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Synagogue shooter sentenced to life in prison, reexamining sex ed in the Orthodox world, a sneak peek of Fauda's new season, and Israeli astronaut to bring dreidel to space.
SPIELBERG AT 75 I must’ve watched “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” a dozen times during my teenage years. It was one of the first VHS cassettes our family owned. My siblings and I memorized the witty repartee between Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. On Shabbat, we would crawl through blanket forts, reenacting the film’s cavernous adventure sequences.
Though we were the children of an Orthodox rabbi who grew up with a synagogue attached to our house, we watched a ton of movies. My dad, in his infinite wisdom, relished turning the mundane spiritual.
Each time we left a movie theater, we would sit in the parking lot and talk about the life lessons we’d learned inside. “E.T” taught us about sustaining friendships against all odds, “Back to the Future” was an exegesis on the power of time. My dad, who also has a Ph.D. in British literature, turned every trip to the multiplex into teachable moments. (He later launched his own blog and book series, Kosher Movies.)
There’s a moment in “The Last Crusade” when Indiana Jones, on a quest to find the holy grail, turns to his father and asks: “What did you find, Dad?” To which the senior Jones simply replies: “Illumination.”
Many of the foundational films of my youth were the brainchild of Steven Spielberg. Had it just been popcorn blockbusters, dayenu. But as Spielberg aged, his films became more serious: “Schindler’s List,” “Saving Private Ryan” and the “Band of Brothers” miniseries – alongside his tireless work with the Shoah Foundation – made him the preeminent modern-day storyteller of World War II.
To mark Spielberg turning 75 this month, the Forward’s executive editor, Adam Langer, shepherded a package of stories that look at the man, his work and his legacy. Steven ‘Shmuel’ Spielberg’s epic contribution to Yiddish culture What got lost when Oskar Schindler’s story became ‘Schindler’s List’ How ‘Jaws’ started out as a movie and became a pop culture phenomenon How telling the heartbreaking story of a boy in wartime turned Steven Spielberg into a grown-up filmmaker Was the movie that upended Steven Spielberg’s formula also his most autobiographical? Why we have ‘Columbo’ to thank for Steven Spielberg How a severely underrated movie turned Steven Spielberg into a 21st century Andy Warhol How Steven Spielberg mentored a whole generation of filmmakers WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY John T. Earnest at a hearing in San Diego County Superior Court. (Getty Images) ⚖️ John T. Earnest, who opened fire in the Chabad of Poway synagogue two years ago, killing a woman and injuring three other worshippers, was sentenced to life in federal prison on Tuesday. “All people in this country should be able to freely exercise their religion without fear of being attacked,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland. “This defendant’s horrific crime was an assault on fundamental principles of our nation.” (San Diego Union-Tribune)
🚀 NASA has green lit the first private mission to the International Space Station. Its four-person crew includes Eytan Stibbe, an Israeli astronaut who said he plans to take a dreidel into orbit. The zero-gravity conditions in space should allow the dreidel to spin endlessly. (Space, Israel Hayom)
📝 Five former students have accused Tzipi Diner, a teacher at a religious seminary in Israel, of sexual abuse. “She never did anything intentionally to harm,” Diner’s attorney said. (Times of Israel)
🛁 At a public bath in east London, three of the city’s most insular groups – cockneys, Russian immigrants, and Hasidic Jews – come together in sweat. “Apart from their distance from fashionable modernity, these groups differ in just about every conceivable way,” wrote a journalist who visited. “Indeed, beyond broken English, they barely share a common language – and yet, at the schvitz, they all get along extremely well with each other.” (Mosaic)
🐮 The average body mass of animals shrank 98% during the Pleistocene era, according to new research from archaeologists at Tel Aviv University. It was after that 2.5 million-year era, about 11,700 years ago, that humans began domesticating animals for agricultural purposes. (Haaretz)
Shiva call ➤ Jack Feldman, whose personal story greatly contributed to children’s Holocaust education, died at 95. “The Number on Great-Grandpa’s Arm,” an Emmy-winning documentary, explained his story of survival through the death camps and the compassion he brought with him to America. (JTA)
What we’re watching ➤ The trailer for the fourth season of “Fauda” was just released. By the looks of things, it appears the high-octane thriller is going all-out – including action in Lebanon and Belgium. Netflix has not yet said when in 2022 the show will air.
FROM OUR OPINION SECTION Opinion | I’m an Orthodox med student. My community needs real sex education: When Yael J. Mayer heard fellow religious Jews spouting erroneous halachic guidance about birth control, she realized that sex education remains a glaring blind spot in Orthodox education. For many, it does not start until the pre-marriage classes, which are often taught by people without educational training. In this essay, Mayer urges a more comprehensive and widespread curriculum. “We ask our young people to use Judaism as a guide,” she writes, “to live their lives by its tenets and yet, on topics deemed controversial where guidance is ironically best suited, we are silent.” Read the OpEd ➤
ON THE CALENDAR On this day in history: Shlomo Venezia, a Holocaust survivor and memoirist who owned a clothing store in Italy, was born on Dec. 29, 1923. During his time at Auschwitz, he worked for the Sonderkommando, a team of prisoners that was forced to help dispose of those killed in the gas chambers. Most of the Jews assigned this task were later killed so they could not reveal the horrors of the camps. Venezia managed to survive, and spoke about his experience on TV, film and at schools and conferences. His book, “Inside the Gas Chambers,” has been translated into more than a dozen languages and his story served as inspiration for the 1997 movie “The Grey Zone.” VIDEO OF THE DAY “The Chosen,” the classic film about the secular and sacred based upon the novel by Chaim Potok, turned 40 this year. To mark the moment, Adam Langer, our executive editor, chatted with Jeremy Kagan, the movie’s writer and director. Kagan offered behind-the-scenes stories – including the time he met with the Lubavitcher Rebbe at 3 a.m. – and also spoke about how he was inspired by his own rabbinic father. Watch their conversation now ➤
––– Thanks to Laura E. Adkins and Nora Berman for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected].
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