Sundown: Standoff at Joseph’s Tomb
Plus notes on Barenboim’s concert, and more
May 04, 2011
Daniel Barenboim (center) and other performers at the Gaza concert.(Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images)
• Fifty-five Bratslav Hasidim and right-wing activists boarded themselves up in Joseph’s Tomb, in the West Bank. The stunt ended, predictably, with 55 arrests. [Haaretz]
• The musical performance conducted by Daniel Barenboim earlier this week in Gaza gets nearly 1400 words in the Times. Interesting note: Barenboim and the performers entered via the Rafah crossing, which is to say, Egypt. [NYT]
• Israeli citizens are about to get new identity cards, complete with biometric chips and creepy, gratuitous Holocaust symbolism. [972]
• The City University of New York nixed an honorary degree that John Jay College planned to grant playwright Tony Kushner, because of his alleged endorsement of the BDS movement. [NY Jewish Week]
• Mayor Bloomberg declares May “Birthright Israel Month” in New York. Funny, I’m still not on a trip. [JTA]
• There have been Internet-inaccessible smartphones for the observant before, but the first one in Yiddish just dropped. [Ynet]
From 1977, Jerry Seinfeld’s first-ever television appearance. Those collars! That accent!! Those pants!!!
Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.
