?? Jewish voters favor President Joe Biden over former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election 72% to 22%, according to a new survey by the Jewish Electoral Institute. The 50-point margin among the 800 Jewish respondents is a sharp contrast to national polls showing a close race, like one released by NBC Sunday that showed 49% supporting Biden and 45% Trump. (JTA)
⚖️ The man found guilty of murdering 11 Jews at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue five years ago has a history of suicide attempts, his lawyers said in court Monday. In the first day of the trial’s penalty phase, expected to stretch six weeks, they said the shooter, Robert Bowers, suffers from “chronic mental illness.” (Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle)
? One Israeli soldier fatally shot another accidentally during a training exercise early this morning. Separately, a 5-year-old Palestinian boy sitting in the back seat of a car lost his eye after Israeli soldiers shot a rubber bullet during weekend clashes in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli military is investigating both incidents. (Times of Israel, Haaretz)
? The Biden Administration said it would return to a long-running policy of prohibiting U.S. agencies from funding scientific research and development projects in the West Bank. The rule had been reversed during Trump’s presidency. (Times of Israel)
? Citing religious beliefs, a pharmacist at a Walgreen’s in California refused to give a transgender man his hormone replacement medicine. (Los Angeles Times)
? The second season of The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem arrives July 14 on Netflix. The historical drama, starring Michael Aloni of Shtisel fame, follows three generations of a Ladino-speaking family in British Mandate Palestine. (JTA)
Mazel tov ➤ To Mel Brooks, who will receive an honorary Oscar in November …. And to Gal Gadot, who is set to become the first Israeli actor to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame next year.
Shiva calls ➤ Rita Reif, an antiques and auction columnist for The New York Times who helped reclaim a painting that the Nazis stole from her husband’s uncle, died at 94 … Richard Ravitch, the former lieutenant governor of New York, died at 89 … James Crown, the billionaire businessman who served on JPMorgan’s board since the early 1990s, died at 70.
Dept. of self congratulation ➤ To our California-based reporter Louis Keene on winning the LA Press Club’s best headline award for this gem: Oy vey shmear! Still trending for antisemitic rants, Kanye makes a bagel run. The judges called it “funny, clever, ironic without the need of a sub-heading to explain.”
Our contributor Simi Horwitz took home three LA Press Club awards, including first prize in film criticism for a trio of reviews — on documentaries about assisted suicide and previously unseen Holocaust photographs as well as an animated biopic of a young artist killed at Auschwitz. “This writer handles heart-wrenching material with a facile balance of empathy and critical detachment,” the judges raved.