This article is part of our morning briefing. Click here to get it delivered to your inbox each weekday. Opinion | Why we must observe the fall of Roe as a yahrtzeit: This Shabbat marks the one-year anniversary of when the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion. “Jews must mark this day as a time of collective mourning,” writes Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, who has prepared a prayer for those harmed by abortion bans. “The evidence is clear: Forced birth takes lives,” she argues, citing a rise in maternal death rates and suicide in states that ban or restrict abortion. “We have an obligation to fight for a better tomorrow.” Read her essay ➤
This gay rabbi is quitting his job and leaving South Carolina because of its policies: Rabbi Greg Kanter is believed to be the first Jewish clergy member to publicly leave their position over anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. “My family is the target,” said Kanter, who is married with two children, one of whom is transgender. “Everyone takes it for granted that they can drive less than two miles to their doctor and get whatever their kids need,” he added. “But we don’t.” Read the story ➤ Related… - Rabbanit Rori Picker Neiss, who is Orthodox and has a trans son, is thinking about moving out of Missouri because of laws it passed this year restricting gender-affirming health care and trans youth participation in sports. “Our lives are not equal in every part of the U.S.,” she said. “We’re not talking about different taxes, we are talking about different rights.”
- Rabbi Micah Buck-Yael, who is trans and also lives in Missouri, is likewise considering a change of state.
- BBYO, one of the world’s largest Jewish youth movements, has booked its upcoming 100th anniversary convention in Florida. Some queer Jews who see the state’s laws as hostile towards them are calling for a boycott, while others suggest attending — and protesting while there.
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There are parks and towns across North America named after the swastika: A county commission in Wyoming voted this week to rename its Swastika Lake, following a similar move for Oregon’s Mount Swastika last year. But they’re hardly the only sites named for the symbol of prosperity and good luck co-opted by the Nazis in the 1930s. And while some efforts to rename those sites have succeeded, other places have taken a different tack. Swastika, Ontario, a mining town established in 1906, instead replaced the official town sign with another declaring: “To hell with Hitler. We had the swastika first.” Read the story ➤ Plus… Dept. of corrections: Thursday’s newsletter misstated the name of Robert Kraft’s campaign against antisemitism. It is #StandUpToJewishHate, not StopAntisemitism. |
Watch Fauda star Doron Ben-David in new TV series ‘The Lesson’, winner of Israel’s Best Drama Series Award 2023. The series traces a classroom argument between a high school civics teacher (Ben-David) and his student (Maya Landsman) which quickly spirals out of control and puts the two protagonists — and later the whole country — on a collision course. |
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
? An Indiana chapter of the right-wing group Moms for Liberty on Thursday apologized for quoting Adolf Hitler at the top of its first newsletter, saying: “We condemn Adolf Hitler’s actions and his dark place in human history.” … Meanwhile, a new right-wing government was sworn into office in Finland this week, and one politician is already apologizing for remarks he made in March that were sympathetic to Hitler. (NBC News, Times of Israel) ?️ The CUNY Law School graduate who gave a commencement speech attacking Israel said she “was the target of a vicious smear campaign on a national scale” in the weeks that followed. It was her first interview since the event last month. (Jewish Currents) ? UCLA’s Amari Bailey became the NBA’s newest Jewish player Thursday night, drafted by the Charlotte Hornets in the second round, 41st pick overall. That brings the Hornets one step closer to hosting a minyan; Michael Jordan sold his majority ownership stake this month to two Jewish millionaires. (Sports Illustrated, JTA) ? The man in the yarmulke who prayed with former President Donald Trump after he was arraigned in Miami last week on 37 felony charges turned out to be a Messianic Jew. (Salon) ? Arizona State Rep. Alma Hernandez, the first Jewish Latina elected to public office in the U.S., is running to be the Democratic Party’s leader in her state’s House of Representatives. At 30, she would likely be among the youngest to ever hold such a position. (Twitter) ? Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Hodgkin’s diseases are all named after the doctors who studied them, what experts call medical eponyms. There are other eponyms named after doctors who were Nazi sympathizers, and some want them expunged. (New York Times) ? A rabbi led about two dozen other Jewish Deadheads in an evening prayer service during a break at Wednesday’s Grateful Dead concert at New York’s Citi Field. The group danced the hora after the service. (NY Jewish Week) ? A Jewish genealogy TV series, produced by New York City’s Museum of Jewish Heritage, will debut this fall and feature celebrities learning about their family’s roots. The premiere episode of Generations will showcase the Emmy-award winning actress Camryn Manheim. (MJHNYC) Shiva call ➤ Chava Lapin, a beloved Yiddish teacher and a longtime board member of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, died at 89. Mitzvah moment ➤ Esther Roth, an Israeli track and field star who witnessed the terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics, needs a kidney transplant to survive. Roth, who is 71 and hospitalized, is appealing to the public for help.
Long weekend reads ➤ NFL’s youngest agent is “obsessed with greatness,” but nothing overshadows his faith … Amid a wave of antisemitic hate crimes, a New York security team offers a model of resistance … Through the eyes of a 102-year-old photographer, memories of a past full of adventure. |
In this weekend’s edition of our print magazine: Why Israel has more live kidney donors per capita than anywhere in the world; Rabbi Angela Buchdahl relived her worst day in speech to Stanford grads; How a controversial video about “woke antisemitism” caused fractures among major Jewish organizations; And a new novel braids together the #MeToo movement, the war in Bosnia, Birthright Israel trips and more. Download your copy now ➤ |
A Passover Seder this spring in Kyiv. (Marcel Gascon Barbera) |
On this day in history (1794): Jews were granted permission to settle in Kyiv by Empress Catherine II. The city has been a hub for Jewish culture and thought over the centuries, and was the birthplace of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. Viktor Yezapenko, a soldier in the Ukrainian army, told our Kyiv correspondent in February: “I am here as a Jew, as a Ukrainian, as a son, as a husband and as a father.”
Hot ticket: Comedian Alex Edelman’s one-man show, Just for Us, debuted on Broadway Thursday night and runs through Aug. 19. Our Nora Berman reviewed an earlier incarnation of the show, which chronicles Edelman’s infiltration of a white supremacist meeting in Queens. |
Laura and I hosted Dr. Ruth – bestselling author, former sniper in the Israeli army, sex therapist, everybody’s bubbe – for a sweet and spicy conversation about turning 95, the best advice she ever got and the secret to a long-lasting relationship. “Everybody has worries,” she said. “Put those worries outside the bedroom. Close the door, and enjoy each other.” Watch the video above, or listen on-the-go to That Jewish News Show wherever you get podcasts. — Thanks to Jacob Kornbluh, Tani Levitt, Matthew Litman, Samuel Norich, Chana Pollack, Arno Rosenfeld and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com. |
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