More UK arrests tied to hostage-taking, non-Jewish congressmen launch 'Torah values' caucus, Israeli NBA star gets benched, and the 'Spread Cream Cheese, Not Hate' campaign.

OUR LEAD STORY

The hostage-taking at a Texas synagogue has dominated the Jewish news and conversation all week. But the day before the attack, we published another, very different, story of antisemitism.

Temple University rower accuses roommate of harassment: Sasha Westrick, 18, says it started only a few weeks after she arrived on campus last summer. Her roommate, who like Westrick was recruited to row crew at Temple, mocked her for observing Shabbat and asked her for money because she thought Jews had a lot of it. Then came the text, a picture of Westrick with “I hate Jews” emblazoned across the bottom.

Seeking help: Westrick and her mother, Amy, said they reported the incident – first to the rowing coach and a residential adviser, who moved her to another room in the same dorm, then to the campus police and university officials. There was an investigation and a hearing, and a university spokesman said “appropriate remedies have been applied,” but the Westricks are frustrated they do not know what discipline the roommate faced.

Moving on: Sasha said she has quit crew and will transfer to another school in the fall because she feels Temple “doesn’t share the values I have” and is not a good place to be Jewish. “I was taught from a very young age that you need to be kind and accepting of other people,” she said. “I don’t get that feeling from Temple.”

Instagram allies: Westrick, who is now seeing a therapist for depression and suffers from insomnia, was buoyed by a social media post in early January by an account called @JewishonCampus that got thousands of likes. The outpouring spurred her to take the story public. When she filed the complaint, Westrick said, “holding people accountable is what I went in thinking I wanted.” Now, though, “knowing that this could help other people feel less alone is probably the best outcome I could have hoped for.”

Read the story ➤

TEXAS ATTACK AFTERMATH

The latest: British police on Thursday morning arrested two men in connection with the hostage-taking at Colleyville’s Congregation Beth Israel. The gunman, Malik Faisal Akram, was a resident of Blackburn, England who was on a British intelligence watch list.

Opinion | Stop assuming all Black Jews want police to stop protecting our synagogues: Tyler Samuels is a “double minority,” being both Black and Jewish, and amid his profound relief that the hostages escaped with their lives, he dreaded the conversation that would inevitably come next: synagogue security. Samuels has experienced racial profiling his entire life, including at shul, but he still vehemently believes in a police presence protecting Jewish places of worship. “I am not naive nor idealistic,” he writes, “I would rather loudly tell a guard at the synagogue door that I am Jewish and Jews come in all colors than be a picture of a dead Jew on a television screen.” Read the essay ➤

Texas synagogue board had voted against renewing rabbi’s contract last fall: On Wednesday, we broke the news that Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker has been looking for a job since November, after Beth Israel’s leadership moved to end his tenure, shocking many congregants who adore him. “There was an enormous outcry when the email came in,” one member, Stephen Yarus, said in an interview. The congregation had, several years ago, overwhelmingly voted to override another board move to oust Cytron-Walker, and Devorah Titunik, another member, said the rabbi told her he wanted to avoid another such vote for fear “it might split the congregation.” Read the story ➤

And one more: For Jews, Texas is beginning to look more like France (that’s not a good thing)

Keep up with our complete coverage of the Colleyville attack and its aftermath.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Rabbi David Hofstedter talks with Rep. Don Bacon (center) of the new 'Torah values' caucus. (Photo: Courtesy)

🇺🇸 Two non-Jewish members of Congress – one named Bacon – are chairing a new “Torah values” caucus. “We’re committed to combating anti-Israel bigotry and protecting the Jewish community’s values and right to worship freely,” said Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican. His partner is Henry Cuellar, a Democrat from Texas – who made headlines separately on Wednesday when the FBI raided his home for a “court-authorized search” without specifying its nature. The formation of the group drew mockery and cynicism on social media. (Forward)

🥯 University of Florida students gave away free bagels as part of the third annual “Spread Cream Cheese, Not Hate” campaign. The campus Hillel group offered the treats to students who signed a pledge to “combat antisemitism and all forms of hate,” and ensure the campus “is a welcoming and safe place for all.” (Gainesville Sun)

🏫 A Jewish couple whose son died from a fentanyl overdose is suing Stanford University and his fraternity. The parents both work for the school – the mom is a vice president and the dad is a history professor who has some of his son’s friends in classes. They’ve said the lawsuit is their “last resort to seek justice.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

💍 “I escaped a Jewish cult that wanted me to marry my 12-year-old cousin,” says Mendy Levy, who is 18. Levy’s grandparents co-founded Lev Tahor, a fundamentalist Jewish sect with a former haven in Guatemala. In November, two leaders of the group were found guilty of kidnapping and child sexual exploitation crimes. (NY Post)

🏀 Deni Avdija, the best Jewish basketball player currently in the NBA, was benched from the Washington Wizards because of a logjam in the team’s forward rotation. There have been rumors that other teams are interested in him. (Sports Rabbi, Bleacher Report)

Mazel tov ➤ To Jon Stewart, who has been named the 23rd recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Award for lifetime achievement in comedy. Previous Recipients include Richard Pryor, Lily Tomlin and Carl Reiner.

What else we’re reading ➤ Omicron is taking a toll on pagans, who depend on conferences for community … A Jewish protester says he was the one who called a Jewish congressman a Jew … An Israeli startup has invented a smart tampon.

FROM OUR ARCHIVES

Chana Pollack, the Forward’s archivist, sent us a gem this week: 1906 found former Oventblat newsboy Yitschok Bromberg on the front page of the paper he used to compete with for sales. The item ran in the Forverts with a before and after photo of Bromberg, looking like he’d had a makeover right out of “Queer Eye,” and the Yiddish copy said just as much.

“He was a tramp who spoke to nobody for five years. Now he’s peddling frankfurters.” Bromberg had sent our forebears his recent photograph and five huge cases full of 408 bags of peanuts and 308 bags of candy for his old cohort of Jewish newsboys. He had moved from the Lower East Side to Scranton, Pennsylvania, familiar to today’s Forward readers as home to another local boy who made it big – President Biden.

ON THE CALENDAR

On this day in history: Natan Sharansky, who gained international prominence as a Soviet refusenik, was born on Jan. 20, 1948. He was arrested by the KGB for dissident behavior and spent nine years in prison, part of it in solitary confinement. Upon his release, he made aliyah, and later became an Israeli minister and head of the Jewish Agency.

In his 2020 memoir, Sharansky compared his journey to the biblical Book of Exodus. “The Jews leave Egypt and seven weeks later receive the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, accepting identity and freedom as a package deal. This would become one of our people’s main missions: balancing our right to belong and to be free,” he wrote. “Thirty-five hundred years later, I got the great payoff by joining that journey. Once I hopped aboard, I was never alone.”

In honor of National Cheese Lover’s Day, check out this deep dive we took into the history of Murray’s Cheese. Was its founder, Murray Greenberg, really a Communist who fought in the Spanish Civil War?

PHOTO OF THE DAY

(Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

On Jan. 20, 1942 – 80 years ago today – Nazi officials met at the so-called Wannsee Conference, where they discussed the mass extermination of Europe’s Jews, also known as the Final Solution. On Wednesday in Berlin, visitors walked among the stone slabs at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, also known as the Holocaust Memorial.

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Thanks to Nora Berman, Louis Keene, Lauren Markoe and Chana Pollack for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com.

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