Teacher fired for assigning Anne Frank book, Israeli military kills six Palestinians in 24 hours, New York unveils plan to combat antisemitism, and how a Jewish nudge raised median donations by 80%. |
President Joe Biden addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday. (Getty) |
🇺🇸 President Joe Biden is scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this morning for an hour on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. It’s the first meeting between the two leaders since Netanyahu took office nine months ago. (Haaretz) 🇮🇱 Hundreds of people opposed to Netanyahu’s plan to limit the power of Israel’s Supreme Court gathered in Times Square Tuesday to protest his trip to the U.S. Another rally is expected Thursday outside Netanyahu’s hotel. (Haaretz, Times of Israel)
🇺🇦 Also at the U.N. on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Netanyahu, a first since the Russian invasion began, as well as with other delegates from Israel, including the chief of the Mossad. (Jewish Insider, X)
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(Illustrations by Avi Katz) |
Why some Jews fast on Yom Kippur, but don’t pray, repent or ask forgiveness: “May the God I don’t believe in please forgive me,” our Beth Harpaz writes of her plan to fast on Yom Kippur but not go to shul. An atheist who let her congregational membership lapse after her sons’ bar mitzvahs, Beth wondered if she was alone in this practice and asked our readers to weigh in. “I expected a couple of responses,” she writes. “Instead, I got dozens.” Read the story ➤ Opinion | My non-Jewish husband doesn’t fast on Yom Kippur. We spend the day in shul together anyway:Emily Tamkin, author of Bad Jews, writes that her spouse wanted to experience her faith firsthand and found the services interesting. Besides, Tamkin explains, a 2020 survey found that 46% of American Jews fasted for all or part of Yom Kippur. “Which means that, actually, my husband is doing what most American Jews are doing, and I am not.”Read her essay ➤ Opinion | Must I say kaddish for my abusive father?“When I recite Yizkor during Yom Kippur, I think of my mother,” writes Marcela Kogan, but not her dad. Kogan, who is at work on a memoir about her childhood, cites Maimonides who said “that parents who do not repent for mistreating their children are still due honor and reverence,” while other scholars “called for honoring parents who lost control, but not whose actions are intentionally harmful.” Read her essay ➤ Advice column: Can I skip class on Yom Kippur if I don’t observe? Our Bintel Brief weighs in. Plus… Here’s our guide to all the traditions of Yom Kippur We asked readers what they’ll be repenting forRead all of our Yom Kippur stories |
Rabbi Tamar Manasseh, left, shares challah at a break-the-fast following a Yom Kippur service. (Courtesy) |
She’s known as the ‘rabbi on the block,’ and the street is her pulpit:Rabbi Tamar Manasseh of Chicago hosts an annual Yom Kippur service on a street corner where a mom was killed, with hundreds of yahrzeit candles to remember those murdered by guns and other acts of violence. That’s just one of the stories chronicled in a new documentary about Manasseh. Read the story ➤ Opinion | Why do Trump and Netanyahu hate liberal Jews and cozy up to antisemites?Trump on Sunday blamed “liberal Jews who voted to destroy America,” and, on Monday, Netanyahu said the protesters in Israel are aligned with the PLO and Iran. Then Netanyahu met with Elon Musk, who is fostering antisemitism on Twitter, while Trump, writes Rabbi Jay Michaelson, “is quite happy to be antisemite-adjacent.” Michaelson argues that the common thread is nationalism. “To nationalists — whether they’re white nationalist antisemites or Jewish nationalist critics of liberalism — liberal Jews, with our pluralistic values and love of the ‘strangers’ among us, are indeed the enemy.” Read his essay ➤
Plus: A 10-year-old boy hasn’t been able to start the school year as a battle wages on between his Hasidic father and his mother, a well-known critic of Hasidic yeshivas. A judge weighed in this week.
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WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
A man holds a copy of the graphic novel version of The Diary of Anne Frank. (Getty) |
📗 A Texas teacher was fired after assigning an illustrated adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary. The book has been subjected to bans by conservative activists across the country because Frank wrote about male and female genitalia. (Houston Chronicle, JTA) 🇵🇸 Israeli forces shot and killed a 19-year-old Palestinian man early Wednesday morning during clashes near Jericho in the occupied West Bank. He was the sixth Palestinian killed by the Israeli military in 24 hours. (Haaretz, Times of Israel) ⚖️ A 45-year-old white supremacist pleaded guilty on Tuesday to threatening jurors and witnesses in the trial of the shooter of Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue. He faces more than six years in prison. (NBC News) 🇩🇪 A long-awaited final report, clocking in at 806 pages, alleges that a prominent German rabbi and his partner abused their power and engaged in sexual misconduct. (JTA) 👍 New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday unveiled a statewide plan to fight antisemitism, effectively implementing Biden’s national strategy. Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the special envoy to combat antisemitism, also spoke at the announcement event. (N.Y. Jewish Week, X) 🇱🇹 The president of Lithuania visited the Manhattan headquarters of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research to honor those who rescued rare books and documents from the Vilna Ghetto. (JTA) Shiva call ➤ Dr. Howard Kaye, a rheumatologist whose wife was murdered at the Chabad of Poway in 2019, died at 71.
What else we’re reading ➤ The simple Jewish nudge that raised median donations by 80% … The Borscht Belt was a haven for generations of Jewish Americans. A new exhibit celebrates it … Meet Iceland’s only rabbi.
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Left to right: Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler in The First Wives Club. (Paramount) |
On this day in history (1996): The First Wives Club, a cult classic film starring Bette Midler, Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn as divorcees plotting revenge after being left by their husbands for younger women, was released. The film, which featured a rare cameo by Gloria Steinem, was based on the 1992 novel of the same name by Olivia Goldsmith, who changed her name — several times! — after being born Randy Goldfield. Her work frequently featured Jewish women confronting the problems that come with being of a certain age. |
Actor Shane Baker read us a short story by Sholem Aleichem in Yiddish, accompanied by subtitles. The plot revolves around an impoverished cantor who suddenly dies during the Yom Kippur service, eliciting unexpected reactions from the townspeople. --- Thanks to Louis Keene, Jacob Kornbluh, Rukhl Schaechter and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Beth Harpaz for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com.
Hope you have a fantastic day. |
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