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One-legged Hasidic Paralympian competing in skirt, Israeli businessman sues Ben & Jerry's, AIPAC endorsing candidates who did not certify Biden election, YU hoops start tourney today.
THE WAR IN UKRAINE Rabbi Avi Baumol distributed supplies in Ukraine, and then filled his vans up with refugees to sneak across the border. First, the latest: Russian forces attacked Ukraine’s largest nuclear plant on Friday. There has not been a release of radioactive material yet, but President Volodomyr Zelenskyy is concerned about what might happen next. He spoke with foreign leaders including President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who said that Putin’s actions “could now directly threaten the safety of all of Europe.”
And now, more coverage of the Jewish angles…
The refugee crisis
A supply run turned into a rescue mission: Rabbi Avi Baumol, an American who lives in Poland, loaded up five vans of supplies – food, medicine, diapers, and toys – and was planning on dropping them off at the Ukrainian border. Instead, he and his team of volunteers kept on driving into the war zone. They emptied everything into a warehouse in the city of Lviv. And then Rabbi Baumol had an idea: He filled the vans up with refugees and drove them back across the border into Poland. “It was a scene out of some kind of apocalyptic movie,” he said in an interview. “We packed them in like sardines.” Read the story ➤
Israel expects 10,000 refugees from Ukraine:That’s up from the original estimate of 3,000, and about half of them plan to make aliyah. “Many fled with two small bags and maybe a cat and a dog,” said Roman Polonsky of the Jewish Agency, one of the groups helping with the resettlement. Some, he added, have COVID-19, perhaps due to the time they spent in bomb shelters, on long bus rides and in crowds at the borders. “We don’t ask for vaccination documents,” Polonsky said. Read the story ➤
Contemplating Babyn Yar Zelenskyy attended a commemoration event at Babyn Yar on Sep. 29, 2021. (Getty) The Russian bomb that hit part of the memorial complex of Babyn Yar – the ravine in central Kyiv where more than 33,000 Jews were massacred in 1941 – was not the week’s most deadly. But the symbolism of such a site being struck was powerful for Jews worldwide.
Destroying the memory of what the Nazis did to us is itself de-Nazification. Shoshana Batya Greenwald reflects on the irony of Vladimir Putin bombing the site of a former Nazi atrocity. “While sites of memory such as memorials, museums and even small plaques in urban parks serve as witnesses,” she writes, “Jews have never solely depended on these sites to mourn or remember. Our memory is embedded in time and ritual.” Read the essay ➤
Portrait of an artist: Felix Lembersky grew up in Ukraine and lost his parents in the execution fields of the Nazis. Lembersky became a painter and made the first artistic renditions of the massacre at Babyn Yar. People would come to his home to get a glimpse of them, but he died never seeing the works on display. His granddaughter Yelena Lembersky was preparing an exhibition at the site in Ukraine when the war broke out. She shared his story – and two of the paintings – with us. Read her essay ➤
Why did Putin bomb Babyn Yar? He “is making a statement to the Ukrainian Jewish community: you don’t belong here,” writes Rabbi Lance Sussman.
Zelenskyy seized on the opportunity to rally Jews to his cause. “He’s using the Jewish angle – and it’s absolutely kosher,” said Roman Bronfman, an expert on Ukrainian Jewry. “When he appeals to the Jewish world for help, that’s only natural. And the Jewish world should listen.” Read the story ➤
And more perspectives… Anti-war activists in Washington, D.C. (Getty) A Ukrainian immigrant in L.A. fights Putin with poetry: As the war ramped up, Boris Dralyuk, the editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books, worked overtime to translate the Ukrainian and Russian poets writing about the conflict. So can poetry help? “I think we do want to know what’s going on in the heads of these people who are either dissolving into tears or taking up arms,” he told our national editor, Rob Eshman. Read the interview ➤
In Ukraine, a long history of Russian crimes against Jews:Between 1917 and 1921, two decades before the Holocaust, an estimated 100,000 to 250,000 Jews were murdered in anti-Jewish pogroms across Ukraine. “These atrocities were committed by different factions with disparate reasons for blaming the Jews,” writes Benjamin Ivry. “All saw pogroms as cheerful, personally enriching forms of aerobic exercise.” Read the story ➤
Plus... A Ukrainian Jewish soccer player who planned to take his talents to Israel was killed in Kyiv when his home was hit by Russian shelling. His mother was also killed in the attack and his sister was badly injured. A mikvah in Uman is being used as an underground shelter for both Jews and non-Jews. He likes dogs, shawarma, and winning. Here are 18 things to know about President Zelenskyy.As a public service, we’ve removed the paywall from all our Ukraine coverage to make it free and accessible. Click here to make a tax-deductible donation and support this essential coverage. WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY ⛷️ The Paralympics begin today in Beijing and will feature Israel’s first-ever winter participant, 20-year-old Sheina Vaspi. She lost a leg as a toddler when a bus hit the family’s car and will ski in multiple events on her remaining leg. “My leg didn’t survive,” she said. “No big deal.” Vaspi, who is Hasidic, got permission to compete wearing a skirt over her ski pants. (Times of Israel)
🍦 The manufacturer and distributor of Ben & Jerry’s in Israel is suing the brand and its parent company, Unilever, over its decision to stop selling ice cream in the occupied West Bank. “Leave ice cream out of the political debate,” he said, arguing the boycott is illegal and will cause irreparable harm to his business. (Forward)
🇺🇸 AIPAC’s political action committee is endorsing dozens of Republicans who refused to certify the election of President Joe Biden. Betsy Sheerr, a past board member of AIPAC, criticized the move calling it “dangerous” to be so doctrinaire. “‘Well, they’re pro-Israel.’ So you discount everything else?” she asked sarcastically. “You can’t discount everything else.” (JTA)
📈 Antisemitic propaganda spiked in the U.S. last year, with the distribution of anti-Jewish leaflets rising 27% in 2021 from the previous year, according to a new study from the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL highlighted the Goyim Defense League, whose hateful flyers have appeared in numerous cities across the country as a reason for the increase, boding badly for 2022: the Goyim group has been behind a flurry of incidents in January and February in 15 states. (Wall Street Journal)
What we’re watching ➤ The Yeshiva University men’s basketball team takes on Johns Hopkins in the first round of the Division III NCAA tournament at 12:40 p.m. ET. The Maccabees have history at Hopkins – it’s where their 2020 tournament run was derailed by the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. If the Macs win, they’ll play their second game on Saturday night, not long after Shabbat ends. Watch the game here ➤
Shiva call ➤ Ken Duberstein, President Ronald Reagan’s chief of staff, died at 77. James Baker, Reagan’s first White House chief of staff, once marveled that Duberstein “just doesn’t have enemies.” Duberstein is believed to be the first Jew to serve in the role, paving the way for Joshua Bolten, Rahm Emanuel, Jack Lew and Ron Klain. (Forward)
ON THE CALENDAR On this day in history: The city of Chicago was incorporated on March 4, 1837. It has given the world many things in its 185 years: like the World’s Fair, Michael Jordan, and deep-dish pizza. It’s also the hometown of our executive editor, Adam Langer, who penned this wonderful essay about what it was like growing up in the Windy City. It meant “that probably the most sacrilegious period of your life took place during the five years you attended Hebrew school,” he wrote, “a sad, sordid tale involving tacks placed on rabbis’ chairs and snowballs whipped at CTA buses and hallway fistfights and classmates who spent recess swiping porn and Cadbury chocolate bars from nearby Sun Drugs, after which teachers shouted and banged tzedakah boxes and ordered everyone to copy passages from Maimonides 100 times.” Read (at least) 50 more reasons Adam loves Chicago ➤
Also: The secret Jewish history of the Great Chicago Fire.
Last year on this day, Charles Barkley joked that he was losing weight so that he could dance the hora at his daughter’s Jewish wedding. “I’ve been really working out hard because apparently they’ve got to pick me up in a chair,” he said.
Debuting today: “Borscht Beat,” a new record label, is releasing “forshpil:tsvey,” a Yiddish psychedelic rock fusion album by the band Forshpil. The label was founded by Aaron Bendich – Radio Catskill host, music maven and son of the Forward’s Vice President of Finance, Alan Bendich. Listen to it here ➤
YOUR WEEKEND READS We’ve published more than 50 articles about the war in Ukraine since it began last week, and curated several of them into a printable magazine for your weekend reading. Howard Fineman, a veteran politics reporter, recounts his first trip to Ukraine and how he was tracked down by the KGB; Robert Zaretsky, our culture columnist, explores how Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s previous career as a performer prepared him for this moment in time; and staff reporter Louis Keene writes about a Russian Jewish oligarch who found himself in an awkward position this week. Plus: The bizarre story of the dueling men who both claim to be the chief rabbi of Ukraine. Get your copy here ➤
––– Thanks to Nora Berman, Louis Keene and Lauren Markoe for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected].
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