Good morning! I’m Talya Zax, the Forward’s innovation editor, filling in this week on the Forwarding desk. Today: A safe Lag B’Omer at Mount Meron, AIPAC claims mixed successes in Tuesday’s primaries and a potent new export for Israel. |
Cecily Routman attended Tuesday's Jewish Rally for Abortion Justice as a counterprotester. (Eric Lee for the Forward)
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Inside a Jewish anti-abortion organization — and the Christian nonprofit that backs it. The vast majority of Jews support abortion rights, which made the appearance of an amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court on behalf of a small nonprofit called the Jewish Pro-Life Foundation something of a surprise. Even more surprising: The group and its brief advocating for Roe v. Wade to be overturned were funded and largely written by a Christian nonprofit, the Justice Foundation. “Quite irregular”: The combination has raised eyebrows, with seasoned court observers noting that it’s highly unusual for a brief purporting to represent the perspectives of one religion to be authored by people of a different one. “If this brief was proposed, researched, written, filed, and otherwise conceptualized and orchestrated entirely by a Christian group, one might reasonably question who is actually speaking here,” one source said. “Judaism is a religion that holds life sacred”: Cecily Routman, the foundation’s founder, was raised to believe that abortion could be permissible under the right circumstances. Her beliefs changed later in life — with a pivot point being when she heard another Jewish woman declare herself anti-abortion on the radio. Now, she sees her cause as necessary from a Jewish perspective. The vehemence with which Jews support abortion rights, she said, “foments antisemitism.” “Judeo-Christian tradition”: Routman has defended her choice to work with the Justice Foundation, saying her colleagues there “respect and appreciate the Old Testament more than so many Jews do today.” Read the story ➤ |
A makeshift memorial near a Tops Grocery store in Buffalo. (Getty)
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The Buffalo gunman was radicalized on social media. Will anything change? Mainstream social media companies took some action after the shooter attempted to livestream his attack on a Buffalo supermarket, in which he killed 10 and wounded three, most of them Black. But the world of hate-based internet interactions, especially on smaller platforms, is often deliberately unregulated, making affirmative steps to counter the spread of hate difficult. “There’s no sense in exerting public pressure because they don’t care,” said Daniel Kelley of the Anti-Defamation League. “They don’t want to be good public actors.” Read the story ➤
Pro-Israel groups and progressives both claim primary success. AIPAC and J Street, both competing to shape the makeup of the next Congress, have each claimed the results of Tuesday’s congressional primaries as an affirmation of their electoral strategies. After AIPAC-backed candidates won two key races in North Carolina and lost a close contest in Pennsylvania's 12th District, an AIPAC spokesperson said the primaries demonstrated “the political effectiveness of the pro-Israel community.” J Street pointed to the progressive Summer Lee’s declared victory over a candidate to whom AIPAC funneled $2.7 million as evidence that progressive candidates can overcome mass spending with the right resources. Read the story ➤
Plus: An AIPAC-backed state lawmaker beat a county commissioner who has been vilified as anti-Israel in the Democratic primary for a North Carolina House seat.
ICYMI: Inside the last days of a small-town synagogue: Over the last two decades, more than a third of Conservative shuls in the United States and 18% of Reform ones have shut their doors. Next is Temple Emanu-El of Longview, Texas, which is down to its last eight members — the youngest of whom is in his 50s. They have spent the last months deciding how to dismantle the library, where to donate the Torah scrolls, when to put the midcentury building up for sale, and how to ensure their memories are passed on. Read the story ➤ |
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
Protestors in New York City called for justice for Shireen Abu Akleh last weekend. (Alex Kent/Getty) |
🇮🇱 Lag B’Omer celebrations at Israel’s Mount Meron stayed peaceful and safe — with 8,000 police officers on hand, a year after a stampede killed 45 people at the festival popular with Orthodox Jews. Police made multiple arrests of people they said intended to force their way into the event without tickets. (Associated Press)
👀 Israel’s military will not conduct a criminal investigation into last week’s fatal shooting of a Palestinian journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, while she was covering a raid in the West Bank for Al-Jazeera. (Haaretz)
😓 Israel will allow a nationalist march through Jerusalem’s primary Palestinian quarter. The annual May 29 march, which celebrates Israel’s seizing of East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank during the 1967 war, is a frequent flashpoint for violence. After months of Palestinian attacks on Israeli Jews and clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters, and with Abu Akleh’s killing further inflaming tensions, concerns about the event have been high. (ABC)
😟 An 18-year-old in Orthodox dress was shot by a BB gun fired from an SUV in Brooklyn. Police are investigating the incident, which left the teenager with a scratch on his neck and also broke the front window of a nearby synagogue, as a possible hate crime. (CBS New York)
😢 Russian troops destroyed a historic synagogue building in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. The 1882 building, which was seized by both the Soviet authorities and the Nazis in the 1930s and ’40s, has been used for secular purposes since then. Before the war, Mariupol’s leaders planned to return the building to the Jewish community. (Algemeiner)
🤝 New York City Mayor Eric Adams is scheduled to meet this morning with female rabbis and other leaders affiliated with the New York Jewish Agenda, a liberal advocacy group.
⚖️ Cast and crew members of four Broadway shows produced by Scott Rudin, who faces widespread allegations of workplace abuse, have been released from nondisclosure agreements. (Vulture)
🛫 Israel has sent the U.S. its first-ever export of cannabis seeds. The seeds, which are intended to produce plants for medical use, will be evaluated “to verify that they are suitable for the American market,” Israel’s ministry of health said.
What else we’re reading ➤ Why Léon Blum, France’s first Jewish prime minister, is back in the news … A Holocaust survivor’s vast collection of miniature books to be exhibited in Montreal … Parallels between current U.S. sanctions on Russia and asset freezes during World War II. |
Dolph Schayes of the Syracuse Nationals on defense during a 1957 NBA game. (Getty) |
On this day in history: Basketball Hall-of-Famer Dolph Schayes was born on May 19, 1928, to Romanian Jewish immigrants. Schayes, a 6-foot-8, 12-time All Star, began playing basketball on playgrounds in his Bronx neighborhood, went to NYU and then played professionally for the Syracuse Nationals, which won a national championship, and Philadelphia 76ers. After retiring as a player, Schayes became a coach, leading the U.S. basketball team to a win in the 1977 Maccabiah Games. “I grew up as a Jew,” he said of the opening ceremonies there. “Every time I come I grow up even more.”
On the Hebrew calendar, it’s the 18th of Iyar, which is also the festival of Lag B’Omer. Here’s an explainer about the day. |
After last year's deadly stampede, attendance at Wednesday night's Lag B'Omer celebration was severely restricted, to 16,000 — plus about 8,000 police officers. The event passed safely.
––– Play today’s Vertl puzzle (aka the Yiddish Wordle) Thanks to Lauren Hakimi and Jacob Kornbluh for contributing to today's newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com. |
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