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| Sponsored by All Inclusive with Jay Ruderman JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT. Give a tax-deductible donation British Virgin Islands now own part of Israel (sort of), the 'Jewish Mona Lisa' sold at auction, James Bond deserves his own Talmud tractate, Japan opens (and quickly closes) a Nazi bar. OUR LEAD STORY Appeals court rules on Jewish prisoners: Let them eat cheesecake
Michigan prisons must provide full kosher meals to Jewish inmates, an appeals court ruled unanimously last week in a class-action lawsuit. Part of the case revolved around whether eating cheesecake was required on the Jewish festival of Shavuot.
The backstory: The Michigan Department of Corrections had offered vegan meals supplemented with kosher snacks to Jewish inmates, but two prisoners – Gerald Ackerman and Mark Shaykin – argued in court that those guidelines did not meet Jewish dietary requirements.
To meat, or not to meat: Testimony included nuances of halacha – specifically, whether eating meat is a requirement on Shabbat and eating dairy is an essential part of observing Shavuot. Ackerman testified that a “glass of milk” should suffice for the spring holiday, but told the judge that, on the outside, Shavuot had always meant cheesecake for him. Daniel Manville, one of their attorneys, acknowledged: “Nobody thought you were going to get a judge to order cheesecake.”
ALSO IN THE FORWARD Why having faith in James Bond can feel a little like believing in God:The titular spy is often shaken, but not stirred. He’s escaped a sinking ship and evaded a murderous car chase, and that’s just in the latest installment, appropriately titled “No Time To Die.” Shira Telushkin, a contributing writer, argues that Bond will always reward our faith in him. “Obviously, my faith in God is not as infantile as my love for a fictional character,” she writes. “But the desire to encounter a character who would not fail felt familiar, not unlike the appeal to past actions as reason for future faith that we see again and again in the Bible.” Read the story >
But wait there’s more… A board member of a nonprofit affiliated with Chabad of Poway has resigned, saying she believes the disgraced rabbi who used the charity to defraud donors is still involved behind the scenes. The rabbi’s synagogue made international headlines in 2019 when a shooter attacked during services, killing one woman.Paris marked the 60th anniversary this week of what is called “the nameless war” – one of the darkest moments in France’s recent history, writes Robert Zaretsky, and one that should remind both Muslims and Jews of their fragile place in the country.
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WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY Israeli landlords set up an offshore bank account in the British Virgin Islands. (iStock) 🏝 Some of the most contested neighborhoods in East Jerusalem may actually now be owned by the British Virgin Islands, because the Israeli settlers who managed the properties used offshore accounts and failed to pay taxes. This was one of many findings of the Israeli investigative journalism nonprofit Shomrim from the Pandora Papers, a leak of some 12 million documents. (JTA)
🎖 Dr. Rachel Levine was named an admiral in the U.S. Health Commissioned Service Corps, becoming the most senior transgender person in the uniformed services. “I stand on the shoulders of those LGBTQ+ individuals who came before me, both those known and unknown,” she said. (JTA)
🍾 From the bad ideas department: A Nazi-themed bar in Japan opened and (surprise!) quickly closed. The owners apologized for their lack of historical knowledge after they received complaints about their swastika-emblazoned alcohol bottles and servers dressed as SS officers. (NY Post)
📖 A medieval High Holiday prayer book, known in the art world as the “Jewish Mona Lisa,” went for $8.3 million at auction on Tuesday. It was sold by a Paris-based Jewish nonprofit, despite calls from scholars to keep it out of private hands. (Haaretz)
🎞 The organizer of a QAnon conference shared a 10-part neo-Nazi film to his 70,000 followers. QAnon, a vast online movement centered around several conspiracy theories, has a strong current of antisemitism and has even enveloped the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. (Vice)
🇪🇸 Spain is making it harder for Jews who apply for citizenship, including New Yorkers with Sephardic roots. Until this year, only one applicant for the Spanish citizenship program had been rejected. But so far in 2021, more than 3,000 applications have been denied. (JTA)
🚀 Israel and the United Arab Emirates are teaming up to travel to space together. The two nations hope to collaborate on a 2024 mission to the moon, where flags from both countries would be planted. (Times of Israel)
FROM OUR OPINION SECTION I was taught the ‘opposing perspective’ of the Holocaust in middle school. I’ll never forget it: When news broke that educators in Texas were told to teach “opposing perspectives” of the Holocaust, the internet exploded with the next obvious question: what the heck is an “opposing perspective” of the Holocaust worth teaching? Elliot Friedland lived through one of these “both-sides” classes, and writes of a disturbing middle-school lesson where students were exhorted to embody the feelings of both Nazis and Jews in concentration camps. “When it was my turn, I mime-danced being shoved into a gas chamber, terrified.” Read his OpEd > I’ve been pregnant twice, had two abortions – and have 14-year-old twins: This week, the Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court to temporarily halt Texas’ restrictive new abortion law. In a moving personal essay, our editor-in-chief Jodi Rudoren, recounts the choices she made on the way to building her family, thanks to Roe v. Wade. “I’ve told my abortion story to friends, family and, yes, to my children,” she writes. “It is part of their origin story, the story of how we chose to bring them into this world. I’m telling it publicly now for the first time,” she adds, “because it is true and it is real and we should not be afraid to talk about it.” Read her story > Related: Our readers shared their (Jewish) abortion stories
ON THE CALENDAR Jerome Robbins is sworn in at a House Un-American Activities hearing. (New York Times Co./Getty Images) On this day in history: The House Un-American Activities Committee began its investigation into Communists in Hollywood on Oct. 20, 1947. The committee’s probe had an outsized effect on Jews, including six of the members of the Hollywood Ten, who refused to testify and were the first in the screen trade to be blacklisted from their industry. As the hearings moved into the 1950s, many Jews – among them Arthur Miller, whose play “The Crucible,” was a meditation on McCarthyism – refused to name names. Others spoke, including the choreographer Jerome Robbins who had already fled the country when he was called to testify and was perhaps fearful of being outed as gay.
It’s also the birthday of Vice President Kamala Harris, endearingly called “momala” by her Jewish relatives.
In honor of National Brandied Fruit Day, check out this recipe for a fig cocktail, complete with a backstory of Jewish survival.
It’s also World Statistics Day, the perfect time to peruse our e-book about the Pew study of American Jewry.
PHOTO OF THE DAY An intrepid “Forwarding” subscriber sent this photo of Tuesday night’s playoff game between the Boston Red Sox and the Houston Astros, which made us do a double take. Casual viewers may have been slightly appalled when TV cameras zoomed in on the seemingly antisemitic sign, but there’s an explanation. The nickname of Enrique Hernández, the Boston utility player, is Kiké (pronounced “KEE-kay”).
“Teams started using an accent to avoid controversy,” Hernández, who is Puerto Rican, once explained. “If you don’t read it in Spanish, it can be offensive.”
Zoom in on the photo and you can see the accent over the last letter “e.” (The Astros won, 9-2, tying up the series, 2-2.)
Dept. of corrections: In Tuesday’s “Forwarding,” we misspelled the last name of Simi Horwitz, who reviewed a new movie about a little-known 30-year-old Polish-Jewish mathematician.
Thanks to Nora Berman, Rob Eshman, PJ Grisar and Lauren Markoe for their contributions to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com. Support Independent Jewish Journalism The Forward is a non-profit 501(c)3 so our journalism depends on support from readers like you. You can support our work today by donating or subscribing. All donations are tax-deductible to the full extent of US law.
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