How Blacks and Jews are working together 30 years after Rodney King

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Walking to Birkenau with a Holocaust survivor, Doug Emhoff speaks at Ramadan event, student sues university over antisemitism, and man who founded Israeli Air Force and wrote for 'Star Trek' dies.

30 YEARS AFTER THE L.A. RIOTS

An officer directs traffic around a shopping center engulfed in flames after riots broke out in 1992. (Getty)

Thirty years ago today – on April 29, 1992 – civil unrest broke out following a jury’s verdict not to convict any Los Angeles police officers for the beating of a Black man, Rodney King. We have two signature columns to mark the anniversary.

‘Our activism takes shape in real estate’: Arturo Sneider and Leandro Tyberg, two Latino Jewish immigrants, are spearheading a $76 million development of affordable housing, stores and a school at the corner of Vermont and Manchester avenues in South Los Angeles. Our Rob Eshman went to the site – once bustling with business but destroyed during the riots, and is now an empty lot. Two banners announce the forthcoming project, which could reshape not only the neighborhood but the narrative of ethnic relationships in the city. Read his column ➤

‘What began in L.A. blossomed years later’: Rabbi John Rosove and Pastor Kenneth Flowers had exchanged pulpits on several occasions by the time mayhem broke out that spring. The congregations worshiped together during the violence, in which the synagogue lost a member. The story did not end there. In L.A.’s January 1994 earthquake, the church’s building was deemed uninhabitable and the rabbi offered up his shul’s chapel. Our Robin Washington, who first wrote about the two men and their communities for Fellowship magazine in 1992, called the minister and the rabbi back recently to see what has happened since. Read his column ➤

ALSO IN THE FORWARD

How is the new ‘Fantastic Beasts’ movie all about Nazis yet also antisemitic? The third installment of these Harry Potter prequels is not delighting Potterheads – especially not Jewish ones. Set in the 1930s, the movie makes its villain, Grindelwald, a thinly veiled Hitler figure in a magical version of Nazism. Yet the few Jewish characters in the movie are on the dark side. Culture writer Mira Fox tries to figure out what it all means. Read the story ➤

Doug Emhoff weighs in on Judaism, interfaith work at Ramadan dinner: The Second Gentleman spoke about his interfaith marriage and the importance of holding religious leaders to account Thursday night at an Iftar, the nightly break-fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. He told attendees that as a person from Los Angeles, he found it natural to have friends of different faiths, urging: “Learn from the Muslims that you know.” Read the story ➤

Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Hollywood mogul, used his speech at a Simon Wiesenthal Center gala to criticize Will Smith: ‘Unfortunately, intolerance continues to be on the rise no matter where we look,” Katzenberg said. “We see it vividly on display whether it be far off on the battlefields of Ukraine or right here in Hollywood on the stage of the Dolby Theatre.” At the gala, which raised $3.7 million for the museum, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was awarded the center’s Medal of Freedom. Read the story ➤

But wait, there’s more…

HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY

The Forward's Nora Berman with Harry Olmer, a Holocaust survivor, on Thursday at Birkenau in Poland.

Our Nora Berman made the two-mile trek from Auschwitz to Birkenau Thursday as part of the annual March of the Living, which organizers think might be the last to include Holocaust survivors. She walked with Harry Olmer, 94, and asked why it was important for him to make the journey. “To show that I’m alive,” he replied.

Edward Mosberg, a survivor who came dressed in the striped uniform of the concentration camps, moved the crowd of 2,500 participants to tears with his speech. “As long as I live,” Mosberg said, “it is my duty to tell about what happened to my family and six million Jews.” Watch his speech ➤

Nathaniel Schmidt, who is 17, interviewed his 94-year-old great aunt, Ruth Ann Meissner, about the three years she spent in the Theresienstadt Ghetto. “What I felt at the time, I still do not understand,” she told him. “People should not have to go through everything they are physically capable of going through. Because it is practically unlimited what people can go through in order to survive." Read the interview ➤

This Saturday marks the 77th anniversary of Hitler’s death. Above is the Forward’s front page announcing the news.

Shiva call ➤ Max Glauben, a Holocaust survivor and co-founder of the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum, died at 94. A veteran of the Korean War and once named “Texan of the Year” by the Dallas Morning News, Glauben made it his life’s mission to confront hatred. In 2021, a young sports reporter helped Glauben write his biography. “I hope when my time comes to go,” he told her, “Hashem will have noticed what I was doing and will allow me to continue my work from His headquarters to the people downstairs.” Watch a tribute video ➤

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

'People see this war on Instagram,' said Zelenskyy. 'When they get sick of it, they will scroll away.' (Getty)

🇺🇦 For two weeks in April, Time magazine correspondent Simon Shuster got an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the world of Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy. He spent time with the president and his top aides in their Kyiv bunker, interviewing Zelenskyy and his top aides and observing the way they were experiencing the war. “The nights are the hardest,” Shuster writes, when Zelenskyy “lies there on his cot, the whine of the air-raid sirens in his ears and his phone still buzzing beside him.” (Time)

💰 Yuri Milner, an Israeli-Russian philanthropist, said he is donating $100 million to help Ukrainian refugees. Milner, a scientist and early investor in Facebook, previously donated $100 million to help physicists search for aliens. (JTA)

🥚 A Jewish fraternity house at Rutgers University was egged during an annual ceremony held to recite the names of Holocaust victims for the second year in a row. Members of the fraternity, AEPi, said the house was also targeted last Friday, when participants in a Students for Justice in Palestine rally drove up and hurled antisemitic insults and spit. (Algemeiner)

🎤 Frankie Light is what’s known as a “YouTube polyglot”: someone who quickly learns a new language and then tests out his skills in a place that speaks that language. A recent video he shot in Brooklyn was called “Black Man SHOCKS Orthodox Jews by speaking Russian Yiddish.” It racked up more than 2 million views. “I’m here to make friends,” he explained in a profile of his work. (New York Times)

Shiva call ➤ Ron Rabinovitz, the Jewish kid from Wisconsin who became lifelong friends with Jackie Robinson, died at 76. The two met when Rabinovitz was 7, becoming penpals, and would also get together when Robinson played in Wisconsin. Author Fred Frommer profiled their relationship in the Forward on the 75th anniversary of Robinson's breaking of baseball’s color line. Read the story ➤

Another shiva call ➤ Harold Livingston, an American aviator who helped found the Israeli Air Force and later worked as a screenwriter for “Star Trek,” died at 97.

Long weekend reads ➤ They survived the Holocaust and now they are fleeing to Germany … Sheldon who? How Miriam Adelson took over her late husband’s empire … The best profile of Henry Winkler you’ll read all week.

ON THE CALENDAR

On this day in history: Jerry Seinfeld was born on April 29, 1954. He would grow up to join a long list of culture-defining American Jewish comedians, first through his standup and later as the star of one of the most influential sitcoms of all time. With “Seinfeld,” he became a global ambassador for our people,introducing anyone with a TV signal to Jewish cuisine (babka, kishke, black-and-white cookies), customs (the nervous mohel) and sayings (who could forget Elaine learning of her so-called “shiks-appeal” at a bar mitzvah?). He has since produced a show where he takes his famous friends out for coffee in vintage cars, played an (animated) bee who falls in love with an (animated) human and, with his wife, Jessica, has a foundation focused on ending poverty.

On the Hebrew calendar, it’s the 28th of Nisan, the date of the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945.

In honor of Arbor Day, read how Israel is planting 450,000 trees in an effort to counter the effects of climate change.

YOUR WEEKEND READS

We’ve curated our favorite stories of the week into a printable magazine for easy weekend reading. In this issue: A new memoir recounts sex abuse at a Jewish summer camp; why a player on the Chicago Cubs likes to have a song by a Haredi musician play over the loudspeakers; we toured a Brooklyn store that has its own rabbi; and the latest installment of our Bintel Brief advice column. Get your copy here ➤

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Play today’s Vertl puzzle (aka the Yiddish Wordle)

Thanks to Nora Berman, Mira Fox, PJ Grisar, Lauren Markoe, Amanda Rozon and Eliya Smith. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com.

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