BRIEFS BIDEN KNEELS BEFORE ORTHODOX ADVISER TO ISRAEL’S PRESIDENT AFTER LEARNING SHE HAS 12 CHILDREN President Joe Biden has had four children of his own, but he is clearly impressed by mothers who raise more. In a meeting with Israel’s outgoing president Reuven Rivlin at the White House last month, Biden knelt before Rivlin’s bureau chief, a haredi Orthodox woman named Rivka Ravitz, in deference to the fact that she has 12 children. The news site Kipa.co.il reported on the moment, based on photos taken of the encounter by reporters accompanying the Israeli presidential delegation. Rivlin had mentioned to Biden that Ravitz, 45, a key adviser for years, runs a household of 13 in addition to her demanding job when the president knelt before her to express his admiration. Rivlin clasped his hands in apparent surprise as he and Ravitz looked down on Biden, who lowered one knee to the floor and bowed his head. Rivlin was replaced as president by Isaac Herzog, who headed the Jewish Agency. The trip to the United States was Rivlin’s last overseas trip as president. Ravitz’s father was born in the United States. She studied to be a teacher in Jerusalem and became a parliamentary aide to the late Avraham Ravitz, a haredi communal leader and former lawmaker in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. He was her father-in-law. She began working for Rivlin in 1999, when he was a lawmaker. (JTA) YANKEES MAKE JEWISH WOMAN BATGIRL 60 YEARS AFTER TURNING HER DOWN If Gwen Goldman had been named a batgirl for the New York Yankees and not been given the honor of throwing out the first pitch, it would have been enough. A retired social worker from Westport, Connecticut, Goldman, 70, got to be a batgirl at a Yankees game last month, 60 years after the team turned her down because she was a girl. General Manager Brian Cashman proffered the invite after hearing that she had been rejected for the position in 1961.
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Goldman still has the letter she received that year from then-GM Roy Hamey, who explained that “a young lady such as yourself would feel out of place in a dugout.” Goldman not only got a turn in the dugout, but threw out the first pitch, wore the classic Yankee pinstriped uniform, and met the players. “It just kept coming and coming,” she said of the honors, adding “dayenu,” the Hebrew word meaning that just one of the gestures would have been sufficient. (JTA)
BIDEN TAPS LA’S JEWISH MAYOR TO BE US AMBASSADOR TO INDIA President Joe Biden nominated Los Angeles’ Jewish mayor, Eric Garcetti, to be his ambassador to India. In announcing the nomination Friday, July 9, the White House emphasized Garcetti’s experience in leading an international city. Garcetti, 50, who was raised Jewish and attended Jewish summer camp, was a co-chairman of Biden’s presidential campaign and helped select his running mate, Kamala Harris. “As mayor, Garcetti oversees the busiest container port in the Western Hemisphere, the largest municipal utility in the country, and one of the busiest airports in the world,” the announcement said. “Garcetti co-founded Climate Mayors and led more than 400 U.S. mayors to adopt the Paris Climate agreement.” Garcetti said last December he would not seek a post in the Biden administration, saying he was needed in Los Angeles to lead it through the coronavirus pandemic and the unrest that engulfed American cities after a Minneapolis policeman murdered George Floyd in May 2020. Garcetti, whose term was due to end in December 2022, told The Los Angeles Times that his skills would be put to good use in India. “We can’t get our climate goals without India hitting its climate goals,” he said. “We can’t see the economy truly reopened to international commerce and tourism until COVID is under control. We’re all very closely connected.” A network of city mayors Garcetti leads, C40 Cities, has assisted India
in addressing two of its most pressing problems— meeting climate change challenges, and a resurgence of the COVID virus. Garcetti, first elected in 2013, is Los Angeles’ first Jewish mayor since 1878. He has Mexican heritage on his father’s side and Russian Ashkenazi heritage on his mother’s side. (JTA)
FACEBOOK PROVIDES HOLOCAUST EDUCATION IN 12 LANGUAGES— INCLUDING GERMAN Facebook is expanding its efforts to combat Holocaust denial by directing users to Holocaust education materials in 12 languages, including Arabic, Russian and German. Beginning in January, people who searched in English for information about the Holocaust or Holocaust denial were given a prompt to visit AboutHolocaust. org, a website that provides basic facts about the genocide and provides testimonies by survivors. The site is now available in several other widely spoken languages. The site is a project of the World Jewish Congress and UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organization. “It is essential that people all over the world have access to factually accurate information about the Holocaust,” UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said. “In the context of the global rise of misinformation, social media platforms have a role to play in combating false narratives and hate, and redirecting users to reliable sources of information.” The expansion of the Holocaust education site continues an about-face for Facebook that began last year, when the social media giant said it would ban Holocaust denial, after years of defending its distribution as a kind of misinformed but legitimate expression. The WJC has worked with Facebook on fighting Holocaust denial. Last year, before the policy change, the Anti-Defamation League co-organized a high-profile advertising boycott of Facebook to protest its approach to hate speech. (JTA)
AIPAC CANCELS 2022 POLICY CONFERENCE, CITING LINGERING PANDEMIC CONCERNS The American Israel Public Affairs Committee will not host a policy conference in 2022, the second consecutive year it has made the decision citing COVID-19 pandemic concerns. “The health and safety of our conference delegates is our top priority each year,” AIPAC President Betsy Berns Korn said in an email Monday, July 12. “Unfortunately, there are still too many questions that remain unanswered to move forward responsibly, and thus we have made the decision to cancel the 2022 AIPAC Policy Conference.” According to a source close to the pro-Israel lobby organization, the decision was made now because deadlines were looming to sign contractual agreements for conference space, hotels, and other amenities. With the pandemic not fully under control, and with reports of spikes in more deadly variants elsewhere in the world, the source said that the risks of mounting a conference were too great. “This decision may seem surprising as we appear to be entering a post-pandemic world,” Berns Korn said. “However, with uncertainty around the continued spread of COVID, we still have a fragile and uncertain path back to normal travel and mass gatherings.” AIPAC’s 2020 conference took place just as the pandemic accelerated and at least two of its participants were among the first to have contracted the virus. Another concern, the AIPAC source said, was that activists may not be able to fully access congressional offices on the last day of the conference, when thousands of activists lobby in person for a three-point legislative agenda based on what AIPAC’s staff have determined are the most pressing needs of the year. Unlike other Jewish groups, AIPAC this year opted not to run a conference online, instead focusing on a series of smaller online meetings throughout the year. The AIPAC sources said that some regional events may return to being in-person. (JTA)
