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Christian officials accuse Israel of holiday discrimination, the secret Jewish history of Beethoven, why Kraft will pay you not to eat cheesecake and much more.
OUR LEAD STORY How a poor Jewish immigrant made a fortune as a madam:A Yiddish-speaking 13-year-old girl from a shtetl near Pinsk arrived alone and almost penniless at Ellis Island. About a decade later, she was the most famous madam in New York, her brothels frequented by the rich and the notable — politicians, gangsters, businessmen, celebrities, writers and journalists who ran the city in what would become known as the Roaring Twenties.
Jewish sisterhood: The girl, Polly Adler, opened her first bordello across from Columbia University in Manhattan. “In those days, Jewish women made up 50% of the madams in New York City,” said Debby Applegate, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of a new book about Adler. “Women were trained to be ballaboostas – to be able to run the business while their husbands studied Torah.”
Married to the mob: Timing was everything for Adler, who rose to success during Prohibition and partnered with Jewish mobsters like Arnold Rothstein. “Jews dominated the bootlegging trade in New York City and in a lot of cities,” Adler noted. “They’re the ones who see the value in having her running a place that can be like a little hideout.”
From the ashes of the Holocaust: One of the major resources Applegate used for her research were the “Yizkor books” published in Israel in the wake of the Holocaust. There was one about the shtetl where Adler grew up, and it mentioned her family. “It really gave a texture of the life she had there.”
FROM OUR OPINION SECTION American Jews — on left and right — got Trump’s Israel legacy all wrong: A blockbuster revelation about President Trump’s private comments about Benjamin Netanyahu. A historic meeting between the leaders of Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Together, according to our contributing columnist Ari Hoffman, these events demonstrate that “Trump’s achievements in the Middle East are far greater than the left will ever admit, and his behavior in and out of office is far worse than the right will ever acknowledge.” The inability to see Trump clearly “is a symptom of a broader selective blindness in our culture,” he argues. “When seeing everything through the lens of tribe and identity politics, too many people don’t see anything clearly at all.” Read the OpEd ➤
Our preschool welcomed Santa — and exiled my Jewish daughter: What do you do when your Jewish child’s preschool has a holiday party starring Santa Claus? Writer Meg Keene expressed her discomfort with having kids who might not celebrate Christmas having to sit on Santa’s lap, and the school’s solution was to exile her daughter into a classroom by herself – and invite Keene to come to the classroom and teach about Hanukkah. “It’s baffling to me,” she writes, “that the onus of making the classroom a more inclusive place falls on minority parents ourselves, and not the educators.” Read the essay ➤
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY The security official's running route in Abu Dhabi, broadcast via an exercise app. (Strava) 🏃 A senior Israeli official who helps protect the prime minister while traveling has been accidentally broadcasting his exact location thanks to his use of an exercise app. While in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, for example, he left the hotel for a seven-mile run along a coastal promenade. Throughout, his Garmin Fenix 5 watch shared his movements over social media networks to fellow athletes. (Haaretz)
✈️ As we mentioned here yesterday, Birthright Israel trips are set to resume next week, despite travel restrictions due to the Omicron variant. The move has riled some Christian groups that were hoping to visit the holy land for Christmas, with one church spokesman calling the selective treatment discriminatory and “racist.” (Times of Israel)
🍰 After a Forward investigation revealed that the cream cheese shortage is connected to limited water in Lowville, New York, Kraft Heinz announced it will give select customers $20 each to not make cheesecake this December. The promotion, called “Spread the Feeling,” begins Friday. (Forward)
📢 Members of the Proud Boys, one of two groups the ADL and the city of Washington are suing for their roles in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, are becoming increasingly vocal at school board meetings, espousing misogynistic, Islamophobic and antisemitic views. The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated it as a hate group. (New York Times)
🤝 As Afghan refugees overwhelm U.S. aid agencies, Jewish groups are stepping in as partners. “The whole plight of the refugee is a reality for my family,” said Carrie Norry, whose grandparents fled Nazi Germany in 1939, and a member of a North Carolina synagogue that is resettling Afghans. “There were people that helped them get on their feet and I wanted to pay that forward.” (Religion News Service)
📈 When asked about their religious identity, the fastest-growing group is the religiously unaffiliated – atheists, agnostics, or those with “nothing in particular.” According to a survey released this week by the Pew Research Center, this group known as the “nones” now constitutes 29% of American adults. That’s up from 23% in 2016 and 19% in 2011. (AP)
🔎 Google shared what the world searched for most in 2021. One finding of note: Following the viral moment of Bernie Sanders sporting knitted gloves at the U.S. 2021 presidential inauguration, “mittens” were searched more than ever before. (Google)
ON THE CALENDAR Regis Philbin with his wife Joy, and Claudia Cohen arrive at a Broadway play in 2001. (Getty Images) On this day in history: Claudia Cohen, a socialite and gossip columnist, was born on Dec. 16. 1950. She is credited with putting the New York Post’s “Page Six” on the map and later wrote a regular column at its rival, the New York Daily News. She became a frequent celebrity correspondent on TV until her death, from cancer, in 2007.
It’s also the birthday of one history’s greatest classical composers: Check out our secret Jewish history of Ludwig van Beethoven. Want more? Watch “Ode to Joy” sung in Yiddish.
Last year on this day, we shared this wonderfully sweet essay by Len Berk, our lox columnist, who finally was able to return to Zabar’s after being away for nine months due to the pandemic.
PHOTO OF THE DAY This gem of a photo comes courtesy of Chana Pollack, the Forward’s archivist. It’s from 1936 and features Benny Friedman, the so-called “Hebrew quarterback,” who played for the New York Giants and later coached at Brandeis University. Here, the Yiddish text credits Friedman’s excellent physique in part to “Post’s Bran Flakes.” Learn more about Friedman ➤
––– Thanks to Laura E. Adkins, Nora Berman and Chana Pollack for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com.
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