Ben & Jerry's requires employees to watch lectures on Israeli-Palestinian conflict, grifting rabbi released early from prison, Quentin Tarantino gets doctorate from Hebrew University, and more. Plus: Play today's Vertl puzzle, the Yiddish Wordle |
Robert Preston and Shirley Jones in the 1962 film adaptation of 'The Music Man.' (Getty) |
‘The Music Man’ was the last great goyish musical Fresh off of this year’s Tony Awards – in which Billy Crystal’s Yiddish singalong took center stage – we turn our gaze back to the 1958 ceremony, when “West Side Story” and “The Music Man” battled it out for the top prize. The latter won and, our Eliya Smith argues, this marked a turning point for Broadway. Trouble in River City: “The Music Man” is a story about a man who isn’t who he says he is, a man who is running from something and toward something else. Smith says this is a fundamentally Jewish midcentury story, and the musicals that follow it present similar stories that way. But in “The Music Man,” she writes, that exploration is conspicuously absent. Hello, Dolly! In the decades that followed, Broadway shows often took a character like Music Man’s Harold Hill and drew them as an immigrant, a Jew, a person of color, or someone otherwise marginalized. “Audiences would come to understand outsiderness as a metaphor,” Smith writes, “a universal stand-in for a specific experience of exclusion.” A strange loop: A revival of “The Music Man,” starring Hugh Jackman in the lead role, recently opened on Broadway. It was nominated for six Tony Awards, but didn’t win any. Read the story ➤ |
Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein was already under investigation when he visited the White House after an attack on his synagogue. (Getty) |
Disgraced former Chabad of Poway rabbi out of prison early: Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein was sentenced in February to 14 months for wire and tax fraud. He was released in May under a prison program to limit the spread of COVID-19 by reducing incarcerated populations, and may spend the rest of his sentence in home confinement at his hilltop mansion. A former congregant called the early release “unconscionable.” Read the story ➤ Jewish newspaper expelled from press group for calling BDS cartoon antisemitic: The South African Jewish Report has been kicked out of the country’s independent press council after refusing to apologize for describing a caricature of a rich businessman eating money as antisemitic. The cartoon was promoted by a group calling for a boycott of Israel and the dispute hinged not on whether it was offensive to Jews, but rather whether labeling it antisemitic was a fact or opinion. Read the story ➤ A fierce, uncompromisingly radical Jewish feminist finally gets her due:A new documentary revels in the many contradictions of Andrea Dworkin. “Aware of social injustice at an early age,” Simi Horwitz writes in her review, “she made her first speech on that topic in Hebrew school, insisting that the congregation whose members sported jewels and furs were not living true Jewish values.” Later in life, Dworkin likened pornographers to Nazis. “It’s hard to wrap one’s mind around her,” Horwitz concludes. “Maybe that’s precisely what makes her so fascinating.” Read the story ➤
And one more: How an elite group of Jewish refugees helped defeat the Third Reich
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David Brog, a Jewish candidate from Nevada, was the head of Christians United for Israel. (Courtesy) |
Voters in four states – Nevada, South Carolina, Maine and North Dakota – are heading to the polls today. Here are some of the races we’re watching: Eight Republicans are competing to challenge Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, in Nevada, a swing state. One of the leading candidates, former Attorney General Adam Laxalt, is endorsed by former President Donald Trump and the Republican Jewish Coalition.
In a House district that includes most of Las Vegas and has become more competitive due to redistricting, David Brog, the Jewish former head of the advocacy group Christians United for Israel, is also in an eight-person GOP primary. On the Democratic side, Rep. Dina Titus is facing a challenger, Amy Vilela, who supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.
South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace is facing a Trump-backed challenger, Katie Arrington, after she voted to certify President Joe Biden’s election in 2020. Mace is supported by the RJC and Nikki Haley, a former governor of the state and Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations.
In Maine’s gubernatorial race, former Gov. Paul LePage, who in the past compared the Internal Revenue Service to Nazi Germany, is running unopposed for the GOP nomination. |
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
| 🍦 One of the videos that new Ben & Jerry’s employees are required to watch is a lecture about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by Omar Shakir of Human Rights Watch, who was expelled from Israel over his support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. (Jewish Insider) 🕍 A U.S. Marine who is serving 19 months in prison for planning to shoot up a synagogue was in a relationship with a woman accused of stealing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s laptop during the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to newly revealed court documents. The woman was also seen on video giving a “Heil Hitler” salute during the riot. (JTA) 🪄 An Israeli lawmaker was caught on video telling high school students that “if there was a sort of button you could push that would make all the Arabs disappear, send them on an express train to Switzerland, I would press that button.” (AP) ⚖️ A German court ruled against a Jewish man’s request to have a 700-year-old antisemitic statue removed from a church where Martin Luther once preached.In recent years, a memorial and an information sign have ben placed near the statue, titled “Jew pig.” (AP) 🇮🇷 An Iranian official said that two scientists who suddenly fell ill and died early this month were poisoned by Israel. The report follows the death of another Iranian government scientist on Monday and as Iran began dismantling the U.N. cameras that monitor its nuclear program. (New York Times, NBC News) 🫶 When the young daughter of a Jewish family was diagnosed with Tay-Sachs, her family turned every Shabbat into a major event. Family and friends would visit for the “Shabbirthday” festivities. “We were learning to live alongside grief,” the mother wrote in a moving essay. “We were learning that pain and love could coexist. We weren’t risking our hearts, we were expanding them.” (Boston Globe) Shiva call ➤ A.B. Yehoshua, a literary giant and political activist in Israel, died today at 85. President Isaac Herzog called him “one of Israel’s greatest authors in all generations,” adding that “his works, which drew inspiration from our nation’s treasures, reflected us in an accurate, sharp, loving and sometimes painful mirror image. He aroused in us a mosaic of deep emotions.” (Times of Israel, Haaretz)
What else we’re reading ➤ Google put an engineer on paid leave after he claimed that the company’s artificial intelligence tool had a soul … Meet “The Real Housewives of Dubai” … What does it mean to have Jewish genes but no Jewish heritage?
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A pilot lands on the HMS Fearless battleship in 1982 during the Falklands War. (Getty) |
On this day in history: The Falklands War ended on June 14, 1982. It was marked by antisemitism, with Argentinian Jewish soldiers suffering widespread abuse from their peers. “Our superiors told the other soldiers that the Jewish soldiers would betray them in combat,” Silvio Katz said at a 2012 ceremony honoring Jewish Argentinian veterans of the war. “I was tortured. I was forced to put my hands, legs and sometimes head in cold water in the cold climate of the islands. They told me that this punishment was because I was a Jew.” Last year on this day, we reported thatBenjamin Netanyahu was replaced as Israeli prime minister after 12 years in office. In honor of National Bourbon Day, meet the Kentucky Chabad leader who is known as the Bourbon Rabbi. And in honor of New Mexico Day, check out six Jewish facts about the Southwestern state.
Today at 5 p.m. ET: Our senior contributing editor, Rob Eshman, will be on Instagram Live today to discuss his recent column comparing the genocide of the Uyghurs to what happened during the Holocaust. Tune in at @jdforward ➤
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Quentin Tarantino with Hebrew University's Asher Cohen (left) and Barak Medina (right). (Bruno Cherbit) |
Quentin Tarantino, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker, added one more honor to his mantle: an honorary degree from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Tarantino, 59, was cited “in admiration of the scope of his artistic vision, creating films that span genres, historical periods, and themes; and in tribute to his strong ties to Israel.” Tarantino is married to Daniella Pick, the daughter of a famous Israeli musician, and splits his time between homes in Los Angeles and Tel Aviv. ––– Thanks to Louis Keene, Jacob Kornbluh, Arno Rosenfeld and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected]. |
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