Good Monday morning, New York. Here’s to another week in the Big Apple!
Catskilling it: Brooklyn’s Aaron Bendich (photo, above) is 27 but loves the old-timey Yiddish and Jewish music of his grandfather’s generation. Now he has started his own record label, “Borscht Beat,” dedicated to more modern Jewish sounds. He calls its first release “Yiddish psychedelic rock fusion.” Julia Gergely reports.
Reward: The Anti-Defamation League of NY/NJ is offering a $7,500 award for information after an antisemitic assault in Brooklyn over the weekend: two visibly Jewish man were attacked from behind, including one who was struck in the head, by assailants in Bedford-Stuyvesant. In a separate incident, graffiti were spray-painted on a yeshiva school bus in Williamsburg.
On a roll: Emma Saltzberg, a progressive Jewish activist from Brooklyn, is on a three-game winning streak on “Jeopardy!” Left-wing Jewish groups — including IfNotNow, the Jewish anti-occupation group she co-founded — celebrated on Twitter.
Mighty “Maus”: Amazon sold out of copies of “Maus” in the wake of a Tennessee school board’s decision to ban the book from its classrooms. Art Spieglman, the Queens-raised author of the classic graphic novel about the Holocaust, is giving a Zoom talk tonight hosted by the Jewish Federation of Chattanooga and other organizations.
- Related: Listen to a podcast about “Maus” and “The Streisand Effect” — named after the Brooklyn-born diva — in which the effort to ban something actually increases interest in it.
ICYMI: Sen. Chuck Schumer, the most senior Jewish elected official in U.S. history, recited the Shema prayer at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday.
- Related: Read how a Schumer “charm offensive” won over the left and squelched talk of a primary challenger. (Daily Beast)
Ball mitzvah: Read a profile of Ryan Turell, the high-flying and high-scoring star of Yeshiva University’s men’s basketball team, who gave up offers to play for Division I in order to be a a “Jewish hero” at tiny Y.U. (New York Times)
Remembering: Lori Zabar, a lawyer, author, antiques dealer and historic preservationist whose grandparents founded Zabar’s, the Upper West Side gourmet food emporium, died Feb. 3 the age of 67. The cause of death was cancer. She is the author of the forthcoming “Zabar’s: A Family Story, with Recipes,” and was the first director of the NYC Historic Properties Fund at the New York Landmarks Conservancy.
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Dr. Rachel Rosenthal will explore rabbinic sources that focus on grief and the ways that the rabbis use it to transform their circumstances and their communities. Sign up here for this Jewish Theological Seminary Zoom event. 2:00 p.m.
