The governor who's uniting Jews + Netflix gets in the Madoff business + A new Jewish immigrant story

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Sentencing in Chabad charity scheme, Ted Cruz defends Nazi salute, the man who lit Lady Liberty, the rabbi who won on 'Jeopardy!" and Israel to host Miss Universe competition.

OUR LEAD STORY

‘I’m trying to merge my two selves’: a Jewish immigrant story

Qian Julie Wang is having a moment. Her debut memoir, about her tumultuous first years in America after her family fled China, has become a national bestseller. Our editor-at-large, Robin Washington, spoke with Wang about her writing and her Judaism.

Out of the shadows: ‘“The Diary of Anne Frank’ was the first time I saw something of a mirror of my life,” Wang said, “not because I had gone through something as horrific as the Holocaust, but because she was also a girl coming of age in hiding and yet still espousing these universal dreams and wants and desires of a little girl.”

A sense of belonging: Wang is the founder and leader of the Jews of Color group at Manhattan’s Central Synagogue, where she has spoken from the bimah about her childhood and finding her spiritual home. During Rosh Hashanah, she offered an interpretation of the Hannah story.

Read our interview with Wang and an excerpt from her book >

ALSO IN THE FORWARD

A significant portion of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy's constituency is Jewish. (Getty Images)

Why N.J. Gov. Phil Murphy is winning support from Jews on both sides of the aisle: In New Jersey, home to the fourth largest Jewish community in the U.S., progressive and Orthodox Jews often gravitate to rival candidates. But running for re-election, Murphy, who is Catholic, has managed to gain crucial backing from both groups by focusing on a potpourri of issues including climate change, education and Israel. He “has led on every issue that are priorities of Jewish voters,” said one strategist. Read the story >

Opinion | We are Jews from Pittsburgh. Please don’t use the Tree of Life tragedy for political gain: A recent anti-hate conference in honor of the victims of the 2018 synagogue shooting was framed as a non-partisan affair. But some found it off-putting that one of the organizers was connected to former President Trump’s attempts to overturn the election. Read the column>

How a notorious Nazi almost got a Hollywood biopic — and why Kubrick refused to direct it.In 1971, Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect, friend and minister of armaments, was developing an adaptation of his memoir for Paramount. The film was never made, but screenwriter Andrew Birkin recorded and saved more than 40 hours of audio recordings of his conversations with Speer. Vanessa Lapa’s new documentary, “Speer Goes to Hollywood,” recreates the tapes, revealing Speer to be an egomaniac intent on whitewashing his role in Nazi atrocities. Read the story >

From Zumba to Torah, how Hispanic Jewish immigrants invigorated Jewish Miami:Around 80% of the members at the JCC in North Miami-Dade County are from Latin America. Many came to the U.S. to escape economic and social upheaval, and have expressed profound gratitude for their adopted city. “This is not a community that needs to be taught the importance of Jewish community,” said Jeff Levin of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation. “They feel it in their bones. When they arrive, their instinct is to find and re-establish that community.” Read the story >

Louis Keene, our reporter in California, reports that a man who wrote off Jewish preschool tuition as a charitable donation, Jason Ellis, has been sentenced to six months of house arrest and four years probation in the ongoing Chabad of Poway scandal. Ellis also admitted making fake donations to the Friendship Circle of San Diego, a nonprofit serving people with disabilities, which were matched by Qualcomm, his employer, and pocketed by disgraced Chabad Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein. Some involved with the Friendship Circle have recently resigned to protest the continued involvement of members of Goldstein’s family. The Chabad of Poway drew worldwide attention in 2019 after it was the target of a shooting that killed a congregant.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

🗣 Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, defended Nazi salutes during a Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday. He was arguing that parents who refer to “authoritarian” school boards as Nazis are protected under the First Amendment. (Twitter)

🕍 As the pandemic drove Judaism online, Chabad made dozens of investments totaling more than $137 million in real estate, buying new buildings and renovating existing ones. As the movement proliferates, mainly by attracting unaffiliated Jews, it has also found many willing donors. (JTA)

🍿 Netflix has ordered a docu-series about Bernie Madoff, the infamous architect of a Ponzi scheme that caused financial devastation throughout the Jewish world. The director of the series, who also made a documentary about Jeffrey Epstein, claims to have new details about the Madoff case. (Hollywood Reporter)

🤔 The face of Jewish actor B.J. Novak, perhaps best-known as Ryan the intern on “The Office,” is suddenly shilling products across the globe – including electric razors in China and face paint in Uruguay. He’s not sure how it happened, but said: “I am too amused to do anything about it.” (NYT)

👸🏻 Thanks in part to its high vaccination rate, Israel will be hosting the Miss Universe competition on Dec. 12. A bespoke arena is being imported to Eilat from Portugal. This is the first year the United Arab Emirates is competing in the pageant. (Variety)

😘 Lox Club, an exclusive Jewish dating app with investments from rapper Bhad Bhabie and Lil Yachty, just got a little less exclusive. Non-Jews can now join, which led some members of the tribe to quit the app. (Mashable)

Shiva call > Joyce Newmark, a New Jersey rabbi who won ‘Jeopardy!’ in 2011, died at 73. Andrew Silow-Carroll, a journalist and friend of Newmark’s, remembered watching her $29,200 victory from the synagogue social hall and summed up the pride like this: “Koufax pitches no-hitter! Mark Spitz swims to seven gold medals! Rabbi Newmark wins on ‘Jeopardy!’” (JTA)

What else we’re reading > A Knesset member left his faction’s WhatsApp group after calling colleagues “a party of idiots” (and then returned) … Rabbi launches new course on outsmarting antisemitism … A network of ancient Jewish catacombs in Italy has Christian crosses etched into the walls.

FROM OUR ARCHIVES

Back in 1930, a year into the Great Depression, everyone’s favorite Yiddish newspaper was getting spooky with its ads. This one for Breyers ice cream, which ran around Halloween, featured witches soaring and a two-quart, special-order, nut-filled, pumpkin-flavored, ice-cream jack-o’-lantern. Other flavor combos for the holiday included ‘choconut’ and orange, plus novelties including cats, dried colored corn and skulls.

Back in 1924 on the Forward’s Baltimore delivery route, young newsies inspired by Halloween wreaked havoc on local subscribers. According to delivery boy Abraham Gustomolsky, every Oct. 31 newsies had initiated random doorbell ring-and-runs that enraged the occupants. That year, at least one resident exacted revenge, dousing poor Abraham with soapy dishwater from a second-floor window.

Related: In 1958, the Forward dubbed Halloween an “international Purim for children.”

ON THE CALENDAR

M.B. Curtis, a Jewish actor, is known as the man who lit Lady Liberty.

On this day in history: President Grover Cleveland dedicated the Statue of Liberty on Oct. 28, 1886. Nicknamed “froy mitn fakl” in Yiddish, she welcomed scores of Jews to America with the words of Emma Lazarus, a Sephardic poet from New York City. Ten days after the dedication, when Congress refused to pay to keep Lady Liberty’s torch burning, a Jewish immigrant and stage actor, M.B. Curtis, put up the cash to keep the lights on. Curtis went on to lead a colorful life – impressing Mark Twain, modernizing West Berkeley, California, and standing on trial (three times) for a murder he did not commit. Read more about Curtis’ rise and fall >

In honor of National Chocolate Day, check out this recipe for a boozy chocolate gelt martini. While you’re sipping it, relax and read this article about what happened when Trader Joe’s reintroduced its beloved pareve chocolate chips.

And we’re celebrating First Responders Day with this profile of a Jewish doctor who was on the front lines when the pandemic began – all while he himself was battling COVID-19.

Tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET: Is anti-Zionism antisemitic? We’re joining with the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center for a virtual webinar featuring political commentators Bret Stephens and Peter Beinart to address this volatile and painful controversy. The event will be moderated by our editor-in-chief, Jodi Rudoren. Register now >

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Gil Wizen, an Israeli entomologist, was named one of the best wildlife photographers of the year for this picture of a fishing spider stretching out silk to weave into its egg sac. The annual prize is sponsored by the Natural History Museum in London. See the other winning photos here.

Thanks to Nora Berman, PJ Grisar, Louis Keene, Jacob Kornbluh and Chana Pollack for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com.

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