Briefs

UK CHIEF RABBI WILL SLEEP OVER AT KING CHARLES’ HOUSE TO ATTEND CORONATION

King Charles III wants to make sure that the United Kingdom’s chief rabbi can make it to his coronation ceremony next year—so much so that he’s letting the Jewish leader sleep over at his house.

The coronation is set for May 6, 2023, which falls on a Saturday. Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and his wife Valerie, who are Orthodox, are not allowed under Jewish law to travel by car or use electricity on Shabbat.

King Charles’ current residence, before he moves into Buckingham Palace, is Clarence House, located a few minutes’ walk from the palace. So the sleepover allows the Mirvises to walk to the ceremony.

While the Telegraph reported that a member of the rabbi’s staff called the offer “an amazing gesture,” it’s not the first time the king has accommodated Mirvis’ religious observance.

After Queen Elizabeth died on a Thursday, the king’s reception at Buckingham Palace was rescheduled too early in the day on Friday to allow Mirvis to attend and fulfill rabbinical duties later in the day.

Mirvis, 66, has been chief rabbi since 2013, succeeding the late Jonathan Sacks.

A coronation on Shabbat is a rare occurrence. In 1902, then-Chief Rabbi Hermann Adler attended the coronation of King Edward XII on Shabbat, alongside members of the prominent Rothschild and Sassoon families. (JTA)

AFTER CRITICISM, TAYLOR SWIFT ADDS ORTHODOX-FRIENDLY DATES TO HER UPCOMING TOUR

You’re On Your Own, Kid, isn’t just the name of a track on Taylor Swift’s newest album—the phrase describes the way many of the pop star’s Jewish fans were feeling after she released the dates for her upcoming tour.

Shabbat-observant Swifties voiced their disappointment with the dates, which were all slated for during or just after the end of Shabbat, on Friday or Saturday nights. (One was scheduled for April 2, a Sunday, in Arlington, Texas.)

In response, Swift added eight more shows to the U.S. leg of her tour, all on weeknights, in cities such as Philadelphia, Seattle, and Los Angeles. Many applauded the additions.

Swift’s Midnights album sold over a million copies in its first week, and she is now tied with Barbra Streisand as the female artist with the most albums to top the Billboard chart. Swift will take the Jewish Haim sisters, who feature in the music video for her song Bejeweled, along for part of the tour. (JTA)

LEONARD COHEN’S 1973 YOM KIPPUR WAR CONCERTS TO BE DRAMATIZED IN TV SERIES

Leonard Cohen’s momentous trip to the Sinai Desert to perform for Israeli soldiers in the wake of the Yom Kippur War is being turned into a dramatized TV series.

Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai will be written by Yehonatan Indursky, a co-creator of Shtisel, the landmark Israeli drama about an Orthodox family in Jerusalem, according to Variety.

The limited series, an adaptation of journalist Matti Friedman’s 2022 book of the same name, will film in Israel in 2024. It’s being co-produced by Keshet, the Israeli company that has also produced shows such as Prisoners of War, which was adapted for U.S. audiences as Homeland.

Cohen’s trip to the frontlines of the 1973 war became a turning point in the way the folk troubadour incorporated his Jewishness into his songs—for instance, his 1974 album New Skin for the Old Ceremony featured Who By Fire, a song inspired by the Yom Kippur Unataneh Tokef prayer. Despite being internationally famous, Cohen slept in an army sleeping bag, ate army rations, and performed a series of concerts for on-edge soldiers, who decades later told Friedman that they were moved by his support.

“In October 1973 the poet and singer Leonard Cohen—39 years old, famous, unhappy, and at a creative dead end— traveled to the Sinai desert and inserted himself into the chaos and blood of the Yom Kippur War,” the show’s press materials read. “Moving around the front with a guitar and a pick-up team of local musicians, Cohen dived headlong into a global crisis and met hundreds of fighting men and women at the worst moment of their lives. Cohen’s audience knew his songs might be the last thing they heard, and those who survived never forgot the experience.” (JTA)

JEWISH PASSENGERS BOOTED OFF LUFTHANSA FLIGHT IN MAY ARE GETTING $20,000 PAYOUTS

Nearly seven months after they were denied boarding in Frankfurt, a group of more than 100 Hasidic Lufthansa passengers are getting paid for their troubles.

The airline is paying each passenger $20,000 plus giving them $1,000 to reimburse them for expenses incurred during the May incident, according to Dan’s Deals, the discount travel website that first reported the incident at the time. After legal fees and some other expenses, each passenger will net approximately $17,400, the site is reporting.

Lufthansa would not confirm the dollar figures but told the JTA that it is seeking to settle with each of the affected passengers, capping a series of conciliatory responses to the incident.

“Although we are not commenting on the details, we can confirm that Lufthansa endeavors to settle the claims with all of the passengers denied boarding on May 4th, 2022,” the company said.

That date was when airline agents in Frankfurt barred many Jewish travelers coming from New York City from boarding their connecting flight to Budapest, citing the fact that some of the passengers were not wearing masks, as was required. But that rule was applied inconsistently, passengers said at the time, and a Lufthansa supervisor was caught on video speaking disparagingly about Jewish passengers as a group.

“It’s Jews coming from JFK. Jewish people who were the mess, who made the problems,” the supervisor said on the video.

Amid intense media coverage, Lufthansa publicly apologized, saying that the company “regrets the circumstances surrounding the decision to exclude the affected passengers from the flight.”

The company added, “What transpired is not consistent with Lufthansa’s policies or values. We have zero tolerance for racism, antisemitism, and discrimination of any type.”

In late July, Lufthansa announced the creation of a senior management role to combat discrimination and antisemitism, even as an independent investigation commissioned by the airline concluded that there was no evidence of institutional antisemitism that led to the incident.

In September, the American Jewish Committee announced a new program to train Lufthansa employees how to identify and respond to antisemitism. (JTA)

WALMART PULLS $40 ‘ELEGANT SUNSCREEN SCARVES’ THAT WERE ACTUALLY JEWISH PRAYER SHAWLS

“Why wear a tallis to shul when you can wear a very real product from Walmart?” Ilan Kogan, an Orthodox rabbinical student, asked on TikTok Monday, Nov. 28.

Kogan was talking about “Elegant Sunscreen Scarves Sun Block Shawl Scarf Beach Shawl Towel Clothing Accessories for Women Judaism (Blue),” the search engine-optimized title for a product that looked a lot like a tallit, the shawl worn by Jews during morning prayers.

His post was one of several to call attention to the product listed on Walmart’s website, with reactions ranging from curiosity (“I have so many questions,” tweeted Atlantic columnist Yair Rosenberg) to outrage (from the watchdog group Stop Antisemitism). By Tuesday, Nov. 29, Walmart had removed the item, which had been listed for $40.99, as well as a second with a similar name from a different seller that had been available for the cut-rate price of $14.49.

“Walmart has a robust trust and safety program, which actively works to prevent items such as these from being sold on the site,” a spokesperson told JTA. “After reviewing, these items have been removed.”

In this case, the products were sold by third-party vendors using Walmart’s online marketplace, where shoppers can browse up to 60 million items. (JTA)