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SURGE PROTECTION
The highly transmissible Delta variant continues to “burn” through New York City, 4 New York reports.
- All five boroughs of the city are “high transmission” areas where extra precautions against COVID-19 should be taken, including universal indoor masking, according to the CDC.
- Existing vaccines have proven effective protection against the variant.
Here’s how NYC synagogues are adapting as the High Holidays approach:
- The Jewish Center in Manhattan is “recommending” that all individuals, including the vaccinated, wear masks at the synagogue. All unvaccinated individuals and children who are not vaccinated must wear a mask.
- Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun will hold an outdoor service on the High Holidays, in addition to its indoor services.
- Congregation Beit Simchat Torah says they “hope” to have in-person High Holiday services with limited seating for fully vaccinated people. Either way, services will be livestreamed.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
A new show from the creators of “Fauda,” starting today on Netflix, takes place in Tel Aviv and New York City.
- “Hit & Run” stars Lior Raz, the bullet-headed hero of “Fauda,” playing a former Israeli intelligence agent trying to solve the killing of a loved one.
- “This show is about grief and loss and a chase and revenge,” Raz told the New York Post. Our colleagues at Kveller have intel on the new series.
A new documentary about how a college student relates to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict opens at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image today.
- “The Viewing Booth” focuses on an American Jewish woman as she reacts, often defensively, to videos of altercations involving Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians.
- “We all bring our own biases to things we see,” the film’s Israeli director, Raanan Alexandrowicz, tells our colleague Andrew Lapin.
- Alexandrowicz and Maia Levy, the film’s subject, will be in person at the museum on Sunday. Details here.
BEYOND THE BOROUGHS
Long Island Jewish leaders and parents saved a local day school by buying it.
- The Hebrew Academy of Nassau County planned to close down its elementary school in Plainview as it expands its West Hempstead campus. Instead, they sold the school to local leaders, who plan to hire the same staff and rename the school The Mercaz Academy.
- “This school is an essential part of Jewish life in central Long Island,” a Mercaz supporter told The Jewish Week.
WHAT ELSE
President Biden picked Chanan Weissman as White House liaison to the Jewish community — a role the Baltimore native held in the last months of the Obama presidency.
A call to “defund” Hillel at Rutgers University never happened, JTA reports: Jewish leaders appeared too eager to believe the worst about pro-Palestinian activists at the embattled campus.
Ruth Pearl, who dedicated the latter part of her life to preserving the legacy of her son Daniel, a journalist who was murdered in Pakistan, died at 85.
FOOD STUFF
Our colleagues at The Nosher recall the very New York history of Gold’s Horseradish.
- The company was started in the Brooklyn apartment of two Jewish immigrants, Hyman and Tillie Gold. (Hyman inherited his horseradish grinder from a cousin who peddled the root on the streets of Borough Park and somehow landed in jail.)
- After years in Brooklyn and Hempstead, Long Island, the Golds’ descendants sold the brand to LaSalle Capital, a Chicago-based investment firm, in 2015.
TODAY’S BIG IDEA
“Jackie Mason owed the rise, fall and rise of his career to his audience’s perceptions of his Jewishness,” writes Andrew Silow-Carroll. When theater-goers at last embraced him, it was because he reminded them of a Jewish ethnic identity that was fast disappearing.
SHABBAT SHALOM
A misinformation industry has spread mistrust of leaders, institutions and media. This week’s Torah portion suggests the need for critical thinking to distinguish between reliable messengers and false prophets, writes Rabbi Ben Goldberg.
- More wisdom: Rabbi David Wolpe says he loves reading murder mysteries because “they suggest there are solutions in the world and there is ultimate justice.”
WHAT’S ON
International Ladino singer/songwriter Sarah Aroeste, joined on piano by longtime Israeli collaborator Shai Bachar, draws upon her family roots from Macedonia and Greece as she performs traditional and original Ladino songs. Attend this concert, presented by the Museum and the Center for Traditional Music and Dance, in person or watch the livestream from home. Learn more and register here. Sunday, 3:00 pm.
JCRC-NY presents Jewish Heritage Night with the Brooklyn Cyclones vs. the Hudson Valley Renegades. $16 admissions package includes a limited edition Jewish heritage cap, a Brooklyn Cyclones cap and a $5 donation back to the JCRC. Get tickets for the game at Coney Island’s Maimonides Park here. Sunday, 4:00 pm.
Photo, top: Lior Raz in a scene from the new Netflix series “Hit & Run,” set in Tel Aviv and New York City. (Jojo Whilden/NETFLIX © 2021)
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