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The Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s 10 most-read stories of 2022
(JTA) — From the very beginning of the year, 2022 was anything but easy for American Jews.
The year began with a harrowing crisis at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, during which an armed assailant took a rabbi and three of his congregants hostage during Shabbat services.
From there, Jewish communities across the United States weathered book bans that targeted revered Holocaust stories, and more recently, a high-profile spate of antisemitism by one of the world’s biggest pop stars that has inspired antisemitic extremists.
But it wasn’t all bad news. Jews grabbed starring roles in TV and film, on game shows and on TikTok. Through it all, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency tracked each development, from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows — and JTA readers came along for the ride.
Here are our 10 most-read stories of the year.
10. Meet Danielle Finn, the Modern Orthodox high schooler bringing her voice to ‘American Idol’ by Sarah Rosen (Feb. 25)
Danielle Finn, a 17-year-old young Orthodox Jewish woman from Los Angeles, will be featured in the upcoming season of American Idol. (ABC/Eric McCandless)
Los Angeles teen Danielle Finn competed in this year’s season of the popular TV singing competition show “American Idol.” The 17-year-old wore a chai necklace to her audition, telling JTA, “I feel like I’m making a great representation of the Jewish community.”
9. The great ‘Maus’ giveaway is on as bookstores, professors and churches counter Tennessee school board’s ban by Andrew Lapin (Jan. 28)
Art Spiegelman, author of Maus, poses in Paris, March 20, 2012. (Bertrand Langlois/AFP via Getty Images)
When a rural Tennessee school board pulled the celebrated Holocaust graphic novel “Maus” from the district’s curriculum, backlash was swift.
A local comic-book store gave away the book for free to every student in the county, a nearby church held a discussion on its themes and a college professor offered free classes on the book to students in the county. Author Art Spiegelman even Zoomed with locals.
8. Comedian who went viral after having beer thrown at her makes a very Jewish TV debut on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ by Caleb Guedes-Reed (Oct. 25)
Ariel Elias makes her TV debut on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Oct. 24, 2022. (Screenshot from YouTube)
Jewish comedian Ariel Elias went viral for her response to a heckler who threw a beer can at her during a stand-up set at a New Jersey comedy club.
Elias’ fame earned her an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” — her television debut — where she performed a very Jewish set. “I’m Jewish and from Kentucky,” she said to applause. “That’s an insane origin story.”
7. Kanye West’s vow to ‘go death con 3’ on Jews and his antisemitism controversy, explained by Philissa Cramer and Ron Kampeas (Oct. 12)
Kanye West attends the Givenchy Spring-Summer 2023 fashion show during the Paris Womenswear Fashion Week, Oct. 2, 2022. (Julien de Rosa/AFP via Getty Images)
Perhaps the biggest Jewish narrative of 2022 kicked off in October, when rapper Kanye West, who also goes by Ye, unleashed a series of antisemitic comments on social media, initiating a cascading series of consequences for one of the world’s largest pop stars.
We explained the scandal, and the many responses and subsequent stories that continue to develop. More on West below.
6. Jon Stewart vs. Hannah Einbinder: Jewish comedians weigh in on Dave Chappelle’s ‘SNL’ monologue by Jackie Hajdenberg (Nov. 17)
Jewish comedians Jon Stewart and Hannah Einbinder had opposite reactions to comedian Dave Chappelle’s monologue on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ (Screentshots via YouTube. Image via Getty. Design by Grace Yagel.)
Scandal begets scandal. In the wake of the Kanye West episode, comedian Dave Chappelle hosted “Saturday Night Live,” joking in his monologue about Jews running Hollywood.
Jewish comedian and “Hacks” star Hannah Einbinder said Chappelle’s monologue was “littered with antisemitism,” while fellow Jewish comedian Jon Stewart defended Chappelle.
5. Our breaking news coverage of the Colleyville, Texas, synagogue hostage crisis by Ron Kampeas and Andrew Lapin (Jan. 15)
The chair and the teacup from the Colleyville, Texas, synagogue hostage crisis will be entering the American Jewish history museum in Philadelphia. (Images courtesy of Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History and Emil Lippe/Getty Images. Photo illustration by Mollie Suss)
On Saturday, Jan. 15, all eyes were on Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, where a gunman took Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker and three of his congregants hostage during Shabbat services.
The standoff lasted 12 hours, and all four hostages left unharmed. The assailant was killed. The incident renewed attention to synagogue security, and to questions of how to balance safety and inclusion.
4. Texas school district orders librarians to remove a version of Anne Frank’s diary from shelves by Andrew Lapin (Aug. 16)
“Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation” (Courtesy Anne Frank Fonds)
Less than 10 miles from Colleyville, the school district in Keller, Texas, made headlines last summer when librarians were ordered to remove an illustrated adaptation of “The Diary of Anne Frank” from their shelves and digital libraries.
“It’s disgusting. It’s devastating. It’s legitimate book banning, there’s no way around it,” Laney Hawes, a parent of four children in the Keller district, told JTA. “I feel bad for the teachers and the librarians.”
3. Emma Saltzberg didn’t expect to win on ‘Jeopardy!’ — but criticism of her Israel activism came as no surprise by Philissa Cramer (Feb. 9)
Emma Saltzberg, a Jewish activist from Brooklyn (by way of Philadelphia), won nearly $60,000 on “Jeopardy!” in February 2022. (Screenshot)
From her years of experience in progressive Jewish groups, including IfNotNow, Emma Saltzberg knew that her appearance on one of the most popular TV shows in the United States would likely generate negative comments from those who believe criticizing the occupation is antisemitic.
“That was priced in to my decision to do something public,” she told JTA shortly after winning $60,000. “I was totally expecting it.” What she hadn’t counted on, she said, was her fellow contestants standing up for her.
2. Michelle Williams, who plays Steven Spielberg’s mother in ‘The Fabelmans,’ says she plans to raise her children Jewish by Philissa Cramer (Nov. 25)
Paul Dano, Steven Spielberg and Michelle Williams attend “The Fabelmans” premiere during the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, Sept. 10, 2022. (Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
Actress Michelle Williams isn’t Jewish, but her children will be.
In press coverage of her latest movie, Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical “The Fabelmans,” she said that she and her Jewish husband, director Thomas Kail, are raising their two young children with Judaism and that she is studying the religion herself.
“I can’t teach it to them unless I learn it first,” said Williams, who was raised Christian.
1. The Nazi history of Adidas, the sportswear giant that took weeks to drop Kanye West over antisemitism by Andrew Lapin (Oct. 24)
(Getty Images)
In the fallout over West’s antisemitism, one of the biggest storylines was the rapper’s lucrative relationship with sportswear company Adidas, which itself has a complex history with antisemitism.
Adidas ultimately severed ties with Ye, after weeks of criticism and pressure. With the company in the spotlight, we took a look at its Nazi history — something Adidas has rarely addressed publicly.
From all of us at The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, thank you for reading! We look forward to covering the next chapter of the unfolding Jewish story in 2023. As always, feel free to reach out with tips, questions or feedback, and if you value the journalism we produce, please consider supporting us with a tax-deductible donation.
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The post The Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s 10 most-read stories of 2022 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Barney Frank’s final warning on Israel: ‘America’s effort should be to support the opposition to Netanyahu’
(JTA) — Barney Frank, for years the progressive conscience of his party who died on Tuesday night, had one last piece of advice for Democrats as he entered hospice care earlier this month: Repudiate litmus tests – except for Israel.
The United States should cut off weapons sales to Israel as long as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not relieve Palestinian suffering, Frank told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency this month, using his imminent death to state bluntly what he believed other Democrats could not.
“It’s what the Democrats should be doing, it’s what America should be doing, and it should be what the Democrats are advocating, is giving an ultimatum that [Netanyahu] either changes things substantially in Gaza and the West Bank, or we cut off any aid,” the onetime congressional powerhouse said in a May 8 phone call from his home in Ogunquit, Maine.
“I’ve been talking about the importance of repudiating positions from the left and from the far left, but the Israel one is almost 180 degrees” different, he said. “It’s the one area where we are not doing enough in terms of making our position clear.”
Jewish lawmakers criticizing Netanyahu’s Israel was extraordinary a decade or so ago but has become commonplace. Frank’s plea, however, came from a lawmaker who grew up in a Zionist household and who was throughout a decades-long career in the U.S. House of Representatives solidly pro-Israel, albeit with occasional deviations from the pro-Israel lobby’s orthodoxy.
In one of his final interviews, he acknowledged being heartbroken by Israel under Netanyahu, recalling his family’s support for the struggle to shuck off the British mandate and create a Jewish state.
“We had a ‘boycott Britain’ bumper sticker on our car,” he said. His older sister, Anne Lewis, brought the family into the Zionist fold after a summer at a Habonim camp. “During my congressional career, I was very supportive, emotionally as well as politically and for a while earlier in this century, I volunteered and traveled at the request of Hillel to a couple of college campuses to defend Judaism and Israel.”
That would be hard to do in the current moment, he said. “I guess I held on longer than I should have to, ‘Well, we can work with them, etc’,” he said. “But it’s become clear to me, particularly due to what they’re allowing to happen in the West Bank, that it is important morally and politically to repudiate the policy of supporting Israel’s military activity.”
From the home he shared with his husband in Ogunquit, Frank in his final days took calls from the media well ahead of the scheduled publication of his book, “The Hard Path to Unity.”
He freely admitted he was doing a virtual publicity tour because his survival until the September launch date was unlikely. He knew he was leveraging his decline to be heard, and he didn’t mind that at all.
“Frankly, if I weren’t dying, people wouldn’t be paying as much attention,” Frank told The New York Times earlier this month.
His message in many of those conversations: Don’t make or break viable Democratic candidates on issues like transgender rights or Medicare for all.
“The key to liberal democracy being able to come back is to get rid of the perception, that we have allowed to grow, that the entire Democratic Party is committed to a series of very drastic social reconstructions that go beyond the politically acceptable,” he told the Times.
Asked at the outset of his interview with JTA if that advice extends to the pressure from some of the Democratic base on candidates to pledge to cut assistance to Israel, he offered a vigorous “almost the opposite” because of his conviction that the party should be more vocal in its opposition to the current Israeli government.
Frank was a fighter during his congressional career from 1981 to 2013. The leadership made him the lead antagonist to Newt Gingrich during Gingrich’s consequential speakership in the 1990s. Frank ascended to the leadership of the House Financial Services Committee at a key time, during the late 2000s financial crisis. He coauthored the last major banking reform bill, 2010’s Dodd-Frank.
He was a progressive lion, championing the battles against income inequality and for civil rights. He came out in 1987 as gay, the first sitting member of Congress to do so. He had a reputation as a curmudgeon, once silencing a Holocaust survivor for exceeding his time in congressional testimony.
Frank believed that incremental moves are more likely to bring about change than full-on advocacy for far-reaching changes. He had noted in interviews that the same-sex marriage he enjoyed with his husband came about because of a slow roll of change in LGBTQ rights, including ones he championed, like allowing gays to serve openly in the military.
The onetime leading progressive endorsed moderates in this year’s elections, backing AIPAC-supported U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens in the Michigan Senate primary. In his own state’s Senate race, he also backed Gov. Janet Collins, who recently ceded the primary to Graham Platner, an ascendant figure on the party’s left.
Frank believed anti-Israel orthodoxies could be as damaging as the far-left orthodoxies he decried. He remained appalled at voters disgruntled with the Biden administration’s pro-Israel policies who stayed away from the polls or even voted for President Donald Trump, and he used their example as one of two to illustrate why purity tests backfire. (The other is voters who faulted President Joe Biden for not doing enough to address climate change.)
“People who voted against [Kamala] Harris because they thought the administration had been too supportive of Israel achieved exactly the opposite of what they wanted,” Frank said, referring to the former vice president who faced Trump in 2024. “She would have begun by now to have cut back substantially on aid to Israel.”
He made clear in his interview that he rejected the extremes of Israel criticism emerging among Democrats, including accusations it has committed genocide in the war Hamas launched in 2023, and the argument that it should not exist as a Jewish state.
“Genocide is trying to wipe out the whole people,” he said. “The Holocaust was killing every Jew. Israel is not trying to kill every Palestinian. What they’re doing – I do not think its genocide, but it’s certainly unacceptable, morally and very damaging, politically.”
But he argued that in order to effectively confront the anti-Israel left in the party, Democrats must address what he says is the main enabler of its rise: Netanyahu and his policies.
“Netanyahu has been their enabler,” he said of prominent anti-Israel Democrats, including New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Michigan Senate primary candidate Abdul El-Sayed.
Frank was especially exercised by attacks by some settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank, attacks he said are enabled by Netanyahu and his coalition partnership with far-right patrons of the extremist settlers.
“My recommendation to Democrats would be to say, if Netanyahu does not reverse the harassment of Palestinians in the West Bank and substantially cut back on the military attacks, America should announce that we are no longer going to supply him with arms or be otherwise supportive,” he said.
“We’ve now gone to the point where supporting Israel has become unpopular, and that’s all Netanyahu’s doing,” Frank said. “No question that what he’s done is legitimize opposition to the whole notion of Israel, beyond disagreement with the specific actions.”
He sympathized with Jewish voters who feel alienated by Democrats and who could never bring themselves to vote for Trump (whom he reviled — he told reporters that his one regret is that he will not live to see Trump implode.) But he said the way forward is to cut off Netanyahu.
“I understand the dilemma people face if the choice is supporting Israel and everything that Netanyahu is doing and repudiating that,” he said. “We should make it clear that the right position here is to support Israel’s right to exist, but to be unwilling to facilitate what they’re doing militarily and to give them an ultimatum.”
Frank said the United States should actively support Netanyahu’s opposition as a means of leverage. He cited as an example the campaign he helped lead for the release of the spy for Israel Jonathan Pollard.
Frank spearheaded congressional pressure on President Barack Obama in 2010 mostly because he believed Pollard’s sentence was unjust. But he also thought that it would serve as an incentive to Netanyahu to cooperate more closely with the Obama administration on other issues. (The Obama administration engineered Pollard’s parole in 2015 and he now lives in Israel.)
Instead, Netanyahu became even more confrontational and moved further to the right. Now, Frank said, he would dangle the prospect of Pollard’s release before the Israeli electorate as a means of ousting Netanyahu.
“I now think America’s effort should be to support the opposition to Netanyahu,” he said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Barney Frank’s final warning on Israel: ‘America’s effort should be to support the opposition to Netanyahu’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Jews used to conjure spirits and snakes in Belarusian
דעם 26סטן מײַ עפֿנט זיך אין ייִוואָ די אויסשטעלונג „ייִדן זענען מאַגיע‟ וועגן דעם ייִדישן אָקולטיזם. נישט לאַנג צוריק האָב איך אָנגעזאַמלט אַן אייגענעם מין ווירטועלע „אויסשטעלונג‟ פֿאַר זיך אַליין אויף דער דאָזיקער טעמע און אַנטדעקט עפּעס גאַנץ חידושדיקס: רײַכע אוצרות שפּרוכן און מאַגישע רעצעפּטן אויף רײַסיש (ווײַסרוסיש), פֿאַרשריבן מיטן ייִדישן אַלף־בית. עטלעכע פּראָפֿעסיאָנעלע מומחים אין ייִדישע און סלאַווישע פֿאָלק־טראַדיציעס האָבן מיר געזאָגט, אַז דאָס איז אַן עכטע וויסנשאַפֿטלעכע אַנטדעקונג.
מע ווייסט, אַז אויף רײַסיש האָט מען געשריבן מיט דרײַ פֿאַרשיידענע אַלפֿאַבעטן: די קירילישע, לאַטײַנישע און אויך די אַראַבישע, וואָס איז געווען פֿאַרשפּרייט בײַ די ווײַסרוסיש־רעדנדיקע טאָטערן. אַחוץ ריין מוסולמענישע טעקסטן, טרעפֿן זיך בײַ זיי אַ סך מיסטישע סגולות, וווּ פּסוקים פֿונעם קאָראַן ווערן צונויפֿגעוועבט מיט סלאַווישע שפּרוכן.
קיינער האָט אָבער ביז הײַנט נישט געוווּסט, אַז בײַ ייִדן איז פֿאַראַן אַן ענלעכע אַלטע און צעצווײַגטע טראַדיציע צו שרײַבן רײַסישע סגולות מיט ייִדישע אותיות. שוין 16 אַזעלכע כּתבֿ־ידן פֿונעם 18טן און 19טן יאָרהונדערט האָב איך אָנגעזאַמלט און איך בין זיכער, אַז דאָס איז בלויז דער אָנהייב פֿון אַ נײַ געביט אין דער ייִדישער און סלאַווישער לינגוויסטיק, פֿאָלקלאָריסטיק און געשיכטע. אין איין פֿאַל קלינגט די שפּראַך ווי אוקראַיִניש און נאָר טיילווײַז ווי רײַסיש; אָנגעשריבן האָט מען יענעם כּתבֿ־יד אין בריסק, ווײַסרוסלאַנד; עס קאָן זײַן אַן איבערגאַנג־דיאַלעקט.
אין 1921 האָט דער ייִדישער און ווײַסרוסישער שרײַבער און היסטאָריקער זמיטראָק ביאַדוליאַ (אמתער נאָמען – שמואל פּלאַווניק) אָנגעשריבן אַ קורצן אַרטיקל וועגן אַ ריזיקן כּתבֿ־יד, וווּ צווישן סגולות אויף לשון־קודש און ייִדיש טרעפֿט זיך אויך רײַסיש. צום באַדויערן, איז יענער מאַנוסקריפּט פֿאַרלוירן געוואָרן, און די פֿאָרשער האָבן במשך פֿון איבער 100 יאָר געמיינט, אַז דאָס איז, אפֿשר, געווען בלויז אַן איינציקער אויסנאַם־מוסטער פֿון ייִדיש־רײַסיש.
לאָמיר אַרײַנקוקן אין צוויי כּתבֿ־ידן, וועלכע זענען מיר אויסגעפֿאַלן צו טרעפֿן צו ערשט. איינער איז נומער EE.011.037 פֿון וויליאַם גראָסעס קאָלעקציע. פֿון אַ ריזיקן מאַנוסקריפּט זענען פֿאַרבליבן בלויז 14 זײַטלעך; 5 זענען אויף רײַסיש.
איין סגולה איז ממש אַ וווּנדער. ס׳איז אַ שפּרוך קעגן אַ ביס פֿון אַ גיפֿטיקער שלאַנג – „עקרבֿ‟, אַן עקדיש, וואָס אינעם ווײַסרוסישן פֿאָלקלאָר מיינט אַ שלאַנג; קיין עקדישן זענען אין ווײַסרוסלאַנד נישטאָ. עס שטייט אַזוי: צופֿרי, אַנטקעגן דעם קאַיאָר, דאַרף מען זיך נײַן מאָל בוקן אויף די קני און זאָגן „אויטשע נאַש‟ („אונדזער פֿאָטער‟, Lord’s Prayer אויף רײַסיש), ווײַל „דאָס איז זייער תּפֿילה‟ („כּי היא תּפֿילתם‟)! דערנאָך גייט מען אַרום דעם געביסענעם מיט אַ מעסער און שפּרעכט אָפּ די שלאַנגען. כ׳זעץ איבער אויף ייִדיש: „איינער איז אַ גאָלדענער, דער אַנדערער אַ זילבערנער, און דער דריטער – מיט הונדערט ציינער. ס׳צי זיי אַוועק‟.
ווי באַלד דער אומבאַקאַנטער סגולות־זאַמלער פֿונעם 19טן יאָרהונדערט איז געווען אַ ליטוואַק, שרײַבט ער אי אויף ייִדיש, אי אויף סלאַוויש, מיט אַ געדיכטן ליטווישן אַקצענט, אויסמישנדיק „ס‟ מיט „ש‟, „צ‟ מיט „טש‟ און „אוי‟ מיט „איי‟. די באַקאַנטע קריסטלעכע תּפֿילה איז בײַ אים אויסגעלייגט „אייצא נאַס”. די אַנדערע אַנטדעקטע כּתבֿ־ידן האָבן דעם זעלבן ליטוואַקישן אויסלייג.
אינעם באַקאַנטן מדרש „פּרק שירה‟ ווערט דערציילט, ווי אַזוי אַלע באַשעפֿענישן דאַוונען צום אייבערשטן מיט פֿאַרשיידענע תּנ״כישע פּסוקים. בפֿרט פּאָפּולער איז דער דאָזיקער מדרש בײַ פֿרויען; מיט אים הייבט זיך אָן שחרית אינעם באַקאַנטן ווילנער סידור „קרבן מנחה‟ מיט עבֿרי־טײַטש. ווען מע בלעטערט די אַלטע רײַסיש־ייִדישע סגולה־ספֿרים, ווערט אָבער קלאָר, אַז לויט דער פֿאָלק־טראַדיציע איז די נאַטירלעכע שפּראַך פֿון וועלדער און ווילדער נאַטור דווקא רײַסיש. אויב אַזוי, ווענדט מען זיך צו די שלאַנגען דווקא מיט אַ באַוווּסט ניט־ייִדיש געבעט!
ווײַטער, אין אַן אַנדער שפּרוך, ווערט דערקלערט, וווּ עס וווינט די שלאַנגען־מלכּה, „זמיייִצאַ־צאַריצאַ‟: „אין אַ וויסט פֿעלד שטייט אַ גאָלדענער באַרנבוים, אויף יענעם באַרנבוים איז אַ גאָלדן נעסטעלע, און אין יענעם נעסטעלע איז די שלענגעלע־מלכּהלה‟.
די שלאַנגישע מלכּות צי בת־מלכּות הייסן אין די אַנטדעקטע כּתבֿ־ידן קאַראַפּעיאַ, סאַכאַוועיאַ, מאַרינאַ, קאַטערינאַ און אַרינאַ. אָפֿט באַווײַזן זיי זיך ווי קאַסאָקע (קרום־אויגיקע) מיידלעך, וואָס זיצן אין עפּעס אַ פֿאַרוואָרפֿן אָרט. אינעם סלאַווישן פֿאָלקלאָר (און נישט נאָר סלאַווישן) רופֿן קאַסאָקע מיידלעך אַרויס אַסאָציאַציעס מיט שלאַנגען, עין־הרע, וכּדומה.
נאָך איין וווּנדערלעכער אוצר איז דער כּתבֿ־יד נומער 1226 פֿונעם בר־אילן־אוניווערסיטעט. דאָרט פֿאַרנעמט רײַסיש כּמעט אַ טוץ זײַטלעך. צו געפֿינען אַ פֿאַרבלאָנדזשעטן מענטש, שטייט דאָרט געשריבן, דאַרף מען אויסבאַקן נײַן בולקעס, גיין שטילערהייט צו אַן אויסגעוואָרצלטן בוים, בוקן זיך 27 מאָל, אָפּגעבן די בולקעס דעם וואַלד־רוח און בעטן אים אומצוקערן דעם פֿאַרלאָזטן. אײַ, קלינגט עס דאָך ווי אַן עבֿודה־זרה? ווײַזט אויס, האָבן ייִדן געמיינט, אַז ווי באַלד דער גײַסט איז בלויז דער בעל־הבית איבערן וואַלד, נישט קיין עכטער אָפּגאָט, איז אַזאַ ריטואַל סתּם דרך־ארץ פֿאַר אים.
אַ סך אַנדערע רײַסיש־ייִדישע סגולות האָבן צו טאָן מיט מכשפֿות, וועלף און בערן, פֿערד און בהמות, עין־הרעס, קינדער־קראַנקייטן, וכּדומה – בקיצור, מיט טיפּישע פּויערישע און דאָרפֿישע ענינים. גאָר וויכטיק איז צו באַמערקן, אַז אַ סך נוסחאָות חזרן זיך איבער במשך פֿון דורות אין עטלעכע זאַמלונגען, הגם זייער גראַמאַטיק איז צומאָל גרײַזיק, בפֿרט וואָס שייך די קאָמפּליצירטע סלאַווישע בייגפֿאַלן. דאָס ווײַזט קלאָר, אַז זיי שפּיגלען אָפּ אַ רײַכע אינערלעכע ייִדישע טראַדיציע, נישט סתּם איבערגעשריבן וואָרט נאָך וואָרט בײַ די קריסטלעכע שכנים.
איבעריק צו זאָגן, אַז ס׳רובֿ קמיעות און סגולות אין אַזעלכע זאַמלונגען זענען פֿאַרשריבן אויף לשון־קודש און אַראַמיש. נישט זעלטן זענען זיי אָבער אויך פֿאַרבונדן מיט דער סלאַווישער פֿאָלק־מאַגיע. די גאָר רײַכע טראַדיציע פֿון ייִדיש־שפּראַכיקע סגולות איז אויך ווייניק באַקאַנט און פֿאָדערט אַ סך ווײַטערדיקע פֿאָרשונגען.
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Anti-Israel Republican Thomas Massie ousted from Congress as Trump endorsee wins primary
(JTA) — The only Republican to refrain from supporting Israel in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack will exit Congress following a decisive primary loss on Tuesday.
Rep. Thomas Massie, who has represented Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District since 2013, lost to Ed Gallrein, an endorsee of President Donald Trump who drew support from pro-Israel PACs.
Massie conceded the election on Tuesday night — but not without a dig at Gallrein’s purported relationship to Israel.
“I would’ve come out sooner, but I had to call my opponent and concede. And it took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv,” he said in his concession speech.
With almost all ballots counted on Tuesday night, Gallrein had drawn 55% of the votes.
The result means that Massie, the most anti-Israel Republican in Congress and the only Republican to vote at times with far-left Democrats on measures opposing Israel, will leave Congress at the end of the year.
The Republican Jewish Coalition, which long opposed Massie, congratulated Gallrein in an extensive statement that cast the primary as a referendum on the Republican Party’s recent divide over Israel. The party is increasingly split between acolytes of Trump and those who believe Trump has been too accommodating to Israel.
“Kentucky Republicans sent an unmistakable message: there is no place in the Republican Party for those who turn their back on the MAGA agenda,” said CEO Matt Brooks.
He added, “We know that Ed Gallrein, a 5th-generation Kentucky farmer, decorated Navy SEAL, and true MAGA patriot, will serve with honor and distinction, as he has his entire career.”
Brooks criticized both Massie’s record in Congress and his behavior as a candidate, saying, “Notably, Massie’s conduct throughout this campaign — trafficking in antisemitism and bottom-of-the-barrel nativism at a time when Jew-hatred is on the rise — was wildly unacceptable and outrageous from an elected member of Congress.”
A widely condemned pro-Massie campaign ad last week claimed that a Gallrein win would bring “trans woke madness” to Kentucky at the behest of billionaire Jewish Republican donor Paul Singer. The ad placed a rainbow Star of David next to a photo of Singer’s head.
The ad came amid a blitz that watchdogs say made the race the most expensive congressional contest in U.S. history, with an estimated $32.6 million spent according to the advertising tracking firm AdImpact. That includes $5 million from a PAC affiliated with the Republican Jewish Coalition and a reported $2.6 million from PACs affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobby.
Massie’s record in Congress has placed him far outside the Republican mainstream. In October 2023, he voted with the progressive “Squad” against a resolution expressing support for Israel in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack. The next month, he was the only member of Congress from either party to vote “no” on a resolution affirming Israel’s right to exist. Last year, Massie called for ending all U.S. military aid to Israel.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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