On Friday, for the third time since September, Timothy Reif found himself standing in the New York District Attorney’s Office to accept a modernist drawing that the Nazis looted from his family.

With him in the room was a relative of another family that survived the Nazis and that — in an unusual twist on Holocaust restitution efforts — were the owners of the stolen artwork. Unlike museums and collectors that have fought in court to retain possession of Nazi-looted art, both families on Friday were gratified to see the drawing return to its rightful heirs.

“In one of the darkest moments in the history of the world, everything ended,” Reif told JTA after the handoff occurred. “There is a moral center of gravity, there is an ethical sense, and a religious sense, and there is generosity coming out of something that was fundamentally evil. So for that to happen is incredible.”

Reif and his relatives have spent countless hours over the decades fighting in court to recover the vast art collection that once belonged to their ancestor, the Viennese Jewish cabaret performer Fritz Grünbaum. Recently, they’ve found success, repossessing 11 works by Austrian expressionist Egon Schiele from museums and private collections across the country.

The Schiele drawing at the center of Friday’s ceremony — “Seated Nude Woman, front view” — had until recently been hanging in the home of Jewish economist Gustav Fritz Papanek, who was born in Austria in 1926 and did not know the work was stolen. The tortuous path it took from Grünbaum via the Nazis to Papanek, and now back to Grünbaum’s descendants, reflects the complexities that persist in the saga of Nazi-looted art nearly eight decades after the end of the Holocaust.

“We believe that returning the drawing is the right thing to do,” Papanek’s family said in a statement. “We are fortunate that our family … were able to enjoy viewing this work of art on a daily basis. The experience of the two families serves as yet another reminder of the evil and brutality of the Nazi regime.”

The drawing is thought to be of Schiele’s wife Edith and was completed in 1918. The Nazis branded Schiele’s work, like that of many other Jewish and modernist artists, as “degenerate” and counter to Nazi ideology. In 1938, the regime confiscated Grünbaum’s art collection, which included some 400 works, including the Schiele pieces. Grünbaum and his wife were later murdered in the Holocaust.

Adolf Hitler’s personal art curator was authorized to sell off seized degenerate artwork, including pieces owned by Grünbaum. By 1956, most of Grünbaum’s collection was in a Swiss auction house whose owner forged provenance papers for some of the stolen works and claimed to have obtained them legally. They were then sold to Otto Kallir, a Jewish art dealer in New York who traded in Nazi-looted art.

Papanek’s parents, both prominent psychologists, fled Austria for France and then the United States, always staying narrowly one step ahead of the encroaching Nazis, from whom they saved hundreds of children while operating a refuge in France. They bought “Seated Nude Woman” in 1961 and gave it to Papanek in 1969, thinking it had been purchased legitimately.

The family kept the Schiele hanging in their living room for many years. When she was ill and bedridden, Papanek’s wife Hanna had the drawing moved to her bedroom.

Evidence of the theft came to light only in September 2022, when Papanek died. The drawing went through an appraisal process that uncovered evidence of falsified provenance papers. The Papanek family then contacted Grünbaum’s descendants, including Reif.

“The history behind Nazi-looted art is horrific and tragic, and the consequences are still impacting victims and their families to this day,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who has worked to restitute the Schiele works, said in a statement. “It is inspiring to see both the Grünbaum and Papanek families join together to reflect on their shared history and preserve the legacy of Fritz Grünbaum.”

Bragg added, “I also want to thank the Papanek family for their willingness to fully cooperate throughout this entire investigation, and to the attorneys and analysts in our Antiquities Trafficking Unit for their tireless commitment to returning these artworks.”

Reif and his family will auction the work for charity through Christie’s auction house, and the proceeds will go to support young artists. Though he had attended similar handoff ceremonies twice before, Reif still looked at the drawing with reverence, and proudly posed for pictures in front of it with his son.

Reif and the Papanek family both spoke about the harm perpetrated by the Nazis across generations — and how gratified they were, after so many years, to have righted this wrong.

“One thing is we’re grateful that Gus and Hanna were not aware of any of this, and that they enjoyed this piece of art in their home for the, I don’t know, 40 years that it was in their house, and they took great pleasure,” a relative of the Papanek family, Rocco Orlando, told JTA. “And so I’m glad they didn’t have to deal with yet one more reminder of their history.”

For nearly a year, American Jews have flooded Israel with donations for soldiers fighting in Gaza, even as the Israel Defense Forces said such supplies were not needed. 

Now, the Israeli military has announced a crackdown against the flow of unauthorized donations, setting up a potential showdown with some of its most generous supporters.

Tamar Yadai, the general commanding Israel’s ground forces, has ordered “utmost enforcement and maximum punishment” to combat the donations, according to a memo released on Monday.

The consequences will be doled out even if the donations are made by the parents of soldiers, said the memo, which circulated on Israeli military networks and which the Jewish Telegraphic Agency obtained. 

“The phenomenon that has emerged during Operation Swords of Iron is unacceptable and goes against the values of the Israel Defense Forces,” the memo said, using the official Israeli name for the war. 

The memo explains that the rule against grassroots equipment donations is meant to protect soldiers from going into battle with helmets and body armor that aren’t up to military standards.

The nonprofits, however, say that they ensure their donations are of the highest quality, including through ballistic testing, and that they meet the technical requirements of the soldiers. The nonprofits all say that the real danger to soldiers comes from substandard gear issued to the soldiers by the military itself. They point to examples of soldiers who have been sent into Gaza with dented helmets dating to the 1970s. 

Striking a defiant tone, Unit 11741, an American initiative to equip Israeli soldiers with helmets and other items, has pledged to cover the legal expenses of soldiers arrested in Yadai’s crackdown. No such arrests are yet known. 

“Do not worry, your life is more important than anything General Yadai can do sending police after you,” said Daniel Mael, the head of Unit 11741, in a video reacting to the crackdown. “We have your back. We are going to help you 100%.”

The crackdown — and the defiant response — reflect a persistent and growing gap between the Israeli military and donors who seek to support its troops. The military has maintained throughout the war with Hamas that reports of shortages are false despite massive demand from battlefield commanders. But donors, many of whom are in the United States, say the military’s official position undermines the effort to keep soldiers safe. 

The divide has increasingly led to illegal activity on the part of donors who say all they want to do is ensure that soldiers, including some who are their own relatives, have all they need to fight effectively and safely against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah across the northern border with Lebanon. 

Earlier this month, volunteers who have sent millions of dollars’ worth of donated military equipment to Israeli soldiers called an urgent Zoom meeting to discuss how Israeli government bureaucrats were hampering their grassroots efforts — and, they believed, contributing to shortages of body armor, night-vision goggles and other gear across conflict zones. 

 One participant described undertaking a “smuggling operation” to sneak donated rifle scopes past customs agents and into Israel. 

“We don’t use that word,” said another participant. “We call it technical logistical support.”

In reality, many of the volunteers regularly refer to their activity as smuggling. They blame red tape at Israeli ports as they sometimes bring gear into the country without declaring it to customs or fill out forms in which they falsely state the gear is meant for civilian purposes when in fact it’s destined for soldiers, according to interviews. 

Jonathan Greenwald, the managing director of a private equity firm in Miami, told JTA how he and his network of donors have smuggled hundreds of small drones into Israel. 

“Most of what we send over is by a passenger, in their luggage,” Greenwald said. “We can’t send them by cargo because they would have to clear traditional customs and they would likely get confiscated. We don’t declare — that’s what makes it smuggling.”

Greenwald and others making donations, whether through smuggling or not, say they ensure security and safety by vetting requests they receive, reviewing technical specifications directly with logistics officers and experts, and monitoring the chain of custody of donated gear as it travels from American airports to Israeli military bases. 

Now, the Israeli government is making it even more difficult to legally donate equipment to soldiers. Even before Yadai’s memo, almost nothing was being allowed in, according to several nonprofits, and reports abound of bags of donations being detained or confiscated. Even when items clear customs with permits from the Economy Ministry or other government offices, officials sometimes charge a 17% value added tax that is supposed to be waived for donations, according to Adi Vaxman, head of Operation Israel, and Marc Brodner with the Israel Chesed Center, both nonprofits.

It’s not unusual for nonprofits to take on an increased role to support the military and its soldiers during wartime, according to Amir Pasic, a professor of philanthropic studies at Indiana University. But Pasic said the fact that charities are supplying the type of equipment necessary for actual combat raises questions for him.

“Is it a sign of strong support from the diaspora/the community or a sign of weakness in the state’s ability to field an army?” he asked. 

For Lila Corwin Berman, a Temple University historian who has written extensively about Jewish philanthropy, the answer is unambiguous. 

 “It seems that civil society is trying to fill a gap that has been created by a state in disarray and under profound stress,” she said. “That these donations are circumventing or breaking state laws is a further indication that the state is incredibly weak, I think, because the presumption of those violating them is that they know better what is ultimately good for the state.”

From the military command’s perspective,  the state is functioning as it should and the strong support from the Jewish Diaspora, while appreciated, is being misdirected toward unnecessary gear donations.

All countries put up bureaucratic obstacles at their borders, including regulations on imported goods that are meant to protect the local economy from foreign or unfair competition, or dangerous goods. Additionally, many countries, including Israel, impose taxes on imports with at least some exceptions for charity. 

But as an organizer of donations for soldiers, Greenwald said he wished the Israeli government could understand that the crisis of the war requires more latitude at the borders. He accepts the need to protect the Israeli economy from a black market in commercial goods, but wishes some of the red tape would be lifted in consideration of the war effort, he said. 

He likened his efforts to those documented in the book “The Pledge,” now being made into a movie, which chronicles American Jews’ clandestine efforts to bring arms into British Mandate Palestine in anticipation of armed conflict in what became Israel’s War of Independence.

“I view it as 1948,” Greenwald said, referring to the year of that war. ”We are just trying to get stuff to the guys that need it.” 

After three years of mostly not speaking, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former President Donald Trump had a warm reunion on Friday, with the Republican presidential candidate taking the opportunity to accuse the Biden administration of bringing the world to the brink of war.

“If we win, it will be very simple, it’s all going to work out, and very quickly,” Trump said as Netanyahu and his entourage looked on. “If we don’t, you’re going to end up with major wars in the Middle East and maybe a Third World War. You are closer to a Third World War right now than at any time since the Second World War, you’ve never been so close because we have incompetent people running our country.”

The meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida came one day after Netanyahu met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee. The meeting was their first since Trump lashed out at the prime minister for congratulating Biden on his 2020 election victory, which Trump continues to baselessly deny. 

Despite past acrimonies, Friday’s meeting was friendly. Video the Trump campaign posted showed Trump waiting at a door to greet Netanyahu and his wife, Sara.

“We missed you, Mr. President!” Sara Netanyahu said as she hugged Trump and took a kiss from him on both cheeks.

The campaign later posted video of Trump, the Netanyahus and their respective aides seated around a conference table.

There, Trump denied that his relationship with Netanyahu had ever soured. “It was never bad,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “I would say it was always — no president has done what I’ve done for Israel. And we’ve always had a very good relationship.”

It is customary for visiting foreign leaders to check in with not only the president but his opposition when visiting the United States. But explicit references to the campaign during such meetings are unusual. Earlier this month, Trump had a similar meeting with the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban.

The Trump campaign readout highlighted his actions on Israel as president, which closely aligned with Netanyahu’s right-wing outlook in ways no other president has.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu thanked President Trump and his Administration for working to promote stability in the region through, among many historic achievements, the Abraham Accords, moving the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, eliminating Qasem Soleimani, ending the horrific Iran Nuclear Deal, as well as combatting anti-Semitism in America and abroad,” the statement said. 

The nuclear deal was a signature initiative of the Obama administration and was fiercely opposed by Netanyahu. Soleimani was a top Iranian general — but Trump’s inclusion of his assassination in the list is notable: Days after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Trump bashed Netanyahu at a rally for not taking a greater role in the operation. 

“I will never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down,” he said at the time. “That was a very terrible thing.”

He struck a different tone at Friday’s meeting, condemning the Oct. 7 attack and promising to stand with Israel. 

“President Trump expressed his solidarity with Israel after the heinous October 7 attack, and pledged that when he returns to the White House, he will make every effort to bring Peace to the Middle East and combat anti-Semitism from spreading throughout college campuses across the United States,” the statement said.

Trump has repeatedly asserted that the war never would have occurred had he been president, though he’s largely been light on details when it comes to how he would handle the conflict now. But earlier in the week, his rhetoric on the war did not seem significantly different from that of Biden, who has been pushing Israel to agree to a ceasefire deal that would see the release of hostages.  

“You have to end this, fast. It can’t continue to go on like this,” Trump said, according to Fox News. “It’s too long, it’s too much. You got to get your hostages back.”

Netanyahu’s own account of Friday’s meeting was more circumspect, saying simply that they had met. The Israeli prime minister posted photos of the meeting and of Netanyahu handing Trump gifts, including Netanyahu’s autobiography. 

He also gave Trump a framed photo of Ariel Bibas, a toddler still held in captivity by Hamas. In a post on X, he wished readers “Shabbat shalom” above a photo of him and Trump, in which he held a blue baseball cap reading “Total Victory,” his stated goal in the war. 

Netanyahu this week sought to demonstrate he is in good graces with the breadth of the U.S. government. He gave a speech to Congress cheered by Republicans and a substantial number of Democrats, but boycotted by dozens of other Democrats and one Republican. He also faced crowds of protesters, both pro-Palestinian activists and Israelis rallying in support of the families of hostages held in Gaza.

Netanyahu had a friendly meeting with Biden on Thursday, thanking the president for his decades of support for Israel. Biden has said a top priority in his final six months in office is ending the Gaza war.

The meeting with Harris appeared to be fraught. In a press conference afterwards, Harris emphasized the plight of Palestinian civilians and said she told Netanyahu the war must end.

A senior Israeli official expressed disappointment in Harris’ remarks, saying any perception of a gap between Israel and the United States emboldened Hamas and created obstacles to a ceasefire deal.

There were also hints of tension with Trump ahead of Friday. In the days before the meeting, Trump appeared to troll Netanyahu, posting on social media an affectionate exchange with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president Netanyahu has worked to marginalize.

Asked about Trump’s exchange with Abbas, the senior Israeli official shrugged and smiled.

When a flood of pro-Israel patrons descended on Caffe Aronne last November amid reports that its employees had walked out over its owner’s support of Israel, some of them encountered a barrier to showing support: The cafe wasn’t kosher.

That changed in late May, after the cafe’s owner, 25-year-old Aaron Dahan, finished the process of securing kosher supervision. He said the move reflected a form of “Jewish pride coming up in the face of all the antisemitism we’re seeing around” and said he was seeking to honor the Jewish community that showed up for him at a difficult time.

“If the community didn’t come out for us, we’d be in a very different position,” Dahan, a graduate of the Ramaz School, an Orthodox school in the neighborhood, told the New York Jewish Week.

In the wake of Hamas’s attack Israel on Oct. 7, Dahan — whose father’s step-cousin was among the approximately 1,200 murdered that day — placed a small Israeli flag next to an American flag near the cafe’s cash register. He also hung posters of the hostages held captive by Hamas in the window and began to donate a portion of his profits to Magen David Adom, the Israeli Red Cross.

What happened next triggered a social media frenzy; reports from a range of local news outlets, including this one; and an emotional rollercoaster within post-Oct. 7 New York. Dahan’s account diverges in some ways from the most versions shared online and in the most thoroughly reported article, published Nov. 21 by The New York Times. But in all versions of the story, some staff members expressed discomfort with Cafe Aronne’s pro-Israel stance, and some of them resigned over the course of several weeks. Then, after news of the staff dissent vaulted onto social media on Nov. 7, volunteers — including Dahan’s own mother, as well as baristas at other cafes — raced to Cafe Aronne to keep the coffee flowing.

Danielle Posner was one local Jew who made a point to support the cafe that day. “When I got on the line, part of me was so upset that we have to do this to show other Jews that we support them,” the first-time customer told the New York Jewish Week. “And part of me was so overwhelmed with joy that we came together so quickly as a people.”

The uptick in business continued for a week, Dahan said. “Everyone, to an extent, is trying to do their own thing — their own way to contribute; their own way to help,” he said of the outpouring.“I don’t think that the community is looking to go into hiding.“

The show of support prompted Dahan to seek kosher certification, he said. “Once the Israeli flag went to the window, we said we’re not opening on Shabbat,” Dahan said. “Then it was sort of a question of: Why not be kosher? The two go hand in hand.”

Since Oct. 7 and throughout the subsequent war between Israel and Hamas, several New York City restaurants have become flashpoints. Some businesses with ties to Jews or Israel, like the renowned 2nd Avenue Deli, have been targets of antisemitic vandalism, though many of these same establishments — such as Caffe Aronne and Gazala’s, a Druze-owned restaurant that was also targeted with anti-Israel graffiti — have seen business surge amid concerns that they were suffering because of their support for Israel.

Dahan — who is Orthodox and keeps kosher — started the process in April and became certified by National Kosher Supervision on May 26.

The transition, said Dahan, was a fairly easy one: He said the cafe has always had mezuzahs on the door, marking their Jewish ownership, and all the ingredients they used are kosher.

The kashering process involved toveling (immersing pots in a mikveh or ritual bath) and a deep cleaning “from top to bottom,” according to Rabbi Aaron Mehlman, the executive rabbinic director of National Kosher Supervision, who oversaw the transition.

In addition, “we did a few tweaks and a few behind-the-scenes upgrades,” Mehlman said, referring to some changes in machinery and suppliers. “It wasn’t treif [unkosher] before, but it’s actually in a much better place now.”

Now, like other kosher restaurant proprietors, Dahan will pay a fee for ongoing supervision to maintain the Upper East Side location, at 976A Lexington Ave., as kosher. A second Caffe Aronne outpost, the original version on Greenwich Avenue downtown, though, won’t be kosher because Dahan said it would be too challenging to close on Shabbat.

“The West Village location is a bit different,” he said. “It’s in an area where we do much better on weekends.”

Dahan operates two Caffe Aronne locations: In addition to the uptown location at 976A Lexington Ave., there’s the original location on Greenwich Avenue in the West Village, which opened just days before the COVID-19 shutdown in 2020.

On the Upper East Side — which is home to a sizable Jewish community — the Caffe Aronne’s kosher certification appears to be a draw.

“I went a few times to get regular coffee before they were certified, but now that they’re certified it’s a lot more exciting and definitely opens up the whole menu to everyone,” said customer Rebecca Shamsian, a 31-year-old teacher from the Upper East Side. “It really enhances the neighborhood to have nice kosher places to go to.”

Kosher restaurants can be famously expensive, but Dahan, who estimates that approximately half of his Upper East Side customers are Jewish, said he has not raised prices since making the switch. Business, he said, is better than ever. “We see the average ticket goes up so essentially we’re seeing people buying more,” he said.

The revenue has enabled Dahan to donate two $36,000 “medicycles” — which carry lifesaving equipment through traffic and narrow alleys — for Magen David Adom, the Israel-based first responders organization. He has since collected approximately $10,000 to aid small businesses on the affected kibbutzes in the south of Israel.

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Hello, and happy Olympics opening ceremony day! The 2024 Paris Olympics officially begin today with the aquatic opening ceremony in the Seine River, though competition in several events began earlier this week.

Here at JTA News, we’ve got all the Jewish Olympics coverage you need — from Israel’s return to Olympic soccer after a half-century to a growing list of Jewish Olympians and your guide to all the Jewish and Israeli athletes’ competitions.

Meet Australia’s Jewish Olympic flag bearer

Canoe paddler Jessica Fox had already built a resume most athletes can only dream of.

The 30-year-old Aussie is a four-time Olympian who has won four Olympic medals, including taking the gold in a competition she helped open to women at the most recent games. Fox won her record fourteenth world title last year. For many, it cemented her legacy as the greatest individual slalom paddler of all time.

Now, she will add onto her legacy: She was named one of Australia’s two flag bearers for today’s opening ceremony in Paris. Getting the honor was “probably the greatest moment of my career,” said Fox, who was born in Marseille, France, and moved to Australia at age 4.

“Obviously that French connection is very strong and it’s such a wonderful, special, unique moment to be able to bring my two cultures together: the French, the Australian,” Fox said, according to Australia’s ABC News. She will be joined by Australian field hockey player and five-time Olympian Eddie Ockenden.

Fox’s role means a Jewish Olympian who isn’t Israeli will wave their country’s flag for the second consecutive Summer Olympics. Basketball great and five-time Olympian Sue Bird earned the honor for the U.S. delegation at the 2020 Tokyo Games.

Click here to read more about Fox — and her family’s Olympic dominance.

Olympics Scorecard 

Here’s a quick rundown of Jewish and Israeli Olympians’ results and schedule as the Paris games get fully underway.

⚽ Israel’s soccer team played Mali on Wednesday, ending in a 1-1 draw. Israel faces Paraguay Saturday at 1 p.m. ET.

🏹 Israeli archers Mikaella Moshe and Roy Dror competed in the individual ranking rounds for women’s and men’s archery, respectively, on Thursday. Moshe placed 18th out of 64 while setting a personal record. Dror finished 42nd.

🔜 Look out for U.S. fencer Eli Dershwitz, Israeli gold medal-winning gymnast Artem Dolgopyat and Fox, the Aussie paddler, all of whom are in action Saturday.

🗓️ On Sunday, Israeli gymnast Lihie Raz, Israeli fencer Yuval Freilich, U.S. swimmer Claire Weinstein, U.S. rugby player Sarah Levy and Canadian beach volleyballer Sam Schachter are all competing.

We compiled a full competition schedule for all the Jewish and Israeli Olympians in Paris — check it out.

Sarah Levy, U.S. rugby player, is keeping up her Jewish family’s tradition on the pitch 

In 2014, Sarah Levy was a first-year student at Northeastern University in search of an extracurricular to fill her schedule and help her make friends. She signed up for rugby tryouts.

Fast forward to this weekend, and Levy is making her Olympics debut as a member of the U.S. women’s rugby team.

Levy, who grew up as an active member of San Diego’s Jewish community, said she was hooked on the sport after her first game. She also comes from a long line of rugby players: Her great-grandfather famously vacillated over whether to play rugby for South Africa on Yom Kippur.

“After that first game, it was done — I couldn’t not play,” Levy told me. “I just fell in love with it right away. My dad had played growing up, so I always had a draw to it. But I didn’t know women could play until I got to college and there was a team there.”

Read her story right here.

Halftime report

DEBUNKED. A video went viral this week purportedly showing a Hamas operative threatening that “rivers of blood will flow through the streets of Paris” because France allowed Israeli athletes to participate in the Olympics, causing alarm for many. But researchers at Microsoft have said the video is a product of a Russian disinformation and propaganda campaign.

ADIDAS PUNTS ON ITS NEW SHOE CAMPAIGN. Following backlash to its shoe campaign inspired by the 1972 Munich Olympics, where 11 Israelis were murdered, Adidas has removed the footwear ads featuring Palestinian-American model and activist Bella Hadid. Adidas also issued an apology to Hadid, who had reportedly been considering suing the company over the debacle.

A LIFE-SAVER. A group of Jewish Boy Scouts recently completed a 100-mile hike in New Mexico — undoubtedly an athletic feat — but that’s not why their story went viral. On the flight home, members of the group jumped into action when an elderly passenger went into cardiac arrest, performing CPR and saving his life.

TRADE SHOW. The MLB trade deadline is rapidly approaching, with a flurry of activity expected right up until the cutoff on Tuesday at 6 p.m. ET. We recommend keeping an eye on ace baseball reporters Jeff Passan of ESPN, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic and Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Los Angeles Angels outfielder Kevin Pillar is considered a likely trade candidate, while Rowdy Tellez of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Joc Pederson of the Arizona Diamondbacks are both playing for middling teams that are expected to make deals in the coming days.

BACK TO SCHOOL. Recent MLB draftee Ryan Prager, who was selected 81st overall by the Los Angeles Angels, announced that he would be returning to Texas A&M, where he led the Aggies to a second-place finish in this year’s NCAA Division I College Baseball World Series.

Jews in sports to watch this weekend (all times ET)

⚾️ IN BASEBALL…

Dean Kremer starts for the Baltimore Orioles Saturday at 4:05 p.m. as they take on the San Diego Padres. Joc Pederson and the Arizona Diamondbacks host Rowdy Tellez and the Pittsburgh Pirates in a three-game series this weekend, while Kevin Pillar and the Los Angeles Angels host Zack Gelof and the Oakland Athletics in a four-game set that began Thursday. Spencer Horwitz — who is hitting a stellar .309 on the season — and the Toronto Blue Jays face the Texas Rangers.

⚽️ IN SOCCER…

The Leagues Cup begins this weekend, as teams from MLS face each other and their counterparts in Liga MX, Mexico’s pro soccer league. Tai Baribo and the Philadelphia Union host Charlotte F.C. Saturday at 8 p.m. — though Charlotte’s Liel Abada is in Paris with Israel’s soccer team — while Daniel Edelman and the New York Red Bulls face Toronto F.C. at the same time.

⛳️ IN GOLF…

Daniel Berger, David Lipsky, Ben Silverman and Max Greyserman are all competing in the PGA Tour’s 3M Open this weekend in Minnesota.

🏎️ IN RACING…

It’s the final Formula One race before the annual summer break, and Lance Stroll will be on the grid for Aston Martin in the Belgian Grand Prix Sunday at 9 a.m. The race is a homecoming of sorts for Stroll, who has Belgian ancestry through his mother.

Is reading news an Olympic event?

Who knew there could be so much Jewish sports news in one week?! Thanks for reading — we’ll see you next week! Au revoir!

My family and I gathered this week at a memorial service for my stepfather, Sen. Joe Lieberman, who passed away earlier this year. Though we knew him as a loving parent, grandparent and husband, he was perhaps best known as the first Jewish candidate on a national ticket, a distinction he earned when selected by then Vice President Al Gore as a running mate in the 2000 election.

Twenty-four years later, we may have another Jewish candidate for vice president if Gov. Josh Shapiro is tapped. Other prominent candidates have Jewish spouses — including Vice President Kamala Harris, now the leading Democratic presidential contender, whose husband Doug Emhoff is Jewish; and Mark Kelly, reportedly also on Harris’ shortlist, whose wife is the Jewish former congresswoman Gabby Giffords. Of course we all recall, too, that Donald Trump’s daughter and her family are Jewish.

The presence of so many Jews on the national stage is naturally reigniting questions about the role of Jewish identity in politics that my stepfather answered loudly, in his own way.

My stepfather frequently described his ceiling-shattering moment in words offered to him at the time by Rev. Jesse Jackson: “Remember that, in America, when a barrier falls for one group, the doors of opportunity open wider for every single American.” I think he loved this framing because it matched how he saw his Jewishness: as a lever and fulcrum for moving the world to a better place. Jewishness was something very personal for him, yes, but it wasn’t private, and it wasn’t parochial. While he wore his Jewish practice with deep humility, he did so proudly and publicly, and he always believed that his faith connected him to others more than it separated him out.

Jewishness in the public eye can take different forms. One type is virtually invisible, sometimes by design. Indeed, back in 2000, many Jews — whether out of fear or a different conception of the role of religion in the public square — wished my stepfather had gone this route. The kind of Jewishness that is in the “Personal Life” section of your Wikipedia page, accessible to the researcher but essentially unknown to the political observer. This is Jewishness by origin, by ethnicity, in biography, a private confession. It otherwise gets in the way of a dream of a more neutral, less religious society that treats all equally, regardless of our particular origin stories.

Another type of Jewishness is, in a way, partisan. It seeks out specific allies with one part of the political spectrum — sometimes the part imagined to be best for “Jewish interests” or for the pursuit of a more universal justice or some combination of the two. This type of Jewishness seeks to align itself with, to weld itself to, movements on one side of American political divides.  This sort of Jewishness is highly visible, a deep substantive commitment that you can’t miss, even as it is also more narrow and political. This sort of Jewishness also often leads Jews to turn on their own — against those who didn’t get the partisan memo and who are, in the eyes of the beholder, misrepresenting and distorting our faith.

My stepfather walked a third path. He saw himself as part of a “group,” his beloved Jewish people, whose destiny in the arc of history fueled his energy and focus. He manifested his public observance of Shabbat to an audience broader than that of perhaps any Jew in history. There was nothing invisible about it.

But his Judaism was also never partisan, and not just in the political sense. He saw his own destiny, as an American, to leverage his Judaism to accomplish things for others, for the broader world in which he lived, for the country he so deeply loved and to which he gave a lifetime of service. Nothing less than that would do — did Jews not bear witness to and serve the God of the world, about whom they say three times a day: “God loves all and has compassion on all God’s creatures?”

More than two decades, later, Jews surely feel more vulnerable than they did back in 2000. The horrific events of Oct. 7, rising antisemitism at home and abroad, political instability — these could beckon Jews, and perhaps Jewish candidates and their family members, in the public sphere to invisible or partisan forms of Jewishness.

Joe Lieberman would have beckoned us to something different. Archimedes, when musing on the laws of physics, is said to have remarked: “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” My stepfather would have asked us to consider: What if Judaism were that lever and that fulcrum? What if we are the ones uniquely positioned to move the world through a deeper embrace of who we are?

Jews — authentic bearers and owners of a Scripture viewed as sacred and foundational to an overwhelming majority of Americans and by billions of people worldwide. Jews — dogged political survivors, suspicious of untrammeled state power that threatens to slide into tyranny, able to connect profoundly with the notion of a birthright of freedom that should belong to all.  Jews — a minority, often persecuted, able to understand the plight of the mistreated, the marginalized, the “strangers” in all the Egypts of history and to fight for them as an extension of our own self-preservation. Jews — exemplary beneficiaries of American opportunity, coming as immigrants and outsiders and ascending ladders of achievement and prosperity, poised to share a gospel of what America ought to be for everyone: a place where those of humble origin can shape the destiny of their society.

What type of Jewishness will be on display this election season? Where is Jewishness in America headed in the coming years? I hope it will be one that will live up to my stepfather’s example and make him proud.

(JTA) — A new excavation has unearthed parts of the Great Synagogue of Vilna, once the oldest and most important building for Lithuanian Jews before it was destroyed by the Nazis and razed by the Soviets.

Archeologists found the synagogue floor decorated with red, black and white flowers, along with the remains of a vibrant wall painted in red and blue, they said on Thursday. They also uncovered part of the women’s gallery, water reservoirs used for the mikvah (or ritual bath) and a large pillar that once flanked the bimah (or prayer platform), now collapsed on its side.

This latest excavation is the fifth in a series that began in 2015, when a ground-penetrating radar first traced remnants of the synagogue. Previous sessions revealed the bimah, the Torah ark and Torah scroll and a Hebrew inscription. The project is led by the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Association of Lithuanian Archeology, the Good Will Foundation and Lithuania’s Jewish community.

“The magnificent remains we are discovering — the synagogue bimah that was uncovered during the previous excavation seasons, as well as the colorful decorations of the floor and walls — bring back moments in the life of a lost vibrant community,” said the excavation directors, Jon Seligman of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Justinas Rakas of the Lithuanian Archeological Society, in a statement.

The Great Synagogue of Vilna, now known as Vilnius in Lithuania, was built in the 17th century  in a Renaissance-Baroque style and formed the heart of a thriving Jewish community. Before the Holocaust, the synagogue was surrounded by a complex filled with Jewish life, including 12 synagogues, study houses, kosher meat stalls, a bathhouse and the famous Strashun Library, one of the most important Jewish cultural institutions in Eastern Europe before its destruction in World War II.

Lithuania’s Jews had a distinct culture, including their own dialect of Yiddish, and played a profound role in developing Jewish thought. Vilnius attracted many celebrated Yiddish writers and scholars, earning it a nickname as the “Jerusalem of the North.”

During the Holocaust, the Nazis killed over 90% of Lithuanian Jews and looted and burned the Great Synagogue. After Lithuania came under Communist control, Soviet authorities demolished the synagogue’s remnants in the 1950s and built a school on its site.

Soviet rule, which lasted until 1990, delayed any reckoning with the country’s Holocaust history, both the destruction wrought by the Nazis and the role that local collaborators played. Only in the last few years has the country allocated any funding to survivors of the Holocaust in Lithuania.

When pictures of a mural in Norway depicting Anne Frank wearing a keffiyeh began circulating online this week, Jewish voices swiftly denounced it as a hateful form of anti-Israel protest.

“Depicting a Holocaust victim with a keffiyeh is a gross distortion of history,” the European Jewish Congress wrote in a statement. “Such acts are not genuine criticism but deeply antisemitic and offensive misrepresentations that undermine Holocaust memory.”

But the mural’s creator, the anonymous Norwegian street artist Töddel, is defending the work, telling the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that they chose Frank for the mural precisely because of their respect for the history of the Holocaust.

Töddel said they were not Jewish but had read Frank’s diary several times and visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps with their children.

“Anne Frank is a symbol of innocence,” the artist said. “Like the children and women of Gaza, she suffered and died because of her ethnicity and religion and being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Titled “Death of the Innocent,” the mural went up this week in Bergen, a city on Norway’s southwest coast that does not have an organized Jewish community and where two local universities recently severed ties with Israeli institutions over the war. Töddel revealed the piece on social media on Monday, along with hashtags reading “#stoptheviolence” and “#humanitynow.”

Unlike some critics of Israel’s war in Gaza, Töddel does not view Israel as uniquely to blame for the current war. “Hamas started it all with its horrific terrorist attack,” the artist said.

But they argued that Israel’s response in Gaza — which has killed more than 39,000 people to date, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, and devastated the enclave — was achieving Hamas’ goal of “tarnishing the Israeli state and weakening its position in the world.”

And they said that however things started, “The killings of the innocent women and children in Gaza must stop now. I feel sure that Anne Frank … would support me in this demand.”

Töddel is far from the first to use symbols of the Holocaust to protest for Palestinians. It follows recent pro-Palestinian defacings of Anne Frank memorials in Amsterdam and Milan. The Milan memorial was an explicitly pro-Israel mural depicting Frank holding an Israeli flag, but the Amsterdam statue did not have anything to do with Israel. Pro-Palestinian protests also took place at a prominent Jewish memorial procession at Auschwitz, and at the opening of a Dutch Holocaust museum; both events included Israeli dignitaries.

Other Holocaust memorials, including in the United States, have also been targeted by activists in recent months. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators globally have called Israel’s military campaign in Gaza a genocide, a charge Israel vehemently denies. Some have invoked the Holocaust in those protests.

Töddel’s mural is located blocks from the University of Bergen, which in December severed ties with an Israeli institution, the Bezalel Art Academy in Jerusalem, over the war (as did another local university, the Bergen School of Architecture). While the school’s dean insisted at the time that the move was not a boycott, the global Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement would later trumpet Bergen’s move alongside three other Norwegian universities that also cut ties with Israeli schools.

Norway also became one of a handful of European countries to formally recognize a state of Palestine in May; relations between Norway and Israel have swiftly deteriorated since then, with Israel recently denying a state visit request and criticizing Norway for accusing the military of violating international humanitarian law.

The average dinner entree at Barbounia, one of New York City’s most acclaimed Israeli restaurants, runs $40. But for the next few weeks, diners will be able to snag a three-course meal for just $20 more.

Welcome to NYC Restaurant Week — the twice-yearly event that makes restaurants in the city more approachable by offering $30, $45 and $60 multi-course prix-fixe lunches and dinners.

Every winter and summer, hundreds of restaurants across the city participate in Restaurant Week, which was launched by New York City Tourism and Conventions in 1992 as a promotional program to help restaurants get guests in the door during slow periods, and allow diners to try places they might not normally visit (read: afford).

This summer, more than 600 restaurants are taking part in Restaurant Week — with several high-quality Jewish, kosher and Israeli spots among them. Many of them, including Mesiba and Tsion Cafe, were spotlighted in our list of 18 essential restaurants in New York City.

As you make your dining plans, an important note: The “week” in Restaurant Week is a misnomer. This summer’s Restaurant Week runs from July 22 through Aug. 18, with several spots extending their special menus until Sept. 1.

If you wanted to check out a Jewish restaurant in the city that’s new to you, now’s the time! Keep scrolling to read more about the kosher, Israeli and Jewish-owned eateries that are participating this summer. B’tayavon!

Barbounia

250 Park Ave. South, Flatiron, Manhattan

Barbounia has been a Manhattan staple for nearly 20 years. Israeli chef Amitzur Mor is at the helm of the restaurant, which serves diverse, Israeli-fusion dishes like smoked trout, lamb kofta kebab “terracotta” and spiced milk ice cream topped with silan. For Restaurant Week, Barbounia is offering a $45 two-course lunch and a $60 three-course dinner. For dinner, appetizer options include chilled sweet corn soup, wild salmon ceviche, taboon roasted beets and crispy halloumi. Mains are taboon roasted mediterranean dorade, braised beef shank “mansaf,” farmer’s market vegetable terracotta or taboon roasted chicken shish kebab.

Ben’s Kosher Delicatessen

211-37 26th Ave., Bayside, Queens

Ben’s Kosher Delicatessen is a staple for those who keep kosher, and the Bayside location in Queens is participating in Restaurant Week with a two-course $30 lunch and brunch and three-course $45 dinner. While the menu for Restaurant Week isn’t available online, you can expect classic deli fare from this Ashkenazi Jewish spot.

City Winery

25 11th Ave., Chelsea, Manhattan

Opened in 2008 by Michael Dorf, the Jewish founder of the Knitting Factory,  City Winery is known for its unique wines and live music and events, including its annual, star-studded Downtown Seder. Its flagship location at Pier 57 in Chelsea includes a restaurant and pizza bar that is participating in Restaurant Week with a $45 lunch and $60 dinner.

Dagon

2454 Broadway, Upper West Side, Manhattan

This classic Upper West Side Israeli restaurant has been open since 2021. For Restaurant Week, it is offering a $30 lunch and $45 dinner, which includes an appetizer, main and dessert. The appetizer offerings are cucumber and herb gazpacho, Israeli salad, flash fried cauliflower and hummus, while the mains are zucchini and onion gratin, crispy roasted lamb, plancha-seared salmon, seared porgy or chicken schnitzel. For dessert, choose among silan, labneh cheesecake, creme brulée or flourless chocolate cake. Get details here.

Kubeh

464 Sixth Ave., Greenwich Village, Manhattan

Native New Yorker Chef Melanie Shurka, who is of Israeli-Iranian and Ashkenazi descent, opened Kubeh in Greenwich Village in 2017. The restaurant takes its name from the Iraqi, Kurdish and Syrian filled dumplings, or kubeh, that are the highlight of the menu. For Restaurant Week, the spot is offering a $30 lunch and $45 dinner, with a huge array of options for each meal. Check out the menu here.

Mesiba

353 Bedford Ave., Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Like its Hebrew name attests, Mesiba, which opened in Williamsburg last year, is a party. For Restaurant Week, the Tel Aviv-inspired restaurant is offering a $45 three-course dinner. Operated by Elad Zvi of the Bar Lab Hospitality, the restaurant’s head chef is Israeli Eli Buliskeria. While the menu for Restaurant Week isn’t available online, we recommend the whole fried fish and msabbaha cart, where warm hummus is mixed up tableside.

Pig and Khao

68 Clinton St., Lower East Side, Manhattan

Jewish-Filipino chef and television personality Leah Cohen’s Pig and Khao has been a Lower East Side staple serving Southeast Asian cuisine since 2012. For Restaurant Week, the spot is offering a $30 lunch and $60 four-course dinner. For appetizers, choose from papaya salad, sinigang shrimp or brussels sprouts. For the second course, the options are sizzling sisig, khao soi or pork belly adobo. The third course brings BBQ baby back ribs, isaan steak and crispy cauliflower. Choose between jasmine or coconut rice on the side and for dessert, turon — a fried banana roll — or ricotta donuts.

PJ Bernstein

1215 Third Ave., Upper East Side, Manhattan

For another classic Jewish deli with Ashkenazi fare, visit PJ Bernstein on the Upper East Side, which is offering a $30 lunch and $60 dinner. For dinner, choose from options of split pea, matzo ball or mushroom barley soups for a first course, pierogies or latkes for a second course and, for the main course, a choice of salmon or brisket. Finish off your meal with a classic slice of New York cheesecake.

Tsion Cafe

763 St. Nicholas Ave., Harlem, Manhattan

Tsion Cafe, the hip Ethiopian-Jewish restaurant in Harlem that transitioned to a certified kosher menu earlier this year, is participating in Restaurant Week with a $45 three-course dinner. Choose between the plantini, injera rolls or injera chips for an appetizer, the Tsion platter, Addis Harlem Bowl or Mama Africa Bowl for a main and malawach or halva for dessert. Click here for details.

UN Plaza Grill

845 United Nations Plaza, Midtown, Manhattan

For Restaurant Week, this kosher fine-dining spot is offering a $60 three-course dinner. The menu offers a variety of options, including a choice of short rib tacos, beet salad, sushi roll or chicken lollipops for appetizers; rib eye, chicken parmigiana, salmon or gnocchi for the main and sorbet, fruit, tiramisu or molten chocolate cake for dessert. See the menu here.

A viral video of a purported Hamas threat to the Summer Olympics is actually the work of a Russian disinformation outlet, researchers said.

In the video, which circulated in recent days on X and Telegram, a man wearing a keffiyeh mask and Palestinian flag says in Arabic that “rivers of blood will flow through the streets of Paris” due to French support for Israel as well as the inclusion of Israelis in the Paris Olympics.

The man also holds up a severed mannequin’s head that appears to be covered with red paint.

The video comes amid longstanding security concerns over violence against Israelis at the games. Concern has risen since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in October, which sparked a global spike in antisemitism.

There were calls to bar Israel from the Paris Olympics, and a far-left French lawmaker recently told a crowd that “the Israeli delegation is not welcome in Paris.” After that, France’s foreign minister said that Israeli Olympians would receive 24/7 security.

In the case of the video, a Hamas spokesperson claimed it was a forgery, and researchers at Microsoft who reviewed the video backed up that claim. The researchers told NBC News that the video is part of a Russian disinformation campaign from Storm-1516, a group associated with Russia’s infamous Internet Research Agency propaganda operation.

The video bears striking resemblance to another clip that circulated in October, promoting the false claim that Ukraine had supplied weapons to Hamas. Both videos have been spread by Russian propagandists on social media.

“This operation closely aligns with tactics, techniques and procedures observed in previous Storm-1516 operations, including a previous video that similarly pretended to be Hamas,” Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center said in a statement to NBC News.

The security of Israeli athletes at the Olympics has been a concern ever since 11 were murdered in a Palestinian terror attack at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. One American Jewish Olympian told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the past violence has made her nervous ahead of this summer’s event.

But as Israel prepared to send one of its largest-ever Olympic delegations to Paris, Israeli and French officials projected confidence that they would be able to keep the nearly 90 Israeli Olympians safe.

“I want to say on behalf of France, to the Israeli delegation, we welcome you to France for these Olympic Games,” Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said.