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Jared Kushner's memoir, Hitler's Jewish bloodline, Harvard newspaper's Israel boycott, Tree of Life's new campus, museum's new Jews and weed exhibit, and Anne Frank's opera.
Plus: Play today’s Vertl puzzle, the Yiddish Wordle
ROE V. WADE ‘It’s horrifying’: Jewish leaders react to news that Supreme Court on verge of overturning Roe v. Wade
Politico unleashed a blockbuster Monday night: a draft copy of a Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case legalizing most abortions. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” declares the opinion, written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and expected to be signed by at least four colleagues. The revelation of a pending opinion is unprecedented, and it will undoubtedly intensify the debate over what is already the most contentious case on the court’s docket.
Supporters and opponents of abortion rights immediately flocked to the Supreme Court steps – and social media. “Judaism allows and requires abortion in many circumstances,” tweeted Blimi Marcus, an Orthodox nurse practitioner and professor. “An overturned Roe will result in Jewish women everywhere being unable to practice their religion.”
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, a leader of the National Council of Jewish Women’s “Rabbis for Repro” initiative, echoed those sentiments. “Abortion bans are a violation of religious freedom,” she tweeted. “As well as a violation of dignity, autonomy, basic human rights.”
“It’s horrifying,” said Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, known as the Velveteen Rabbi. “Guard your energy and double down on spiritual practice: we’re going to need to be strong and resilient in the face of all of this.”
‘A win for religious fervor’ In a new opinion column published this morning, our Rob Eshman, calls it “a win for religious fervor” – and a reminder that no battle is won until both sides stop fighting. “The anti-abortion views are rooted in a specific Christian belief that life begins at conception and that abortion, therefore, is murder. Jews don’t believe that,” he says. “The state of Israel, which so many evangelical Christians support unreservedly, has had legalized abortion since 1977.” Read the column ➤
Plus: Our editor–in-chief, Jodi Rudoren, has been pregnant twice, had two abortions – and has two healthy teenagers. . Larry Cohler-Esses helped a high school classmate get an illegal abortion in 1969. Orthodox women revealed their abortion stories and nine other readers shared their personal experiences.ALSO IN THE FORWARD Jared Kushner’s memoir is set to publish in August: It will include behind-the-scenes stories of his meetings with Arab leaders and work on the Abraham Accords. The cover, unveiled on Monday, is a black-and-white photo of Kushner striding, cell phone to his ear, in front of an airplane – presumably Air Force One – with the title, “Breaking History,” in red block letters. In a separate book out today, former President Donald Trump calls Kushner “the smartest guy I have seen in my life,” though he “can’t throw a football 10 yards.” Read the story ➤
Opinion | Harvard’s student newspaper backing BDS matters more than you might think: “The math for this is simple,” writes Dany Bahar, an Israeli who attended graduate school at Harvard a decade ago. “With time, more and more elected officials of representative democracies will have to change their stance on Israel in order to respond to their young constituencies who are more likely to sympathize with the BDS movement and the one-state solution than with Israel’s right to defend itself.” Read his essay ➤
Russian official says Hitler was Jewish and ‘the most ardent antisemites are Jews’: Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Yad Vashem and others quickly condemned the comments made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday. In remarks on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that “to justify Russia’s violence with appeals to antisemitism is sickening and dangerous.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he simply has “no words.” In a statement on Tuesday, Russia doubled down, saying Israel “supports the neo-Nazi regime” in Kyiv.
Our friends at Haaretz unpacked the history of conspiracies about Hitler’s Jewish bloodline. “These theories,” the newspaper explained, “generally arise from the fact that Hitler’s father was born out of wedlock and we do not know who his paternal grandfather was.” Read the story ➤
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY A rendering of the new design for the Tree of Life complex in Pittsburgh. (Lifang Vision Technology) 🕍 Leaders of the Tree of Life synagogue, site of the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history, will unveil their design today for a new complex that includes a sanctuary, museum and memorial. It is unified by a skylight spanning the length of the roof. Explained Daniel Libeskind, the starchitect behind the renovation: “The light is not only physical light, it’s also spiritual light.” (AP)
🥊 In many antisemitic incidents, the perpetrator escapes before the police arrive. But on Sunday in Antwerp, when someone tried to punch a Haredi man, he overpowered his attacker and held him down on the ground until officers took the suspect into custody. (JTA)
💰 David Rubenstein, an investment banker and philanthropist, is donating $15 million to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. It is the third major gift of its kind in the last few weeks: an anonymous donor gave $18 million to a Cincinnati Holocaust museum and Jody Kipnis and Todd Ruderman gave $11.5 million to build one in Boston. (Washington Post)
✝️ A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday that Boston violated the free speech rights of a conservative activist when it refused his request to fly a Christian flag on a flagpole outside City Hall. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that the city discriminated against the activist because of his “religious viewpoint.” (CNN)
🎵 A fire two years ago left the Maine Jewish Museum with more than $1 million in damages. The museum is now restored and this week hosts performances of a 1968 opera about Anne Frank. It also has plans for concerts featuring instruments that belonged to Jews before the Holocaust. (Press Herald)
🚬 A new exhibit at the YIVO Institute explores the connections between Jews and weed. Yes, it includes a bong-shaped menorah and archaeological proof of cannabis use in ancient Israel. “All the early Hasidic masters smoked pipes,” explained Eddy Portnoy, the curator. “And their acolytes all wrote that when they smoke their pipes, they went into ecstasy.” (NY Jewish Week)
Mazel tov ➤ To Andy Cohen, talk show host, on the birth of his second child, a daughter named Lucy Eve.
Shiva call ➤ Rabbi Zechariah Wallerstein, a noted lecturer and founder of the Ohr Naava Women’s Torah Center, died at 64.
ON THE CALENDAR A bird's-eye view of the destruction left in the wake of the Great Fire of 1901. (Wikimedia) On this day in history: The third-largest fire in recorded U.S. history tore through downtown Jacksonville, Florida, on May 3, 1901. Jews played a significant role in the city’s revitalization after the blaze, which destroyed more than 2,000 buildings. One was the Cohen Brothers Big Store, which had been credited with modernizing the local retail trade. Undeterred by the fire, the Cohen brothers — Samuel, Morris and Jacob, native New Yorkers who entered the Jacksonville retail scene in the 1860s — built a new store, which upon its completion in 1912 ranked among the 10 largest department stores in the country. It took up an entire city block, and in 1997, became Jacksonville City Hall.
Last year on this day, in honor of Pete Seeger’s birthday, we curated a list of his seven most Jewish songs.
On the Hebrew calendar, it’s the 2nd of Iyar, the birth date of Rabbi Shmuel Schneerson, the fourth Lubavitcher Rebbe.
VIDEO OF THE DAY In case you missed it: Jodi Rudoren, our editor-in-chief, had a fascinating conversation with her three predecessors – Jane Eisner, J.J. Goldberg and Seth Lipsky – in honor of the Forward’s 125th anniversary. They chatted about the birth of the English edition, its transition to digital and what the future holds for this storied publication. Plus, they each took a gander at what the Forward’s founder, Ab Cahan, would think of the newspaper’s modern-day iteration.
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Thanks to PJ Grisar, Louis Keene, Jacob Kornbluh, Rudy Malcom, Jodi Rudoren and Jake Wasserman for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com.
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