Laden...
| JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT. Give a tax-deductible donation Rabbis getting arrested, Israel reopening to tourists, temporary tattoos sparking debate, bacon-bagels, a good day to call your mother-in-law and much more. 7 FROM THE FORWARD In this week’s Torah portion, the city of Sodom is destroyed, Sarah gets the news that she’s about to have a baby at 90 and Isaac almost gets sacrificed. Somewhere in the portion, called Vayera, there’s a peace treaty with the king of the Philistines and Abraham leaves a conversation with God to welcome three angels into his tent. In other words, a lot of stuff happens. It kind of sort of feels like the news week we just had.
We published so many interesting stories in the past 24 hours alone that we’re taking inspiration from Abraham’s hospitality and offering up a buffet this morning. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, in a new Opinion essay for the Forward, opens up about her breast cancer history, which spurred passage of legislation that helps those at higher risk due to their ethnic or racial background. “For Ashkenazi Jews like myself, this disease looms as an even larger threat compared to most women,” she writes. Is Donald Trump’s new social media platform bad the Jews? Our digital culture reporter, Mira Fox, thinks so – and draws inspiration for her argument from a famous defender of truth, the golem. In Brazil, 8,000 Christians have adopted Orthodox Jewish customs — a scholar is trying to figure out why. “They could have decided to be Seventh Day Adventists or even a very strict Pentecostal church,” says Manoela Carpenedo, an anthropologist. “But the idea of a Jewish collective memory, with a connection to the Marrano past, is very curious.” A just-released Chicago Jewish population study — the largest one ever — found the community is growing and diversifying. The number of Jewish households is up 19%, and 9% of those households include at least one member who identifies as LGBTQ and 7% of them at least one person of color. Reform Jews helped write U.S. voting rights laws in the 1960s. Today, rabbis are getting arrested for defending them. “America is a nation that has given the Jewish people more rights, more freedoms, more opportunities than any diaspora land in which we have lived,” one of those rabbis, David Saperstein, the former U.S. ambassador for religious freedom, writes in our Opinion section. The first major exhibit of the artist Erna Rosenstein, a Holocaust survivor who dealt with her trauma using fairytale imagery, is on display in New York. “What is remarkable about Rosenstein’s work is the way in which it alchemizes her lamentable history into something poetic that is at once personal, particular and broad, even universal,” writes our reviewer. In time for the long-awaited sci-fi epic’s arrival on HBO this weekend, behold the secret Jewish history of ‘Dune.’
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY Michael Isaacson, before on the left, and now, on the right, dressed as a rabbi. (Photo: Beyneynu) 😲 Two orthodox rabbis are being accused of secretly being evangelical Christians. The father and son, who reportedly performed weddings and other Jewish rituals, have bounced around from Portland to Milwaukee and, most recently, Phoenix. And they are not the first. Earlier this year, a man pretending to be a rabbi with his own yeshiva in Jerusalem, was outed as an undercover Christian missionary. (Jewish Chronicle)
🐓 New Zealand has weathered the pandemic better than most, but travel restrictions have meant that rabbis who usually perform conversions and butcher meat have had a tough time flying in – and the country ran out of kosher chickens months ago. “I miss chicken so much, sometimes I dream of eating it,” said one resident. (Tablet)
💉 Vaccinated foreigners will be allowed to enter Israel beginning in November. This marks the first time large numbers of tourists will be allowed into the country since the start of the pandemic. Meanwhile, Israel discovered half a dozen people who have been infected with the new AY4.2 sub-strain of the Delta variant. (JTA, Haaretz)
🇷🇺 And speaking of Israel … Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met face-to-face for the first time with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday. “We consider you a true friend of the Jewish people,” said Bennett, who spent only five hours in Sochi so he could get home for Shabbat. (Washington Post)
📄 The Conservative movement released a list of rabbis it has suspended or expelled over allegations of sexual, financial and other misconduct. “As a society we have learned the dangers when we fail to speak up and speak out,” said the head of the group’s ethics committee. (Times of Israel)
✍️ A company has figured out a way to make tattoos that disappear after a year. Which raises the question: are they allowed under Jewish law? (NYT)
What we’re watching > The trailer for Gal Gadot’s new Netflix action movie was just released … The new season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” begins Sunday night on HBO … Also out this weekend: “Minyan,” a queer and Jewish coming-of-age drama set in 1980s New York.
FROM OUR KITCHEN Chanie Apfelbaum – mom of five, founder of a kosher food blog and author of the cookbook “Millennial Kosher” – had a week without the kids. So she took a jaunt through Venice, Florence, Tuscany and Rome. The trip, she says, was revelatory for a woman who grew up on kugel, stuffed cabbage and matzoh ball soup.
Does a bacon-bagel sandwich stretch the concept of Jewish food beyond the breaking point? That’s what patrons will be asking themselves at the new Edith’s in Williamsburg, which reinterprets traditional dishes from around the world. “It’s your great-great-great grandmother’s cooking,” 34-year-old chef-owner Elyssa Heller said. “But with a twist.”
ON THE CALENDAR On this day in history: Jeff Goldblum, actor and bon vivant, was born on Oct. 22, 1952. Star of “Independence Day,” “Jurassic Park” and too many internet memes to name, Goldblum has had a wide-ranging career including jazz piano albums and a stint as the face of Apartments.com. (He also designs his own eyewear.) And he was the only one able to calm a baboon in heat on the set of “The Fly.”
It’s also the birthdays of Curly Howard, one-third of the Three Stooges, and Yitzhak Shamir, one-thirteenth of the prime ministers of Israel.
A PODCAST WE RECOMMEND On this week’s episode of “Unholy: Two Jews on the News,” hosts Yonit and Jonathan had an in-depth conversation with the woman who leads Israel’s COVID response, Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis (aka, the Israeli Dr. Fauci). She shares how she makes decisions as a worldwide leader in vaccinations and booster shots, and her concerns about a fifth wave. Plus, they discuss who really suffers from the Sally Rooney boycott. Listen now >
PHOTO OF THE DAY Diver Shlomi Katzen with the Crusade-era sword. (Photo: Nir Disteleld/Israel Antiquities Authority) A scuba diver in Israel was shocked to discover a 900-year-old Crusade-era sword on the sea bed. He took it ashore and gave it to the Israeli Antiquities Authority, which will clean and catalog it and then put it on public display.
Thanks to Nora Berman, Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Mira Fox and PJ Grisar for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected]. 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 / SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTERS Copyright © 2021, The Forward Association, Inc. All rights reserved. The Forward Association, Inc., 125 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038 Click here to unsubscribe from this newsletter. To stop receiving all emails from the Forward click here. |
Laden...
Laden...
