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Good morning! I'm Talya Zax, the Forward’s innovation editor and occasional children’s television critic. Benyamin Cohen is off this week, so I’m filling in on the Forwarding desk.
Today: Jacob Kornbluh’s political notebook, an antisemitic attack in Lakewood, N.J., and the remarkable life of Oskar Schindler’s secretary.
THE WEEK IN POLITICS Al Gross is one of 50 candidates vying to become Alaska’s congressperson. (Gideon Markowicz/Getty Images) Meet Sarah Palin’s Jewish opponent in Alaska’s crowded primary for Congress: In an uncommonly crowded field of 50 candidates for Alaska’s lone House seat, there are two with universal name recognition — Sarah Palin and Santa Claus — and a member of the “Frozen Chosen” who spent several months on a kibbutz as a kid and eschews party politics. Al Gross, the Jewish candidate, is the son of a former state Attorney General whose bar mitzvah was the first in southeast Alaska. He plans to spend the first Seder this year at Chabad in Anchorage and is bringing homemade brisket to the second. Read the story ➤
President Joe Biden plans to reject Iran’s demand to remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list, acquiescing to calls from Congress and Israel, reports David Ignatius of the Washington Post. Iran’s demand has stalled an emerging agreement between the U.S. and its allies on a return to the 2015 nuclear deal. On Sunday, the Iranian parliament set its conditions, among them written guarantees that the U.S. would not quit the deal again. While the official Israeli position is against a new deal, some Israeli intelligence officials support the U.S. approach.
In Albany: Gov. Kathy Hochul passed her first budget, albeit nine days after the April 1 deadline. The $220 billion plan includes $45 million for security measures at private schools, a 200% increase. It also amends a 2019 bail-reform law to once again allow judges to set bail for those accused of hate crimes who would have been set free. The move was opposed by some progressive Jewish groups.
In New York City: Janno Lieber, CEO of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said Friday that he is working to increase police presence in the subway system and to make sure that hate-crime incidents are fully investigated and prosecuted. The city counted 23 attacks against Jews this March versus 12 in 2021. Lieber, who is Jewish, suggested banning people accused of repeated hate crimes from the public transit, saying: “To me, it's especially important that we don't let hate and bigotry have a place in the subway system.”
In Nassau County, Republican Ari Brown defeated David Lobl, a Democrat, in a special election for the state assembly on Thursday. Lobl, previously the Jewish liaison to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, faced a battle within the Orthodox community in the Five Towns given his party affiliation amid a rise in crime. ALSO FROM THE FORWARD Mimi Reinhardt in 2019. (Gideon Markowicz/Getty) She typed up Schindler’s list — and showed how a secretary could be a hero. Mimi Reinhardt, who died Friday at age 107, tended to be modest about her role in the rescue of some 1,200 Jews from Germany. But she used her proximity to Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist, to organize both her own rescue and that of two of her friends, a quiet act that reflected the bravery required by the whole enterprise. After her escape, Reinhardt settled on the Upper West Side, then made aliyah at 92. She was invited to the premiere of “Schindler’s List” in 1993 but left before the film was screened, reluctant to return to her memories of the Nazis’ horrors. Read the story ➤
Lakewood, N.J., reels after string of attacks on Jews. As Shabbat arrived in the heavily Orthodox town, so did violence. According to the police, Dion Marsh, 27, committed a carjacking, then hit three pedestrians with the car, stabbed one of them, and made antisemitic comments during his arrest. The attacks, which came a week after two attacks on Orthodox Jews rocked New York City, left three victims hospitalized, two in critical condition. Meir Lichtenstein, Lakewood’s police commissioner and former mayor, struck a defiant tone after Marsh’s arrest: “We will not live in fear.” Read the story ➤ WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. (Emil Lippe/Getty) 🕍 Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, where a gunman held the rabbi and three congregants hostage for 11 hours in January, reopened on Friday after months of repairs. One congregant said the standoff left the building “damaged to the point that it was uninhabitable.” Having the community re enter its space, said Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, “goes a long way.” (Washington Post)
🍁 Canada is outlawing Holocaust denial. The move comes as white supremacy and antisemitism rise in the country. Canada joins Germany and several other European countries in making Holocaust denial a criminal offense, though the penalty there is yet not clear. (CTV News)
✡️ Boston is getting its first Holocaust museum. Jody Kipnis and Todd Ruderman, who are married and co-founders of a nonprofit called the Holocaust Legacy Foundation, bought a 15,000-square-foot building for $11.5 million to house the museum, which Kipnis said would be “an interactive, cautionary experience.” (NBC Boston)
🇮🇱 Violence in the West Bank: An Israeli military raid in Jenin targeting two brothers of the gunman who killed people in Tel Aviv on Thursday turned deadly, with the soldiers fatally shooting a 17-year-old Palestinian who opened fire on them. In separate incidents, Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian who was throwing Molotov cocktails at them near the West Bank town of al-Khader, and Palestinians shot and wounded two Israeli Jews who were on their way to Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus, a flashpoint for tension. (Haaretz)
🗳️ Éric Zemmour, the Jewish far-right candidate for French president, was eliminated in the first round of balloting after winning about 7% of the vote. President Emmanuel Macron will face Zemmour's far-right rival, Marine Le Pen, in a runoff April 24. (The Guardian)
🙄 Peru’s prime minister praised Hitler — over infrastructure. Aníbal Torres, who is facing protests over inflation, has offered to apologize for his admiring remarks about the building plans of both Hitler and Mussolini. But Peru’s Jewish Association says his remark was only the most recent example of a politician making troubling remarks about the Holocaust. (The Guardian)
🏫 A professor who used the antisemitic term “Jew down” in class didn’t break university policy. So says Ohio State University, which determined that health professor Jackie Buell’s use of the slur last fall was “offensive, concerning and inappropriate” but not against the school’s non-discrimination policies. Buell was suspended from teaching spring classes and required to attend training. (The Lantern)
ON THE CALENDAR On this day in history: The city of Tel Aviv was founded on April 11, 1909. Beloved for its beaches and nightlife, Tel Aviv's layout is incompatible with its climate. Rabbi Eliezer Papo, a professor at Ben Gurion University, says Tel Aviv's Sephardic founders placed it parallel to the water, like river-based cities they'd known elsewhere, rather than perpendicular, meaning homes block ocean breezes from traveling inland. This can partly explain Tel Aviv’s sweltering summers.
Last year on this day, on the 60th anniversary of Adolf Eichman’s trial, Deborah Lipstadt wrote about how the event helped shape the public’s perception of the Holocaust. April 11 is also the anniversary of her victory in the British defamation suit that was the subject of the film “Denial.”
On the Hebrew calendar, it’s the 10th of Nisan, the yahrzeit of Miriam, Moses’ sister. VIDEO OF THE DAY A Bintel Brief is back! Our signature advice column is now a podcast. Co-hosts Ginna Green and Lynn Harris pick up on a tradition the Forward started in 1906 of answering your questions about Jewish identity, ethics, practice and values. Season 2 launches at the end of the month, with the Forward’s archivist, Chana Pollack, bringing historical letters that relate to today’s modern ones. Plus, new this season: A Bintel Blitz — lightning-round advice for life’s smaller problems.
––– Play today’s Vertl puzzle (aka the Yiddish Wordle)
Thanks to Kayla Cohen and Jacob Kornbluh for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected].
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