ANNOUNCING THE NEW VIRTUAL
We are thrilled to be partnering with the JCC Literary Consortium to bring you the Mandell JCC Book Festival In Your Living Room, a virtual series of author Zoom talks and Q&As.
Kathy Binder & Kathy Fishman - Co-Chairs
Thursday, October 22 | 8:00 pm
Judy Gold
Yes, I Can Say That: When They Come for the Comedians, We Are All In Trouble
Sunday, October 25 | 8:00 pm
Harlan Coben
The Boy From the Woods
Tuesday, October 27 | 8:00 pm
Nancy Grace
Don’t be a Victim: Fighting Back against America’s Crime Wave
T hursday, October 29 | 8:00 pm
Mike Leven
Can’t Do It Yourself: How Commitment to Others Leads to Personal Prosperity
Sunday, November 8 | 1:00 pm
Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy
Never Alone
Sunday, November 8 | 8:00 pm
Joan Lunden
Why Did I Come Into This Room? A Candid Conversation About Aging
M onday, November 9 | 8:00 pm
Esther Safran Foer
I Want You to Know We’re Still Here: A Post Holocaust Memoir
Tuesday, November 10 | 1:00 pm
A Two-Author Event
Rachel Beanland
Florence Adler Swims Forever: A Novel
K ristin Harmel
Book of Last Names: A Novel
Tuesday, November 10 | 8:00 pm EST
Dale Berra
My Dad, Yogi
We dnesday, November 11 | 3:00 pm
John Grisham
A Time for Mercy
We dnesday, November 11 | 8:00 pm
Cameron Douglas Long Way Home
T hursday, November 12 | 8:00 pm
Jim McCloskey and Philip Lerman
When the Truth is All You Have: A Memoir of Faith, Justice, and Freedom for the Wrongly Convicted
S aturday, November 14 | 8:00 pm
L awrence Wright
The End of October: A Novel
Sunday, November 15 | 3:00 pm
Raffi Berg
Red Sea Spies: The True Story of Mossad’s Fake Diving Resort
Monday, November 16 | 8:00 pm
A riel Sabar
Veritas: A Harvard Professor, A Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife
We dnesday, November 18 | 8:00 pm
TWO-AUTHOR EVENT
Michael Ian Black
A Better Man: A (Mostly Serious)
Letter to My Son Cleo Stiller
Modern Manhood: Conversations
About the Complicated World of Being a Good Man Today
T hursday, November 19 | 8:00 pm
Rachel Bloom
I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are Friday, November 20 | 2:00 pm
Transgender Day of Remembrance
Mimi Lemay
What We Will Become: A Mother, Son, and a Journey of Transformation Sunday, November 22 | 1:00 pm FOR KIDS!
Melissa Clark
Kid in the Kitchen: 100 Recipes and Tips for Young Home Cooks
We dnesday, December 2 | 7:30 pm
Ina Garten
Modern Comfort Food
INSIDE this week
The need for affordable health care, and the fight against antisemitism are two important issues for Matt Lieberman, son of CT’s former Senator Joe Lieberman, who is running in a special election for U.S. senator from Georgia. Wrong About Wright 6 Turns out that Rev. Raphael Warnock, pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church and the top Democratic candidate in the special Senate election in Georgia, defended antisemitic pastor Jeremiah Wright back in 2008.
To be sure, Nov. 3, 2020 is shaping up to be an election day like no other. Jewish groups are mobilizing to register de-registered and disenfranchised voters…and preparing to protect their communities should the day turn violent. Our 4-page coverage begins on PAGE 12.
The backlash against the casting of Israeli star Gal Gadot as Cleopatra illustrates the insidious nature of the myths spawned by critical race theory and inter-sectionalism, says Jonathan Tobin.
SHABBAT FRIDAY, OCT. 23
Hartford: 5:39 p.m.
New Haven: 5:39 p.m.
Bridgeport: 5:40 p.m.
Stamford: 5:40 p.m. Voice Your Vote!
Whether he intends to or not, actor Mark Ruffalo continues to repeatedly stray into the demonization of the Jewish state, singling out Israel for unreasonably high standards and lauding Hamas, recognized worldwide as a terror group. The Family Business
They may not be old enough to vote, but that doesn’t mean BBYO teens can’t help shape the world they will inherit by helping others exercise their right – maybe even their obligation – to vote.
UP FRONT
Matt Lieberman grabs the family baton as he makes run for Senate in Georgia
BY JACKSON RICHMAN
(JNS) Matt Lieberman comes from a prolific political family as his father, Sen. Joe Lieberman, served as a longtime U.S. senator from Connecticut and ran as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in the 2000 presidential election.
After two years practicing law, the younger Lieberman, 50, became a teacher and a principal at a Jewish day school, and eventually started a business to provide health care to families, small-business owners and union members.
Lieberman is running in a special election in Georgia to serve the remaining two years of the term of Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.). Incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp after Isakson retired in 2019 for health reasons, faces off against GOP Rep. Doug Collins and eight Democrats, including Lieberman and pastor Raphael Warnock.
In accordance with Georgia electoral law, if no candidate gets at least 50 percent of the vote, a runoff between the top two finishers will be held in January.
On Nov. 3, all candidates for Isakson’s seat, regardless of partisan affiliation, will be on the ballot. According to many polls, Warnock is the Democrat most likely to advance to the expected run-off unless the January election ends up being between Loeffler and Collins – a possibility with Lieberman playing spoiler to Warnock’s chances. Otherwise, the special election would likely be between the two Georgia Republican members of Congress.
A single father, Lieberman has two daughters, Tess and Willie.
The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: Why are you running? How are you different than your father politically and ideologically when he was in the Senate?
A: I’m running as a fed-up citizen of Georgia. We have been living here in this state with senators who in the most basic way don’t represent us. They don’t represent our priorities and values on the most important issues, and I don’t think
politics as usual or politicians as usual will get the job done for us. I think they’ll just kowtow to whoever seems to be the most politically threatening force instead of fighting for our priorities and values. That’s why I’m running.
How I’m different than my father politically and ideologically when he was in the Senate? I don’t know. I leave that to other people to figure out.
Q: You mention senators not representing Georgia’s values. What are those values and the specific issues that exemplify them?
A: If you look at issues like doing anything to work towards universal health care, such as favoring a public option, as I do. If you look at favoring common-sense gun reform. If you look at accepting climate change as real and the human impact on it. If you look at fighting for voting rights in a real way. All of those issues – and there are more are issues where my position is where most Georgians are. Ultimately, I or any Democrat will be in a strong position to defeat either Rep. Doug Collins or Loeffler one on one in January because, politics aside, the Democratic candidate is just going to be more in step with most voters in
Georgia on most of the important issues.
Q: What makes you different from your Democratic opponents, like Pastor Raphael Warnock?
A: Warnock, until probably a couple of months ago, he didn’t have an issues section at all on his website. He has diligently avoided joint appearances. We will have two debates later this month, so perhaps we’ll flesh some things out then. I would guess that we are similar on the majority of issues, as we both are Democrats. I know that our position on school choice may be different. I believe he is opposed to more public school choice. I believe he is opposed to scholarship programs that enable parents from poor families to choose a private school if they want, so I think that’s a difference.
Although he has apparently of late come around to a pro-Israel position, it shouldn’t be overlooked that his religious role model is Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and at exactly the same time U.S. President Barack Obama was distancing himself from Wright’s statements and condemning Wright’s statements, Warnock was, dafka, running
CONTINUED ON THE NEXT PAGE
BBYO teens get out the vote
BY STACEY DRESNER
STATEWIDE – Dara Sadinsky recalls accompanying her mother to the polls in West Hartford as a young girl, to observe her voting local and national elections.
Now, although she is not old enough to vote in the Nov. 3 presidential election, the 17-year-old is still participating in the election process.
Sadinsky, along with her fellow members of the AZA and BBG chapters of BBYO in the Connecticut Valley Region and around the country, is participating in Voice Your Vote, a national non-partisan BBYO initiative aimed at registering young voters to vote and insuring fair access to voting. In addition, BBYO members are also recruiting teen volunteers 16 years of age and older to staff voting polls in place of older volunteers who this year may stay away over concern about Covid-19.
Connecticut is one of 45 states that allow 16-year-olds to serve as poll workers in order “to encourage young citizens to engage in voting, registration and democracy,” as the National Conference of State Legislatures puts it.
“I really wish I could vote. I’ve been politically active for as long as I can remember,” says Sadinsky, who is now a BBYO field organizer for the election. “Having this opportunity to still help with the election is great. I knew from the get-go that I wanted to help in some way and as soon as I saw this opportunity I was excited.
“The majority of our members are younger than 18,” she adds. “So, we want to get everyone who can be registered registered; those of us who can’t vote just want everyone as involved in as possible.”
Jennifer Kruzansky, regional director of BBYO CVR, says signing up members to staff the voting stations is just as important as registering voters.
“We’re working on having 100 BBYO teens registered to work the polls because we know that poll workers are very hard to come by now with COVID,”
MATT LIEBERMAN WITH HIS TWO DAUGHTERS, TESS AND WILLIE. CREDIT: MATT LIEBERMAN VIA FACEBOOK.
Matt Lieberman
to Jeremiah Wright to defend him. I think that is of relevance to Georgia voters and perhaps Jewish voters. Warnock’s religious role model responded immediately after 9/11 by saying that “America’s chickens were coming home to roost.” I think that’s a difference, that’s certainly not my point of view.
The other big difference is that, and this goes for Collins and Loeffler as well: Of the four top candidates, I’m the only one who shows up on Day One in Washington who can say that I’m working for the people of Georgia and only for the people of Georgia. Each of the other three is only in this race because someone put them there. And for this reason, Loeffler, Collins and Warnock will all have divided loyalty between the people of Georgia and one or two powerful patrons in Washington or Atlanta. The people of Georgia deserve something better than that. They deserve someone they know who will be there, fighting for them and for them only.
Q: What part of President Donald Trump’s pro-Israel agenda do you agree with?
A: I agree with the move of the embassy to Jerusalem. I agree that the nuclear deal with Iran, the JCPOA, was not a good deal, and I think that clearly the region has progressed to a place of greater stability since the U.S. withdrew from it [in May 2018]. I think the region and the world will be in a better place of greater strength than renegotiating that deal so that Iran is not able to export and finance mayhem, even if not nuclear, conventional mayhem as they had been doing aggressively since the plan was put in place. And you have to give them credit for the agreements that clearly the United States has played a big part in putting together between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain. I hope there are more.
Q: Did you agree with the reimposition of sanctions and additional sanctions the Trump administration has placed on Iran?
A: Generally, yes. I’m not going to say that I’m signed onto the “maximum pressure” campaign, but Iran is a dangerous rogue state and agent of instability in the region, and I don’t believe that additional sanctions – absent a follow-up effort towards renegotiation – are a good idea. But I don’t think they’re a bad idea as part of laying the groundwork for renegotiation of arms, as well as hostility between Iran and other countries.
Q: But you supported the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran deal, correct?
A: I think it was a bad deal and withdrawing from it has left the region in a better place.
I have not been in the Senate, so I have not been privy to the multiple layers of intelligence that go into these decisions, but I can say in hindsight there have been positive consequences from withdrawing, yes.
Q: How can we best fight antisemitism, especially on college campuses?
A: We need to be vigilant. We need to call out things as they happen. We as adults and young adults, we as parents, communicating to our children, can’t communicate a message to go through life with bowed heads. We need to call out anti-Semitism wherever it appears, and we need to encourage our children to be strong in the face of it. It’s something that’s always been with us. It’s a form of bigotry and hatred that will never go away, but that doesn’t mean that we need to allow it to fester or grow as it seems to have been and the biggest thing we can do is really calling it out.
Would you support anti-BDS legislation, and what do you say to Democrats who say that such measures go against the First Amendment?
A: I would support anti-BDS legislation. It doesn’t go against the First Amendment. It doesn’t do a darn thing to the First Amendment to say that you’re not going to support the boycott. The boycotters can still boycott. Their First Amendment rights are still intact. That doesn’t mean you need to support it.
Q: What’s your reaction to Democrats and those who are for conditioning U.S. assistance to Israel?
A: As those conditions have been outlined, I’m against that. I’m opposed to placing conditions on our support for Israel.
Q: What’s your reaction to Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), whose re-election campaigns were endorsed by House Speaker Pelosi?
A: Clearly, they could be stronger in valuing the American-Israeli relationship. Generally speaking, I think they are each proud members of the extreme left-wing of the Democratic Party. They don’t represent the mainstream of the Democratic Party nationally or in Congress.
Q: Has the Democratic Party become antisemitic and anti-Israel? There’s the notion that this party is no longer your father’s party.
A: The Democratic Party is not antisemitic or anti-Israel. Virtually, every vote that comes up, there are strong bipartisan majorities in both the House and the Senate favoring the American-Israeli alliance. Are there a handful of voices saying things that
are of concern? Yes. I would say at this point, that is more of a warning flare than a problem.
Q: What’s your reaction to Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is expected to be elected to Congress, despite her support for the QAnon conspiracy theory and for making bigoted statements?
A: There you have the extreme, extreme element in the Republican Party that the Republicans refuse to speak out against. In fact, Doug Collins and Kelly Loeffler, who I’m running against, have congratulated her on her victory. And they should be ashamed because as they endorsed her, they are also at least complicit. It’s at least an implicit endorsement of her various statements and positions that are disturbing and way out there.
Georgia Democratic Senate candidate defends antisemitic pastor Jeremiah Wright
(JNS) The top Democratic candidate in the special Senate election in Georgia defended antisemitic pastor Jeremiah Wright back in 2008.
Rev. Raphael Warnock, pastor of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, defended Wright after a tape emerged of a 2003 sermon called “Confusing God and Government” in which Wright said, “not God Bless America, God damn America.”
The tape came to light during Barack Obama’s presidential run in 2008, as Obama was at the time a member of Wright’s church in Chicago. During the campaign, Obama disavowed the remarks and eventually withdrew his membership from the church.
“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisoners, passes a threestrike law, and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America,’ ” said Wright in the sermon. “No no no, not God bless America, God damn America, that’s in the Bible, for killing innocent people, God damn America for treating her citizens as less than human, God damn America as long as she tries to act like she is God and she is supreme.”
In a March 2008 appearance on Fox News, Warnock, who said that he had been “dispatched” to defend Wright after the tape emerged, praised the “social transformation that’s been the hallmark of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s ministry.”
“We celebrate Rev. Wright in the same way that we celebrate the truth-telling tradition of the black church, which when preachers tell the truth, very often it makes people uncomfortable,” said Warnock in response to the sermon and other remarks.
He also said, “I think the country has been done a disservice by this constant playing over and over again of the same soundbites outside of context.”
Wright has a history of making other provocative statements, including ones that are antisemitic. Examples have included blaming “them Jews” for not being able to be in contact with Obama after he won the White House, and stating that “ethnic cleansing is going on in Gaza. Ethnic cleansing of the Zionist is a sin and a crime against humanity, and they don’t want Barack talking like that because that’s anti-
Israel.”
Warnock is running in a special election to serve the remaining two years of the term of Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), against incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp after Isakson retired in 2019 for health reasons. He also faces off against GOP Rep. Doug Collins and seven Democrats, including Matt Lieberman, a son of former Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).
In accordance with Georgia electoral law, if no candidate gets at least 50 percent of the vote, a runoff between the top two finishers will be held in January.
On Nov. 3, all candidates for Isakson’s seat, regardless of partisan affiliation, will be on the ballot. According to many polls, Warnock is the Democrat most likely to advance to the expected run-off unless the January election ends up being between Loeffler and Collins – a possibility with Lieberman playing spoiler to Warnock’s chances. Otherwise, the special election would likely be between the two Georgia Republican members of Congress.
As of March, Warnock stood by his defense of Wright.
“Any fair-thinking person would recognize that everything a government does, even the American government, is not consistent with God’s dream for the world,” he said. “And preaching at its best points out those contradictions but then shows us the path forward.”
A Warnock campaign spokesperson told Fox News that the candidate “deplores and disagrees with any kind of remark that is antisemitic or discriminates against anyone.”
“He doesn’t agree with all of the positions other pastors support and has said such throughout this campaign,” said spokesperson Terrence Clark. “Rev. Warnock loves this country, and he supports honoring the dignity of all people, but also finding common ground to reform our broken systems. Once again, our opponents are playing the same Washington games to try to divide and distract people instead of standing up for health care in the middle of a pandemic.”
Kruzansky explains. “Most of the people who work at the polls are older and could be high risk.”
BBYO has tied Voice Your Vote to its annual regional kick-off plans for the coming year.
“Because of COVID we couldn’t have our usual regional kickoff where we bring 500 teens together in person,” Kruzansky says. “This year we decided if we can’t have everybody together, let’s pivot to a model where we bring the regional kickoff to your community.”
BBYO CVR is now showing up to every chapter’s community with a 20-foot inflatable movie screen for a “drive-in movie” night. And every one of those drive-in movie events will have a Voice your Vote component to it.
“We want to reach as many teens as possible.[We thought] ’let’s do an event that the teams are going to be drawn into and build upon it so that they have a more rounded experience. It’s fun to go to a drive-in movie with your friends and really learn about Voice Your Vote, rather than just sit at a table and register people to vote. We want to meet teens where they are at,” says Kruzansky. “Every kickoff will have a table with information about registering to vote and to get people registered to work the polls.”
BBYO is thankful to have several partners helping them in their efforts, including Connecticut’s Secretary of State Denise Merrill, and State Treasurer Sean Wooden.
“As Connecticut residents, your voices matter in both local and national elections, and trust me, this will be the most important election of your lifetime,” says Wooden in the BBYO video. “So remember to register to vote because we’re counting on you. For nearly a
century now, BBYO has been dedicated to improving our communities here in Connecticut, and their work is always defined by passion, creativity, and thoughtfulness, they are on the front lines of youth engagement. And this voter registration drive is yet another example of their leadership.”
According to Voice Your Vote’s website, there are 47 million 18- to 29-year-olds who are eligible to vote in the 2020 election, and 15 million of them have turned 18 since the last presidential election.
According to Pew Research Center, one in 10 eligible voters are between the ages of 18 and 23 (referred to as Generation Z).
“The primary focus of Voice Your Vote is to teach teens how to be civically engaged from a young age,” explains Ryan Ladd, BBYO’s digital strategy manager. “Our nearly 150 teen field organizers from across the U.S. are working hard to register voters, pledge voters, recruit poll workers, and get people involved in this effort in general. Since August, more than 1,300 members of the BBYO community have taken action in one of our key campaign areas. We’re also proud that we’re quickly climbing to recruiting 300 poll workers.”
Besides reaching out to BBYO members and alumni, Sadinsky is also encouraging those outside BBYO’s sphere to get involved – her extended family have all heard her pitch about the importance of voting on Nov. 3.
“I definitely think that this is a very important election. No matter which way it goes. Not just our country but potentially the world could see change,” says Sadinsky. “As a woman, I know that there was a lot that went into me being able to vote. So, I don’t take that for granted. I think it’s really important to emphasize the history of how we got to where we are and why this is a right that we should exercise.”
Daniel Pearl World Music Days Concert “Cantor Azi Schwartz in Concert: From Bimah to Broadway”
Cantor Azi Schwartz
Senior Cantor, Park Avenue Synagogue, NYC; performer, recording artist Wednesday, October 28 at 7:30 p.m. - free virtual event
DORON LOWENBERG, A BBYO MEMBER FROM STAMFORD, MANS A VOICE YOUR VOTE TABLE AT THE STAMFORD JCC.
Briefs
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks says he is being treated for cancer
(JTA) – Former British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks announced he has been diagnosed with cancer and is undergoing treatment. In a statement posted to his Twitter feed Thursday afternoon, Sacks’ office said he had been “recently diagnosed” with an unspecified cancer and hoped to return to work “as soon as possible.” “He remains positive and upbeat and will now spend a period of time focused on the treatment he is receiving from his excellent medical team,” the statement said. “He is looking forward to returning to his work as soon as possible.”
Sacks, 72, has been treated for cancer twice before, in his 30s and again in his 50s, a fact that wasn’t widely known until it was disclosed in a 2012 book. Sacks served as chief rabbi of the British Commonwealth from 1991 until 2013 and is among the most prominent expositors of Orthodox Judaism in the world, having authored dozens of books addressing contemporary spiritual and moral issues. A translation and commentary on a Jewish prayer book that he wrote has become enormously popular worldwide. His most recent book, Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times, came out last month.
Israel & Lebanon are negotiating a non-security issue for first time in 30 years
(JTA) – Israeli and Lebanese officials began direct negotiations over their maritime border in the Mediterranean Sea, marking the first time the two nations have consulted over a non-security issue in decades. Officials from both sides, who met Wednesday in the Lebanese border town of Naquora, stressed that the discussions were not a step towards a normalization of relations. Two of Israel’s Arab neighbors, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, have recently signed peace deals with Israel, opening the door for full diplomatic relations and increased trade and tourism.
Lebanon and Israel are technically still at war, having never signed an official peace treaty after decades of conflict beginning right after Israel’s founding. The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah is one of the region’s main violent aggressors against Israel.
“We’re not talking about peace talks or negotiations over normalization, but rather about the attempt to solve a technicaleconomic problem that for a decade has been preventing us from developing natural
resources in the sea for the benefit of the people of the region,” Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said Monday, Oct. 12, according to The Times of Israel. At stake in the talks, which are being mediated by the United Nations and the United States, is a zone of over 300 square miles full of natural gas that is claimed by both countries. Lebanon hopes an agreement could help its ailing economy, which has one of the highest GDP-to-debt ratios in the world. The next meeting in the process is scheduled for Oct. 28.
HBO Max to air Yom Kippur War drama ‘Valley of Tears’
(JTA) – HBO Max has bought the rights to “Valley of Tears,” a drama about the 1973 Yom Kippur War that is being touted as Israel’s biggest-budget TV series to date. The 10-part series depicts the war through the eyes of young soldiers through four different plot lines. No premiere date has yet been announced. It stars Lior Ashkenazi, familiar to international audiences from his role in Israel’s acclaimed film “Foxtrot” and his work opposite Richard Gere in “Norman: The Moderate Rise And Tragic Fall Of A New York Fixer.” There is significant talent behind the scenes as well: It was created and co-written by Israeli-American writer Ron Leshem, who wrote HBO’s “Euphoria,” and Amit Cohen, who wrote the popular Israeli thriller series “False Flag.” The pair are also already at work on another Israeli series called “Traitor,” a thriller currently in postproduction.
Jewish doctor who killed a bear, raises $9M in Alaska’s Senate race
(JTA) – Al Gross, the Jewish Alaska physician running to defeat incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, raised an eye-popping $9.1 million in the last quarter, funds fueled in part by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Gross, who is running as an Independent but has been endorsed by Democrats, has been neck and neck with Sullivan in polls since late August in what is usually a solidly Republican state, making the infusion of funds especially potent. The fundraising total is astonishing in Alaska’s small media market; by way of comparison, the Anchorage Daily News reported recently that the Democrat Sullivan ousted in 2014, Mark Begich, raised less than $9 million over the two years ahead of the election. The Sullivan campaign did not release its quarterly figures, except to say that Gross had out-raised them.
The Gross campaign said donations surged after Justice Ginsburg died last month. Democrats were furious that Senate Republicans are rushing to replace her before the presidential election. Gross,
whose father Avrum was once the state’s attorney general, was already mounting a formidable challenge against Sullivan, who has allied himself closely with President Donald Trump. Gross’ policy focus is healthcare reform. His character focus is his upbringing as an Alaskan, born just after an avalanche, and a TV ad notes that “he killed a grizzly bear in self-defense.” Also, he prospected for gold. The Anchorage Daily News confirmed the bear-killing story, and in the process discovered that a conservative opposition research outfit sought to confirm it as well.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg to get a statue in her native Brooklyn
(JTA) – The late Jewish Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is getting her own statue in her native Brooklyn. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo named the members of a commission this week that would oversee the installation of a statue honoring Ginsburg, who died last month. “Her legacy as a jurist, professor, lawyer and scholar will endure for generations and we are honored to erect a permanent statue in memory of Justice Ginsburg,” Cuomo said. The New York Times also reported that there are a number of other initiatives to honor Ginsburg, including a bronze statue to be erected next year at a Brooklyn development. New York City last month named a municipal building in Brooklyn for Ginsburg.
Among the 19 people Cuomo named to the commission are Ginsburg’s daughter and two granddaughters; Irin Carmon, the Jewish journalist and Ginsburg biographer who helped make popular Ginsburg’s late-in-life sobriquet, “Notorious RBG”; Nina Rotenberg, the Jewish NPR judiciary reporter who was a close friend of Ginsburg’s; and a number of her former clerks. Cuomo also named five honorary members of the commission, including Hillary Clinton, Ginsburg’s colleague on the Supreme Court bench Sonia Sotomayor, and Gloria Steinem, the pioneering Jewish feminist.
Adelsons spend $75 million on anti-Biden PAC
(JTA) – In a late bid to boost President Donald Trump’s reelection prospects, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson reportedly gave $75 million to a political action committee running ads targeting Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Politico on Thursday quoted someone close to the Preserve America PAC who said the bulk of the $84 million that the PAC has brought in since its creation at the end of August came from the Adelsons. Sheldon Adelson is a Las Vegas-based casino magnate who along with his wife are major givers to Jewish and pro-Israel causes as
well as to medical research. Also giving to the PAC is Bernie Marcus, the Home Depot founder who is a powerhouse in Atlanta’s Jewish community. Marcus gave $5 million dollars, the report said. The Adelsons last month indicated they were ready to pour another $50 million into efforts to preserve Republican control of the White House and the Senate.
San Diego rabbi assaulted outside his synagogue
(JTA) – A rabbi was assaulted outside of his synagogue in San Diego and an Orthodox man was beaten on the street in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg. The San Diego incident occurred on Oct. 10 and was the latest in a series of escalating acts of harassment against congregants of the Shiviti Congregation, Rabbi Yonatan Halevy told San Diego’s 10 News. Halevy was the victim of the latest incident, in which a teenager riding a bicycle hit him on the head and yelled a racial slur at him outside the synagogue in University City, a large residential and commercial district next to the University of California’s San Diego campus. “Everyday they come by here, taunt us, throwing bottles at us, sitting on our roof blasting music, and then breaking a window to my van,” Halevy said. In Williamsburg, video footage posted to Twitter on Thursday night showed a man in Orthodox Jewish garb approached from behind by individuals who begin hitting and kicking him. The assailants left the scene within seconds of the assault. The Twitter account that posted the video, Williamsburg News, said the incident had occurred near the intersection of Throop Avenue and Bartlett Street and that police and local Jewish community groups had responded.
Self-described
‘skinhead’ guilty of trying to blow up a Colorado
shul
(JTA) – A man who plotted to blow up a synagogue in Colorado has pleaded guilty to federal hate crimes and explosives charges. Richard Holzer, a self-described “skinhead” and former Ku Klux Klan member who used Facebook to promote white supremacy, was arrested last November for plotting to blow up a 100-year-old synagogue in Pueblo, Colorado. The synagogue, Temple Emanuel, has 35 member families. Holzer was arrested after plotting with a man he thought was a co-conspirator but who was actually an FBI agent. Holzer had previously attempted to poison the synagogue’s water supply with arsenic.
Doctors perform life-saving surgery on baby during birth
By Abigail Klein Leichman (Israel21c via JNS) Doctors in Israel saved a newborn’s