In today’s briefing: Israel sends humanitarian aid after Haiti earthquake, Netflix's jaw-dropping new Holocaust documentary, celebrating Menachem Begin's birthday and more.

OUR LEAD STORY 😷

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

Synagogues planned for in-person High Holiday services. Then came Delta.

As COVID cases rise amidst the virulent Delta variant, congregations across America are quickly pivoting to figure out new plans for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Arno Rosenfeld spoke with synagogue leaders to find out how plans are changing. Ohr HaTorah, a modern Orthodox shul in Atlanta where many Centers for Disease Control experts are members, is planning on offering a number of smaller services – indoors, outdoors and in tents.

By the numbers: An informal survey of 100 synagogues last week showed 90% still planning to offer some in-person services, but only 30% at full capacity. Nearly half said they would require masks and 40% would require vaccines.

Key quote: “We’re trying to bluff our way through a very dynamic and precarious situation,” said Rabbi Joe Hample of Tree of Life Congregation in West Virginia. “I’m going to have to rewrite those sermons.” Read the story >

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ALSO IN THE FORWARD 🐢

HARVEY LASHINSKY WITH HIS DOG AND MOTORCYCLE.

The many lives of Harvey Lashinsky: A butcher, comedian and environmentalist walk into a bar. Turns out they’re all the same guy: Harvey Lashinsky, who used his Yiddish-influenced sense of humor as a relief from his work at his family’s meat shop in a tiny Catskills resort town. “I cut the meat for my own bar mitzvah,” he said. Now, Lashinsky is trying to save endangered sea turtles. Read the story >

‘Watershed moment’: Tamar Manasseh, anti-violence activist, ordained as Israelite rabbi: Manasseh, founder of the group Mothers/Men Against Senseless Killings, “lives the prayers,” said Rabbi Capers Funnye, who performed her ordination. “She has taken her Judaism outside of the synagogue to the streets.” Read the story >

5 THINGS AMERICAN JEWS ARE TALKING ABOUT 👇

A BOY IS TENDED TO OUTSIDE A HOSPITAL AFTER AN EARTHQUAKE STRUCK HAITI. (PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES)

1. IsraAID, a humanitarian agency, is deploying a rescue team to Haiti after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake rocked the country on Saturday, killing more than 1,200 people. (The Jerusalem Post)

2. An off-the-books yeshiva occupying two connected residential homes in Staten Island was closed down after neighbors complained of dozens of Jewish teens living on the premises. “It’s very noisy,” said one local resident. “There’s garbage all over the place.” The fire department also cited the school for improperly adding new gas and electrical lines. (New York Post)

3. Meyers Leonard, the NBA star caught on tape saying ‘kike,’ will speak at an Anti-Defamation League webinar. The Miami Heat traded Leonard, a 29-year-old forward, who got emotional speaking to a group of Jewish kids in June. “I’m so thankful through a very dark moment,” he said. “Sometimes people say God works in mysterious ways.” (ADL)

4. Porn sites are not removing antisemitic content, according to an Israel-based watchdog group, which has identified dozens of videos – some with actors dressed as Nazi officers acting out rape scenes of actresses portraying Jewish women. (JTA)

5. Jewish actress Selma Blair said she thought she was filming “the final days of my life,” in an upcoming documentary about her battle with multiple sclerosis. Blair, 49, publicly announced her diagnosis in 2018 and the film documents her chemotherapy and stem-cell transplant. “I always thought I was on a reality show, like I was in a documentary, but only God would see it and disapprove,” she says in the trailer. The film debuts in October. (YouTube)

Shiva call > Leon Kopelman, possibly the last surviving man to have fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, died at 97. After escaping the Nazis, Kopelmen met up with his sister and father in mandatory Palestine, and fought for Israel in the 1948 war that led to the state’s establishment. (Algemeiner)

What else we’re reading > The untidiness of Marie Kondo’s eclectic spirituality … Exploring the Jewish artists who helped make the Salzburg Festival a success … Israel’s tech boom will include Arabs.

FROM OUR CULTURE SECTION 🎥

Her Holocaust survival story was like something out of a Netflix movie — maybe too much so:Misha Defonseca was a child when she escaped the Holocaust. She walked across Europe, living mostly in the forest. Astonishingly, she gained the trust of a pack of wolves, and shared in their kills. Flash forward several decades, and Oprah wanted to choose her memoir for her book club, Disney optioned it for a film. Now, a new Netflix documentary examines whether the whole saga was a hoax.Read the story >

When 250 Orthodox Jewish immigrants worked as extras for Cecil B. DeMille:Forhis original, silent version of “The Ten Commandments,” DeMille turned to hundreds of new Jewish immigrants in Los Angeles. “We believed rightly that, both in appearance and in their deep feeling of the significance of the Exodus, they would give the best possible performance as the Children of Israel,” he said. Read the story >

PHOTO OF THE DAY 📸

PHOTO: DEBRA NUSSBAUM COHEN

Eric Adams, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York, spoke at The Hampton Synagogue over breakfast Sunday with Rabbi Marc Schneier. Adams was in the neighborhood for fundraisers. Last week, Adams attended a fundraiser in Crown Heights, thanking the Orthodox community for their support in the primary.

ON THE CALENDAR 🗓

MENACHEM BEGIN VOTING WITH HIS WIFE, ALIZA. (PHOTO: YA'ACOV SA'AR)

On this day in history: Menachem Begin, the sixth prime minister of Israel, was born on Aug. 16, 1913. Perhaps his most significant achievement was the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, which led to a Nobel Prize shared with Anwar Sadat. But a new documentary about Begin, “Upheaval,” also centers on his relationship with his wife, Aliza, our editor-in-chief, Jodi Rudoren, noted in a column earlier this year.

It’s National Tell a Joke Day. This classic Yiddish joke about mothers-in-law will still surprise you.

Wednesday at 11:30 a.m. ET: The last of our three “Israel Therapy” sessions will focus on the U.S.-Israel relationship. Jodi will be joined by Libby Lenkinski of the New Israel Fund; Ginna Green, co-host of our new podcast, “A Bintel Brief;” Noam Shuster-Eliassi, an Israeli comedian; and Rabbi Josh Weinberg of the Union for Reform Judaism. Click here to register.

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