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| INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT. SINCE 1897. Give a tax-deductible donation In today's briefing: Jewish institutions sued for child sex abuse, Trump team launches faith group, COVID-proofing your shofar, the Jews of the Titanic and more. OUR LEAD STORY🥇 ‘They don’t pity me:’ Meet the 54-year-old Israeli competing in her fourth Paralympics
The France-born Pascale Bercovitch has lived many lives in one. She became one of the first in a wheelchair to serve in the Israel Defense Forces. Her 200-meter kayak race later this week in Tokyo marks her fourth turn at the Paralympics – competing in three different sports.
Life-changing moment: Bercovitch was 17 when she slipped on ice at a train station on her way to school and was pulled under a train. As she waited for an ambulance, she had an epiphany. “I felt very blessed that I had this opportunity to go through this time alone in front of the cosmos and felt a lot of things to keep breathing,” Bercovitch said.
Finding her roots: She had discovered her father was Jewish while a teenager, and moved to Israel shortly after losing her legs, finding a country more open to people with disabilities. “You can be older, younger, different, yellow, pink, they are not afraid of differences,” she said. “They know they can do anything — grow, discover, invent, have ideas, trying and failing. They are children of the big world.”
The family business: Her daughter, Eden, is currently a soldier in the IDF ... and training to become an Olympic kayaker.
More Paralympics coverage: 11 Jewish Paralympics athletes to watch in Tokyo He escaped the Nazis, became a medical pioneer and founded the Paralympics
ALSO IN THE FORWARD 😷 COVID-proofing your shofar (and 9 other ingenious High Holiday hacks): Whether you’re hoping for an in-person holiday or gearing up for a second year of virtual services, this year’s Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur come with unique challenges — and opportunities. One trick? Prevent the spread of respiratory droplets by placing a mask over the wide end of your shofar before you blow it. “Of course it should be tight,” Israeli immunologist and long-time shofar blower Cyrille Cohen said. Read the story >
Why playing baseball on Yom Kippur matters:Jewish law equally prohibits work on Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah, Passover and other holidays. So why has Yom Kippur emerged as such a litmus test for Jewish ballplayers? One difference, writes Howard Wasserman, is the fast. A baseball game, even an important one, feels incongruous. Read the story >
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY👇 🚢 A museum shaped like the Titanic in Branson, Mo., has a new exhibit honoring the ship’s 69 Jewish passengers – including Ida and Isidor Strauss. Ida was on a life raft, but decided to hop back on the sinking ship to be with her husband, co-owner of Macy’s. The exhibit also highlights the ocean liner’s kosher kitchen and a special connection with the family of Anne Frank. Extra: Read how the Forward covered the sinking in 1912 and see our front page from that day here. (Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
⚖️ At least 150 lawsuits alleging child sex abuse at Jewish institutions have been filed in New York over the past two years under a law that temporarily lifted the statute of limitations on old claims. The organizations include summer camps, schools, youth movements, community centers, providers of services for disabled people, foster-care agencies and synagogues. (JTA)
🙏 Former Trump administration officials are launching a new faith-based outreach effort to push back at what some Republicans describe as an “anti-faith agenda” by the Biden administration. The group was founded by Paula White, a controversial Florida televangelist. (Forward)
📺 Jon Stewart’s return to television is official: his new talk show debuts Sept. 30 on Apple TV+. There will be a new episode every two weeks and a companion podcast. Watch the trailer here. (The Hollywood Reporter)
🍽 President Biden’s Afghanistan-related delay of his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett left Bennett and his entourage stuck in Washington for Shabbat. The delegation, including journalists and security guards, gathered for Friday night services in a suite at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel, where Bennett recited the Mourner’s Kaddish for his father’s yahrzeit. He also gave a d’var Torah before Shabbat dinner. (Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel)
🎥 After Ed Asner’s death, the Yiddish Book Center published these video highlights of a 2018 oral history in which the legendary actor reveals his humble beginnings attending cheder four afternoons a week while his friends were out playing ball. Asner reflects on his complicated Jewish identity, how his bar mitzvah kicked off his acting career and, of course, his love of Yiddish. You can also view the full 80-minute interview and searchable transcript.
Changing of the guard > Naomi Adler will succeed Janice Weinman as the head of Hadassah, the largest Jewish women’s organization in America, with nearly 300,000 members and a staff of 200. Adler is a former prosecutor and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Philadelphia.
Shiva call >Joshua Mitnick, a journalist who covered the Israeli-Palestinian story for international publications for more than two decades, died at 50 of cancer. “Chronicling the unfolding history of a region with so many conflicting passions and challenges,” said Amelia Newcomb, managing editor of the Christian Science Monitor, “Josh wrote with a depth of understanding and compassion that highlighted the humanity of his subjects.”
FROM OUR OPINION SECTION 🌍 As last U.S. troops leave Afghanistan, resettlement of refugees is nowhere close to done:“There were some successes, but far more failures,” writes Mark Hetfield of HIAS, a Jewish nonprofit that has been working nonstop to support thousands fleeing the Taliban. In a new essay, Hetfield invokes the Voyage of the Damned — the 1939 journey of the M.S. St. Louis, which was not allowed to land in Cuba or in Miami, resulting in the deaths of nearly all 900 Jews aboard who were fleeing the Nazis. Today, Hetfield writes, “we are nowhere near the promised land.” Read the OpEd >
Ice cream and bourbon at America’s concentration camps:Most Jews would be justifiably outraged if someone opened an ice-cream parlor or held a bean-bag toss on the grounds of Auschwitz. But tourist attractions abound on former slave plantations across the south. Adi Eshman, a student at USC’s MFA program in dramatic writing, traveled to Belle Meade plantation in Nashville to find out more. Read the essay >
ON THE CALENDAR 🗓 BUDDY HACKETT (LEFT) AND MICKEY ROONEY IN THE 1963 FILM 'IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD.' (GETTY IMAGES) On this day in history: Buddy Hackett, actor and comedian, was born on Aug. 31, 1924. He got his start as a “tummler,” entertaining guests in the Catskills resorts. In addition to his many film roles, Hackett has the distinction of making the most guest appearances in the history of “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” according to the board game Trivial Pursuit. At his funeral, in 2003, the rabbi opened by asking everyone to come up to the podium and tell a joke. Here’s what happened.
It’s National Matchmaker Day. We look back at how Jewish dating advice has changed (or not) in the past century.
Also on Thursday, at 6:30 p.m. ET: “The rise of antisemitism from the left and the right.” The panel moderated by Prof. Ethan Katz of UC Berkeley includes U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, a Florida Democrat; Prof. Jonathan Judaken, an expert on Judaism, racism and existentialism at of Rhodes College;, Yavilah McCoy, CEO of DIMENSIONS, Inc.; Eric K. Ward, senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center; and Batya Ungar-Sargon of Newsweek (and the Forward’s former opinion editor).. Register for the free Zoom event here.
PHOTO OF THE DAY 📸 A NATIONAL GUARD VEHICLE DRIVES THROUGH FLOODWATER IN LOUISIANA ON MONDAY. (GETTY IMAGES) With 150 mph winds, Hurricane Ida left behind a path of devastation in Louisiana. “I lost my gutter, parts of my shed and roof, and my fence,” said Rabbi Yosef Nemes of the Chabad of Metairie, a New Orleans suburb. “Not feeling God’s wrath. I’m feeling His closeness in a very personal way.” More than 1 million people are still without power and it may take weeks to restore. The three Chabad outposts in the state – as well as other local Jewish organizations – are helping with the recovery efforts.
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