Nissim Black and his children. (Courtesy Nissim Black)

Beloved rabbi also uplifted Black Jewish lives:When Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky died at 94, nearly 1 million people took part in the funeral – the largest such processional in Israel’s history. A less-known aspect of the rabbi’s influence is the role he played in the advancement of Jews of Color around the world. When Nissim Black, an African American musician, told Kanievsky that his kids were being discriminated against and couldn’t get into a good religious school, the rabbi responded that his skin color was a virtue. “For a second it felt like the whole world stood still,” Black said in describing the encounter. Read the story ➤

A versatile Yiddish performance, from ‘Mauthausen’ to Elvis: The ‘Mauthausen’ aria, named for the Nazi labor camp, was written by a Greek composer and poet. Now, it has become an avant-garde Yiddish cantata. Our Seth Rogovoy attended a recent performance by the Dutch singer Niki Jacobs that included the cantata as well as a rendition of “Love Me Tender” and says it offers a “prime examples of how Yiddish music continues to thrive as a contemporary genre with a broad expanse and an ability to encompass and give new meaning to nontraditional source material.” Read the story ➤

‘The shame stayed with me’ | How a bullying incident from 1965 became an Oscar nominee: In Jay Rosenblatt’s Academy Award-nominated documentary short, “When We Were Bullies,” the director tracked down his old fifth grade classmates and asked them to reflect on a time when they collectively bullied another child. Speaking to our PJ Grisar, Rosenblatt related schoolyard teasing to the adult world. “Really when you think about it, there is no power for a bully without all of the complicity that’s involved,” Rosenblatt said. Read the story ➤

Opinion | Israel set our daughter’s murderer free. We’re on a quest to hold her accountable: Ahlam Al Tamimi was convicted of masterminding the 2001 bombing of the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem, but was freed in 2011, as part of an Israeli agreement to release 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit, a soldier who had been kidnapped by Hamas. Arnold Roth, whose 15-year-old daughter, Malki, was killed in the Sbarro bombing argues that the United States should extradite Al Tamimi from Jordan, where she lives, to stand trial for the criminal conspiracy and weapons charges the Department of Justice filed against her in 2017. Read his essay ➤

‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ undercuts its own Jewish identity:The new season of the hit show often relied a little too lazily on Jewish comedic stereotypes, says our digital-culture critic, Mira Fox. But the final episodes, available on Amazon Prime Video, give a more sensitive and accurate portrayal of religion, she says, when a major character is in the hospital pondering the existence of God. “It’s too bad that the show doesn’t emphasize the Jewishness of this moment the way it does for nagging or matchmaking,” Fox writes.Read her essay ➤

And more…

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson testifies during her confirmation hearing on Tuesday. (Getty)

⚖️ Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson discussed a Black-Jewish civil rights alliance during her Supreme Court confirmation hearing on Tuesday. Jackson said that she was proud to serve on the board of a private school founded, in part, by three Jewish families who wanted to create an institution where Blacks wouldn’t be discriminated against. “The idea of equality — justice — is at the core of the Georgetown Day School mission,” she said. (JTA)

😢 An Arab Israeli knifeman killed four people in a Beersheba terror attack on Tuesday: Two mothers of three, a father of four, and a brother to four. The stabber was killed on the scene by two armed civilians. (Times of Israel)

🏫 The fallout from the sexual misconduct investigations in the Reform movement continues. Rabbi Jon Adland was accused of misconduct involving a 14-year-old-girl while working at an Indianapolis synagogue. But nobody at the Reform movement’s rabbinic association informed Adland’s new congregation in Canton, Ohio. (JTA)

📖 A rare High Holiday prayer book dating to the 14th century will go on display in New York this spring before being sent to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston for conservation. The nearly 300-page Medieval manuscript, known as the Montefiore Mainz Mahzor, is the first piece of Judaica in the museum’s 70,000-piece collection. (Art Newspaper)

📚 Judah Benjamin, the Confederate Secretary of State, was arguably the most important American Jew of the 19th century. The author of a new book about Benjamin – a slave-owner who decried slavery – said “he was a gifted person attached to an evil cause.” (Forward)

🥩 A Jewish pitmaster in Queens has opened a pop-up restaurant called Tikkun BBQ that donates some of its proceeds to charity. “I’m a Jew with tattoos selling pork on Shabbat,” said Eli Goldman. “At the same, it’s called Tikkun BBQ for a reason.” The name refers to the Hebrew phrase tikkun olam – repair the world; the current pop-up supports a literacy program, and prior ones have been dedicated to a food pantry or the ACLU. “This thing is heavily influenced by my views on Judaism,” Goldman explained. (NY Jewish Week)

What else we’re reading ➤ Employees in Israel took fewer sick days than those in any other country in the world, according to new research … A Wisconsin politician wants prayers and pledges removed from county board meetings … Meet the Israeli working to revive and preserve Morocco’s Jewish past.

ON THE CALENDAR

On this day in history: Emmy Noether, considered one of the most important women in the history of math, was born on March 23, 1882. She succeeded despite facing discrimination – first as a woman, then as a Jew. At the start of her academic career at Germany’s University of Göttingen, Noether was forced to give lectures under the name of a male professor. The department eventually relaxed that rule and she thrived until the rise of the Nazis, when she moved to the United States. Noether taught at Bryn Mawr College and worked with Albert Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. She discovered Noether’s theorem, which is too complicated to explain here beyond saying it’s a fundamental concept to understanding theoretical physics. Einstein called her “the most significant mathematical genius since the higher education of women began.”

Last year on this day, we reported on the murder of Youssef Mahboubian, a 104-year-old Iranian Jewish immigrant in Los Angeles. Adam Dimmerman, 48, was arrested and charged with Mahboubian’s murder, attempted murder of Mahboubian’s wife and assault with a deadly weapon. He entered a not guilty plea to all three charges. The case is pending in Los Angeles Superior Court.

On the Hebrew calendar, it’s the 20th of Adar, the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Yoel Sirkes. Known as the Bach, he was the foremost Talmudic scholar in Poland in the 17th century and his commentary is studied in yeshivas to this day.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

From left to right: Tova Ricardo, Victoria Fulcher-Raggs, Harriette Mevakeshet, Darlene Williams (front), Dee Sanae, Tamara Fish, Sabrina Sojourner and Tiffany Bailey celebrate Sanae’s selection as an honoree in Jewish Women International’s “Women To Watch” gala in Washington, D.C. March 21. Ricardo was a featured poet at the event and Raggs was selected as a fellow in the Jewish Communal Women’s Leadership Project Cohort.

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Play today’s Vertl puzzle (aka the Yiddish Wordle)

Thanks to Nora Berman, PJ Grisar, Eliya Smith and Robin Washington for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com.

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