Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett at a cabinet meeting earlier this month. (Getty) |
Jacob Kornbluh, our senior political reporter, shares what he’s watching this week… Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is desperately trying to keep his coalition intact until President Joe Biden’s visit at the end of July. Israeli news media reported that Bennett had pleaded with a member of his own party, Nir Orbach, to oppose until then a bill that would disperse the Knesset. Bennett wants to avoid a provision of the agreement that gave him the premiership last year in which Foreign Minister Yair Lapid automatically would be elevated to interim prime minister if the government falls apart with the support of a conservative party. If he holds on, Bennett is hoping for an iconic photo with Biden, proposing a BBQ party that would have the two leaders flipping meat on a grill.
A Biden administration official in Israel last week to prepare for the upcoming visit reportedly asked Israel to refrain from any actions in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem that could create tension. The official, Barbara Leaf, is slated to testify about the trip at a House subcommittee hearing on Wednesday.
|
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, seen here in 2020. (Getty) |
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were spotted boarding a flight from Miami to Israel on Sunday, as the public hearing of the Jan. 6 committee enters its third week. Clips of both of them were played in the opening session of the hearings. U.S. Jewish groups have welcomed the appointment of Doron Almog, a former major general in the Israel Defense Forces, as the head of the Jewish Agency. Almog takes over the agency, whose $400 million annual budget makes it the largest Jewish global nonprofit, after a chaotic, yearlong search process. “I like to think that the role will be worth the wait,” said Dan Elbaum, the agency’s North American leader. Read the story ➤ Mayor Eric Adams of New York raised the importance of Holocaust education in public schools during remarks at the Hampton Synagogue on Saturday. Speaking about a rise in antisemitism, he said: “We must engage in real conversations with our young people.” Marking Father’s Day on Sunday, Josh Shapiro, the Jewish attorney general running for governor in Pennsylvania, released a video with his dad, Steve. Shapiro’s Republican rival, Doug Mastriano, last week hired as a campaign aide Jenna Ellis, a Trump attorney who has compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.
And finally, a 77-year-old TikTok star and presidential candidate in Colombia said that when he praised Hitler in a 2016 radio interview, he had meant to be invoking Einstein. He lost the election on Sunday.
|
The participants of the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation, a forerunner of later freedom rides. (Courtesy) |
Early freedom riders, including a pioneering Jewish activist, get justice after 75 years:“We failed these men,” a superior court judge said in vacating their convictions on Friday. Our editor-at-large, Robin Washington, met these riders three decades ago when he was making a documentary about them, and traveled to the courtroom in North Carolina to witness the exoneration. “Their sacrifice should never be forgotten,” he writes. Read his essay ➤ ‘Delightfully uncomfortable’ | Commemorating Juneteenth at three Shabbat events: Jews of color hosted gatherings for the holiday in Atlanta, Washington, New York and other areas. At the Marlene Meyerson JCC in Manhattan, Rabbi Isaama Goldstein Stoll shared her experience as a Black rabbi. “I think the conversation was delightfully uncomfortable” she said. “I think people felt pushed, but in a safe way.” Read the story ➤
In case you missed it: Drake, the Jewish Canadian rapper, released a new album this weekend. Our culture reporter, PJ Grisar, reviewed each track and wondered if perhaps Drake’s next project should be a Klezmer EP. Meanwhile, the music video for the first single off the album features Drake at a Jewish wedding with 23 brides (!). Our Louis Keene tracked down the real-life Chabad rabbi who officiated the fake ceremony.
|
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
📉 The number of Americans who believe in God has dropped to the lowest level in the 78 years Gallup has asked the question, per a new poll released Friday. That level is 81%, down six points from 2017. Among Republicans, 92% said they believe in God, as did 72% of Democrats. (Axios) 💉 Israel has seen a 95% spike in serious COVID cases in the past week. On Sunday, the country counted more than 10,000 new overall cases, the highest daily number since April 4. (Times of Israel) 👏 A Texas rabbi who founded a nonprofit that collects underwear for people in need was named a CNN Hero. The group, Undies for Everyone, has provided millions of pairs to poor children and to communities hit by natural disasters. (JTA) 🥩 Belgian lawmakers agreed to keep kosher and halal slaughtering methods legal in Brussels, a victory for observant Jews and Muslims. Environmental groups concerned about animal welfare had tried to ban the special killing methods required by religious law, with the support of political parties some see as biased against Islam and Judaism. (JTA) 💰 WhatsApp’s reclusive founder has quietly become one of the largest donors to Jewish causes in the world. Jan Koum, a billionaire who lives in California, has given millions of dollars to Chabad, a JCC in Silicon Valley, numerous pro-Israel causes and Jewish relief efforts in his native Ukraine. (JTA) 🖼️ A new documentary shines light on a retired Jewish couple who were behind a $160 million art heist. The wife was wearing a kerchief and sunglasses, the husband had a fake mustache. “It was almost comical in the way it was executed,” said the film’s director. “All these blunders had to happen in order for these people to pull it off.” (Times of Israel) Shiva calls ➤ Andrée Geulen, a Belgian schoolteacher who rescued hundreds of Jewish children during the Holocaust, died at 100 … Jean-Louis Trintignant, a French actor who was forever changed by the German occupation of his homeland, died at 91.
What else we’re reading ➤ A 16 year old Israeli gymnast won gold Saturday at a European Championship … A new exhibit at the Illinois Holocaust Museum highlights the United States’ Nazi-deceiving ‘ghost army’ … Are black-and-white cookies the next Jewish food to go mainstream?
|
Today is World Refugee Day, established in 2001, on the 50th anniversary of a United Nations convention granting rights to refugees. Our news editor, Lauren Markoe, sent in this dispatch… Shortly after Kristallnacht in 1938, two English women founded the Gloucester Association for Aiding Refugees, and took in 10 Jewish boys, ages 12 to 14, who had come to Britain as part of the Kindertransport. These women, and others in Gloucester who cared for the boys “had never met a Jew before,” said Michael Zorek, whose father was one of those boys. Zorek, who lives in New York, will be in Gloucester today to lay a plaque in front of the house that served as their orphanage. Zorek said he hopes the plaque will teach passersby about the Kindertransport, which rescued thousands of Jewish children from the Holocaust, and the Gloucester Association, which helped the boys retain their Jewish heritage. Zorek planned to bring to the ceremony a prayer book that a Manchester synagogue gave to one of the boys in 1940, for his bar mitzvah. |
Queen Victoria and Britain's only Jewish prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli. (Wikimedia) |
On this day in history: Queen Victoria, the second-longest reigning British monarch, took the throne on June 20, 1837. Rumored to be a descendant of King David, Victoria appointed Britain’s first and only Jewish prime minister (Benjamin Disraeli) and admitted the first Jews to the House of Commons (Lionel Nathan deRothschild) and the House of Lords (deRothschild’s son Nathan). Related: As British Prime Minister Boris Johnson navigates scandals around his handling of the pandemic, our Robert Zaretsky longs for Disraeli’s menschy leadership.
Last year on this day, we reported that a Philadelphia festival was canceled after the removal of an Israeli food truck prompted accusations of antisemitism.
|
Vice President Kamala Harris was in Pittsburgh on Friday to tout the Biden administration’s infrastructure investments. Before leaving town, Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, visited the Tree of Life synagogue, the site of the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history. They spoke with Rabbi Jeffrey Meyer and then placed stones at a memorial in the courtyard. ––– Thanks to Jacob Kornbluh, Rudy Malcom, Lauren Markoe and Robin Washington for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com. |
Support Independent Jewish Journalism The Forward is a non-profit 501(c)3 so our journalism depends on support from readers like you. You can support our work today by donating or subscribing. All donations are tax-deductible to the full extent of US law. Make a donation ➤ Subscribe to Forward.com ➤ "America’s most prominent Jewish newspaper" — The New York Times, 2021 |
|
|
|
