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| Today's newsletter is sponsored by Kripke Institute JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT. Give a tax-deductible donation Philly mayor headlining Palestinian solidarity event, archaeologists discover Maccabee relic, and Garry Shandling was uncomfortable with everything. THE WEEK IN POLITICS Each Monday, Jacob Kornbluh, our senior political reporter, shares what’s in his notebook from New York, Washington, Jerusalem and beyond.
The (more modest, less partisan) White House Hanukkah party is on: The Biden White House finally sent out invitations to what is described as a menorah-lighting ceremony, without food or drink. The event is scheduled for Wednesday evening, and, with about 150 guests, much smaller than in years past because of the pandemic. Of course, that only made drawing up the guest list tougher for Chanan Weissman, the White House Jewish liaison.
It almost didn’t happen: One Jewish leader said some inside the White House recommended against holding a smaller Hanukkah party, noting: “You are going to piss off more people than you please.” The invitations went out only a few days ahead of the holiday’s start on Sunday night.
Tradition: The White House Hanukkah reception started 20 years ago, and by 2013 had grown to stretch over two nights, with an invitation list topping 1,000. “It has always been one of the highest-profile Jewish things that the president did,” said Steve Rabinowitz, a D.C-based media consultant who worked for former President Bill Clinton.
Still a big deal: Tevi Troy, who served as White House Jewish liaison under former President George W. Bush, called it “the hottest ticket in town.” Troy criticized the Obama administration in 2009 for cutting the guest list in half, but said he wouldn’t apply the same standard for Biden’s first Hanukkah due to worries about COVID-19. Matt Nosanchuk, Jewish liaison under Obama, said “it’s extremely meaningful for Jewish Americans to see the Hanukkiah lit at the White House with the president.”
First candle: Last night, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff headlined the annual lighting ceremony of the National Menorah on the Ellipse near the White House. “As we light this menorah on the lawn of the free,” he said, “let us rededicate ourselves to doing everything we can to shine a light on hate, so we can put an end to hate.” Emhoff and his wife, Vice President Kamala Harris, also lit a menorah in a window of their official residence.
Second light: Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Bill de Blasio are slated to speak tonight at a menorah-lighting event in Times Square aimed at raising awareness of antisemitism. Israel’s new ambassador to Washington will host his first annual Hanukkah reception in D.C.
“Palestinian Solidarity Day”: It’s the 74th anniversary of the United Nations vote on the partition plan to end the British Mandate. The General Assembly is holding a conference titled “Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” and Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Gilad Erdan, is co-hosting a rally in protest. Meanwhile in Philadelphia, Israel’s consul general urged Mayor Jim Kenney to cancel his plans to headline a Palestinian solidarity event.
REMEMBERING STEPHEN SONDHEIM (1930-2021) The Broadway genius who died Friday at the age of 91 gave voice to an extraordinary spirit. “His musicals created a place where people could experience what it meant to be fully human,” writes our Talya Zax in an appreciation. “Sondheim’s work was all about soul, and his own shone through it.”
In another essay, Adam Langer, our executive editor, says Sondheim’s songs served as the soundtrack to seminal moments of his life. One “meant so much to me that I actually wrote to Sondheim directly asking what inspired him to write it,” he recalled. And Sondheim wrote back.
Watch: “West Side Story,” Sondheim’s 1957 Broadway musical, has had many iterations over the years – and a new film version from Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner is coming next month. A Jewish a capella group called Six13 has produced a Hanukkah song inspired by the musical.
A message from our sponsor: Kripke Institute Hanukkah Homecoming is Nov 28 - Dec 5 Join a worldwide "open house" of Jewish communities inviting you to celebrate Hanukkah onsite and online together during Hanukkah Homecoming, November 28 - December 5, 2021.
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY 🤗 At age 9, two best friends were separated as they fled the Nazis. Now they’re 91 and, thanks to the Shoah Foundation and other organizations, they were reunited in Florida. “It was as if we had seen each other yesterday,” one said of the days spent shopping, sharing meals and reminiscing. “We keep giggling like we were little kids.” (Washington Post)
✈️ The Israeli government on Sunday approved the immigration of several thousand Jews from Ethiopia who have been waiting for years to join their families in Israel. “Today we are correcting an ongoing injustice,” said Israeli Immigration Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata, herself an Ethiopian immigrant. (AP)
💰 Jared Kushner is hoping to raise money for his new investment firm in the Middle East – including from Qatari leaders and the Emirati sovereign wealth funds he made connections with while working in the White House. Ethics experts are questioning the move, especially considering the chance that his father-in-law, former President Donald Trump, would run again in 2024. (NYT)
🕎 Hanukkah celebrates the time when Jewish rebels took back the Temple and rededicated it. In contention for the good-timing award: archaeologists in Israel have unveiled a small fortress destroyed by the nephew of the rebellion’s leader, Judah Maccabee. (Smithsonian Magazine)
🇮🇷 The Israel-Iran cyber war is now hitting ordinary citizens. Israelis found their intimate dating details posted online. Iranians couldn’t buy gas. “It isn’t our fault our governments are enemies,” said a taxi driver in Tehran. “It’s already hard enough for us to survive.” (NYT)
💻 Registration is open for the U.S.’s largest annual Yiddish culture festival, which will be virtual again this year. Among the sessions: a new online cantorial archive; a matzah ball cooking demo, and how to create Yiddish-related content for TikTok. (Forward)
💍 Amid booster shots and easing pandemic restrictions, Jewish weddings are back – with rising prices, staff shortages and lots of uncertainty. “People are getting married this year who rescheduled their wedding from last year,” said one event planner. “There are weddings now from 10 a.m. until 3 or 4 p.m. because the venue was already booked for the night.” (JTA)
What else we’re reading > How Polly Adler, the Jewish jezebel of the jazz age, became a topsy-turvy American success story … The Best Damn Cookies company is expanding its repertoire with a new take on rugelach … The secret Jewish history of Rita Moreno.
ON THE CALENDAR On this day in history: Garry Shandling, comedian and sitcom star, was born on Nov. 29, 1949. He broke down television’s fourth wall with the self-referential “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show.” He became a frequent guest host for Johnny Carson and turned that experience into “The Larry Sanders Show,” which ran on HBO from 1992 to 1998. The series is often cited as a precursor to “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “30 Rock.”
“People love to talk about neurosis like it’s the defining trope all Jewish comedians share,” Jason Diamond wrote in the Forward in 2016, “but Shandling wore a look on his face like he was uncomfortable with nearly everything, like nothing was ever right. That’s what made him one of the greatest comedians ever.”
Last year on this day, we reported on a study that suggested that the effect of a Birthright trip on Jewish marriage and attachment to Israel lasts up to two decades.
On the Hebrew calendar, it’s the first day of Hanukkah.
VIDEO OF THE DAY “Ocho Kandelikas” (“Eight Little Candles” in English) is a Ladino song celebrating Hanukkah, written by Flory Jagoda, the Sarajevo-born Holocaust survivor and Sephardic musician who died earlier this year. Sarah Aroeste, the queen of feminist Ladino rock, just released a new version of the song, which you can enjoy in the music video above.
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