Lawsuit claims sexual assault at Camp Ramah, Muslim judge appointed to Israel's Supreme Court, Jews thrown off Lufthansa flight, and our music critic traveled to the new Bob Dylan archives in Tulsa. Plus: Play today's Vertl puzzle, the Yiddish Wordle |
Jeff Milstein is, at 53, the synagogue’s youngest congregant. (Photo: Melanie Grizzel) |
Inside the last days of a small-town synagogue Temple Emanu-El, a Reform synagogue in East Texas, could once pack 180 people into its sanctuary. That was then. The Sunday School closed a generation ago; there are only eight members left, the youngest in his 50s. “It’s like a ghost town in an old Western,” said one of them, Howard Milstein. What happens to the building, the books, the Torah scrolls, the families that grew up there when a shul shuts down for good? Dina Gachman, a freelance journalist from the Austin area, spent some time at the synagogue, in Longview, to find out. The big picture: About 18% of Reform synagogues and 36% of Conservative ones have closed since 2001. The number of American Jews has grown but those saying they go to shul has dropped to 20% from 26% two decades ago. “For the most part, you don’t run out of money,” said Noah Levine of the Jewish Heritage Legacy Project, which has helped about 100 congregations close their doors. “You run out of people.” |
Archived clippings and photographs from the history of Temple Emanu-El. (Photo: Melanie Grizzel) |
Cataloging a history: Laura Romine, 60, has spent hours each week over the last six months logging 640 books and about as many other items: star-shaped Seder plates, oil paintings, a ping-pong table, guest books, even the Ner Tamid, or eternal light. They’ll be donated, while the building, dedicated in 1957, has been put up for sale. Lost and found: Along with the physical items, there are myriad memories of weddings and funerals, bar mitzvahs and Purim carnivals. Tales about the Food-o-Rama fundraisers where the whole town turned out to try Jan Statman’s Herring Salad or Yehudit Barzel’s Dairy Kreplach. The end: The congregants finally staked a For Sale sign out front, and plan to keep meeting until the last of the paperwork is signed. Our reporter asked the members what they want people to know about Emanu-El. Dr. Raul Zapata lifted his wooden cane and said: “I want people to know that we were here.” Read the story ➤ |
The new Bob Dylan Center and Archive opens in Tulsa today. Our music critic traveled there for a VIP tour:Exhibits feature home movies of Dylan and Joan Baez, a photo of Dylan singing at the University of Minnesota’s Hillel House, and a hand-drawn holiday card from George Harrison of the Beatles with a sketch of Dylan wearing a yarmulke and a Star or David. Read the story ➤ Related: Why are Bob Dylan’s archives in Oklahoma? Lawsuit claims Camp Ramah showed ‘deliberate indifference’ to sexual assault: The complaint filed in federal court last week blames Rabbi Ethan Linden, director of Ramah’s camp in the Berkshires, for mishandling a 2018 incident of sexual assault. The suit says Linden failed to report the assault to police, inform the victim’s family or remove the alleged perpetrator from camp, and said the experience “was not an isolated incident.” Linden, who has worked at four Ramah camps, was profiled by New York Jewish Week in 2017 as an example of a leader working to strengthen policies to prevent child sexual abuse. Read the story ➤ But wait, there’s more… Joshua Cohen’s satirical novel ‘The Netanyahus” won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction Monday. Read our review. Billy Crystal, a Bob Dylan musical and a play about Jewish bankers are among the nominees for this year’s Tony Awards. At long last, premium Israeli whisky is here. Was it worth the wait?Queer Yiddish camp begins this weekend. |
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
Visibly Jewish passengers were greeted by the police once they arrived in Frankfurt. (Courtesy) |
✈️ Passengers say Lufthansa threw all visibly Orthodox Jews off a flight because some weren’t wearing masks. A cell phone video shows an airline supervisor saying, it’s “Jewish people who were the mess, who made the problems.” One passenger told a reporter afterwards that “if you feel you have to punish individuals who didn’t comply, that’s fine. But you can’t just punish an entire race just because we all look alike.” (New York Jewish Week) 😮 Some are calling it a sad day at the happiest place on Earth. Protestors standing outside Disney World were seen waving Nazi flags. Some news reports said they were also waving a “DeSantis Country” flag, a reference to the ongoing dispute between the Florida governor and Disney over a bill restricting discussions of sexuality in schools that critics call the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Last week, conservative activists claimed that DeSantis was disinvited from an event at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City. (Times of Israel) 🇺🇦 Russian shelling damaged a Jewish cemetery in Ukraine where at least 105 victims from a 1918 pogrom are buried. (JTA) ⚖️ Judge Khaled Kabub became the first Muslim appointed to Israel’s Supreme Court. Kabub, 64, succeeds Neal Hendel, who is retiring from the 15-member court. (Times of Israel) ⚾ Antisemitic, racist and homophobic slurs were shouted at players in a Massachusetts high school baseball game by fans from the opposing team. “We have had to have many, many, assemblies on it,” said one senior, “and it just seems like nothing is working and that’s the sad part.” The ADL, the school district and police are investigating the incident. (CBS Boston) 👉 Aaron Mostofsky, who took part in the Jan. 6 insurrection wearing a fur pelt, has been sentenced to eight months in prison. Mostofsky is the son of Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Shlomo Mostofsky. Read our guide to the extremists and hate groups that invaded the Capitol. (CNN) ⛪ The Church of England has apologized for the laws that led to the expulsion of Jews, passed by the Catholic Church 800 years ago. The announcement came Sunday at a church service attended by Britain’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis. “Today’s service,” tweeted the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, “is an opportunity to remember, repent and rebuild.” (Times of Israel) 🍗 Six months after opening in Los Angeles, a kosher chicken-and waffles restaurant called Melrose Bite has given up its kosher certification, citing costs of food and supervision. It now serves dairy and bacon. (Boiling Point) 🚜 Haredi rabbis tell their followers that there is no one more faithful than an Israeli farmer who fully observes shmita, the every-seven-years agricultural sabbatical. So much so that people flock to certain farmers to receive blessings and have prayer requests answered. One woman recalled struggling with infertility until she got a blessing from Doron and Ilana Toweg, a farming couple who have been called modern-day miracle workers. (JTA) What else we’re reading ➤ The Holocaust survivor who fell in love with her American liberator … Israel to scrap mandatory airport COVID testing next week … Is this Jewish knitter the best thing on TikTok? |
(Left) Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire; (right) Max Steiner, who composed music for them. (Getty/Wikimedia) |
On this day in history: Max Steiner, the prodigious Austrian-born composer who eventually became known as the “father of film music,” was born on May 10, 1888. Steiner wrote his first operetta at the age of 15 — it ran at Vienna’s Orpheum Theater for a year, but left his father unimpressed — and later scored or arranged more than 300 Hollywood films including “Casablanca,” the original “King Kong,” “Gone With the Wind” and most of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers’ oeuvre. He won five Academy Awards and in 1999, almost three decades after his death in 1971, was featured on a U.S. postage stamp. An 11-day war between Israel and militants in the Gaza Strip began last year on this day. A new analysis argues the region is not any safer now. And from our archives: Jodi Rudoren answers kids’ questions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
West Virginia is holding primary elections today. A gay Jewish activist is running for a U.S. Senate seat.
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The annual Eurovision song contest begins tonight in Turin, Italy. With 40 countries competing. Ukraine’s entrant – an upbeat melody from Kalush Orchestra, a six-person band – is the sentimental favorite; Russia is banned this year. Israel’s representative is Michael Ben David, who wrote an anthem about being bullied and coming out as gay. “People voted for me,” Ben David said of the nomination process, “and that means they accept me for who I am. This isn’t only for me. This is for so many people.” Israel has won the competition four times, most recently in 2018. Watch Ben David’s music video ➤ ––– Thanks to Louis Keene and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com. |
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