Good morning! I’m Talya Zax, the Forward’s innovation editor. I’ve filled in for Benyamin Cohen as host of Forwarding the News every once in a while, and starting today, I’ll be your regular Friday host. My favorite thing about Fridays: Trying to beat my best time at the second-hardest The New York Times crossword of the week — right now it’s 6:03 #deptofselfcongratulations. What's your best crossword time? Your favorite thing about Fridays? Email [email protected] with the subject line “Fridays,” and I’ll do my best to write back. |
Opinion | Misogynistic influencers are dabbling in antisemitism. In a sense, it’s more of the same. The self-proclaimed “number one men’s podcast in the world,” Fresh & Fit, recently got kicked out of a YouTube monetization program — a decision, Emily Tamkin writes in a new essay, that could have been related to the podcast’s turn to antisemitism. With 1.4 million subscribers, Fresh & Fit is part of a cultural universe that promotes misogyny, within which conspiracy theories about Jews are increasingly becoming the norm. Enter the “manosphere”: Antisemitism is a natural fit for “a constellation of online personalities who push out extremist, retrograde gender politics,” Tamkin writes. Conspiracy theories thrive within that constellation, which tends to attribute pretty much every negative male experience to the same cause: “Blame feminism. Blame women.” “A simple solution”: The idea that a certain class of people are responsible for all social ills might sound, well, familiar. As Tamkin writes, “Those who believe that a shadowy, shady Jewish force is behind everything wrong don’t have to accept the reality that life is confusing and uncertain and at times unjust.” “Inferior to others”: The manosphere relies on the idea that certain kinds of people — specifically, women — are less than. It’s an easy progression from thinking women are lesser than men to thinking Jews are genetically inferior, an old canard that’s beginning to pop up among manosphere listeners. Read her essay ➤ |
Helen Mirren’s prosthetics to play Golda Meir raised eyebrows — but they’re one of Golda’s least overdone elements, our critic writes. (Sean Gleason, courtesy of Bleecker Street/ShivHans Pictures) |
Wondering what to watch this weekend? Here’s a look at two new releases: Helen Mirren’s Golda is golden — but the film merely glitters.In the new biopic Golda, Helen Mirren plays Golda Meir, Israel’s fourth prime minister, as she confronts the crisis of the Yom Kippur War. Mirren, whose heavy prosthetics in the role raised concerns about “Jewface,” is fantastic, our critic PJ Grisar writes. But the rest of the film doesn’t live up to her performance, in part because the conclusions it reaches about Meir are too pat. Read the story ➤ ‘Being queer is just as normal as turning 13’: Talking with the director of You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah.Did Golda Meir experience the epic highs and lows of bat mitzvah drama? Isn’t that a movie you’d like to see? Ah, well: You’ll have to settle for a different kind of Jewish royalty in You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, which stars Adam Sandler alongside his daughters. Director Sammi Cohen told PJ that making the film, with its large preteen cast, was a bit like being a camp counselor:“I want to empower these kids to go out into the world and do what they’re going to do.” Read the story ➤ |
CAN WE ASK A SMALL FAVOR? |
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WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
The first 2024 Republican Presidential primary debate took place Wednesday in Milwaukee. (KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images) |
👀 Ads for Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate were run during pro-Hitler videos on Rumble, a livestreaming site with which the Republican National Committee announced a new partnership in April. Ads for the debate were found on at least two pro-Nazi films hosted on the site. (Media Matters) 🚓 A Tampa neo-Nazi who served time after being discovered with a hit list including Bay Area synagogues was arrested after the FBI found evidence that he planned to blow up the Maryland power grid. (Fox 13 Tampa Bay) 📣 In the largest West Bank protest against Israel’s judicial overhaul to date, hundreds of protestors gathered at Israel's finance minister Bezalel Smotrich’s settlement home. Protest leaders said they “came to remind the failing minister the five commandments he has forsaken in favor of his efforts to promote a racist, Kahanist agenda of Jewish supremacy.” (Haaretz) 😮 The remains of a Jewish Dutch resistance hero were identified 80 years after his death. Bernard Luza, a member of the Dutch Communist Party and People’s Militia, was killed by a firing squad in 1943. (CBS News) 🖼️ A provenance research program in Colorado aims to give people the tools to help restitute plundered Nazi art. The University of Denver’s certificate program is the country’s only program devoted to researching artworks looted by the Nazis; its director says “We still are not at the point where this research is being carried out systematically.” (Denver Post) ❗ A medieval pogrom in the English city of York didn’t completely wipe out the Jewish community, new research finds. It was previously thought York’s new resident rabbi would be its first since the 1190 massacre, but it appears that York’s Jews rebuilt their community in the years that followed the attack, even purchasing a building to house a new synagogue. (JTA) Weekend reads ➤ Reuben Efron, the CIA agent who tracked JFK’s assassin, tried to recruit his nephew — to be an observant Jew … How trips to Israel became a political rite of passage for New York City mayors … What I learned from a Forward event about the breakfast habits of our shtetl ancestors. |
Leonard Bernstein rehearsing at Carnegie Hall in 1959. (David Attie/Getty Images) |
On this day in history (1918): Leonard Bernstein was born Louis Bernstein in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The composer, conductor and pianist, who brought classical music to a mass audience through televised Young People’s Concerts, also wrote for film, opera and musical theater. His best-known work, West Side Story, a 1950s musical about rival New York City gangs, was originally conceived as a meditation on antisemitism. |
We may never know about the intricate social dynamics of Golda Meir’s bat mitzvah. But at least we can speculate about the intricate social dynamics of this photograph, captured by Bob Cumins, of Meir conversing with United Jewish Appeal leadership at a 1977 conference in Dallas, Texas. ––– Play today’s Vertl puzzle (aka the Yiddish Wordle) Thanks to Benyamin Cohen, Beth Harpaz and Rebecca Salzhauer for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected]. |
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