BRIEFS SCIENTIST DAVID JULIUS, WHOSE GRANDPARENTS FLED ANTISEMITISM IN CZARIST RUSSIA, WINS NOBEL PRIZE IN MEDICINE David Julius, a professor of physiology at the University of California, San Francisco, whose grandparents fled antisemitism in Czarist Russia, was awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine on Monday, October 4. He shared the award with Ardem Patapoutian, a molecular biologist and neuroscientist at the Scripps Research center. The Nobel Prize committee cited Julius and Patapoutian’s research “for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch,” which have improved treatments for pain caused by a range of diseases. Julius was born in 1955 and grew up in Brighton Beach, which was then home to a large population of Russian Jewish emigres. Julius described the neighborhood as “a landing pad for Eastern European immigrants like my grandparents, who fled Czarist Russia and antisemitism in pursuit of a better life.” A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley, Julius has spent his career researching the way human senses like touch, pain, and heat function and has used capsaicin, the chemical in chili peppers that makes them burn, to explore how human nerve endings feel heat. “These breakthrough discoveries launched intense research activities leading to a rapid increase in our understanding of how our nervous system senses heat, cold, and mechanical stimuli,” the Nobel Prize committee wrote in its announcement of the winners. (JTA) JEWS, CHRISTIANS, AND MUSLIMS COME TOGETHER TO PAINT OVER SWASTIKAS IN ARGENTINIAN JEWISH CEMETERY After Nazi graffiti was found at a Jewish cemetery in Argentina last month, the local Jewish community wanted to do more than just paint it over. So on Friday, October 1, the local Jewish community of Sante Fe, a province about 300 miles northwest of Buenos Aires, convened representatives of other religious groups for an interfaith ceremony
to remove the swastikas painted in the cemetery, one in the area dedicated to the memory of Holocaust victims. The ceremony included evangelical Christians, Catholics, and Muslims, as well as representatives from a host of local groups, and it was streamed online. A video showed several people brushing over swastikas painted near the ground, followed by a series of comments from representatives of different groups. “These are acts of hatred and can’t remain unpunished,” Horacio Roitman, the Santa Fe representative of the Argentinian Jewish group DAIA, told the UNOSantafe newspaper before the event, hosted by the Interreligious Initiative of Santa Fe. “A clarification of what happened is owed to the whole society.” The vandalism at the Santa Fe Jewish cemetery comes after a series of incidents at the biggest Jewish cemetery in the country, in Buenos Aires. In that case, no Nazi or otherwise antisemitic symbols were found, and Jewish leaders denounced a lack of security. (JTA)
POWAY SYNAGOGUE SHOOTER GETS LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE IN STATE COURT SENTENCING The man who opened fire at a synagogue in Poway, California, in 2019 will spend the rest of his life in prison. The shooter, who attacked the Chabad of Poway with an automatic rifle on the last day of Passover, killed one person, Lori Gilbert Kaye, and injured three, including the synagogue rabbi and a child. He turned himself into police following the shooting and pleaded guilty to federal and state charges this year. The guilty pleas allowed John Earnest to avoid a death sentence, and at his state sentencing on Thursday, September 30, he received life without parole. His federal sentencing will take place in December. “He will be erased from history,” District Attorney Summer Stephan said, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. “What will remain is the name of Lori Gilbert Kaye and all of the heroes that jumped into save life that day.” The shooting took place exactly six months after a synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh that killed 11 people at prayer.
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It was the first of three fatal antisemitic attacks in 2019. In December of that year, assailants killed Jews in Jersey City, New Jersey and Monsey, New York. Before the sentencing, relatives of Gilbert Kaye addressed the court. Ellen Edwards, her sister, called her “an amazing wife, mother, sister. and friend.” “What do you say in front of the person who killed my sister?” she said, according to Yahoo News. “I hate you. That just doesn’t seem enough.” (JTA)
DAVID SCHOEN, LAWYER WHO DEFENDED TRUMP DURING IMPEACHMENT, TO CHAIR ZOA The Zionist Organization of America elected as its national chairman David Schoen, the Jewish lawyer whose Orthodox observance drew media attention as he defended former President Donald Trump at Trump’s second impeachment trial. Schoen, a constitutional lawyer who lives in Atlanta, has for years served on ZOA’s board and has represented the organization, in one instance, leading ZOA’s efforts to hold the Palestine Liberation Organization legally accountable for terrorist attacks committed in its name. He became nationally prominent when he represented Trump after the House of Representatives impeached the former president for spurring the Jan. 6 insurrection at the capital. The Senate acquitted Trump. Schoen several times covered his head with his hand before taking a drink of water while speaking during Trump’s Senate trial, leading observers to guess that he was saying a blessing. He also absented himself from the trial when Shabbat loomed. Schoen, who usually wears a kippah, said he did not wear one while speaking during the trial because he thought it would look “awkward.” Trump was not Schoen’s first high-profile case. He was set to represent Jeffrey Epstein on charges of sex trafficking when the financier was found dead, ostensibly by suicide, in jail. The ZOA election was Sunday, Oct. 3. The membership reelected longtime president Morton Klein. Klein is the professional leader of the organization and Schoen is its lay leader. (JTA)
AMID ANTISEMITISM CONCERNS, 101 LOCAL JEWISH FEDERATIONS TO SPEND $54M TO IMPROVE SECURITY The Jewish Federations of North America is launching a campaign to expand its security program to every federation in the country, an initiative that will cost $54 million. JFNA CEO Eric Fingerhut announced the initiative on Monday, Oct. 4 at the organization’s General Assembly in Washington. Currently, 45 of the 146 member federations are part of what the JFNA has since January dubbed LiveSecure, a network of security offices. The new funding, to be raised over three years, will assist the 101 communities that have faced fundraising obstacles in establishing the security points in their communities so they too can join LiveSecure, a program launched after a spate of deadly antisemitic attacks in Pittsburgh; Poway, California; Monsey, New York; and Jersey City, New Jersey. These points, called Community Service Initiatives, establish “a single point of contact for critical incident coordination, information and intelligence sharing, safety and security training, and resources for every Jewish institution in a community,” a JFNA release said. Additionally, the program will assist communities in navigating the application process for federal grants that help nonprofits pay for security services. A focus of this year’s General Assembly, the annual meeting for local and national federation groups, has been the recent spike in antisemitic incidents. “There’s an urgent need to protect Jewish communities,” Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who is seen as a contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, said at the event. Also speaking was Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives who has staked out a strongly pro-Israel posture within the progressive caucus. “We are sitting on a powder keg of antisemitism, and the Jewish community and all of us cannot afford to be complacent,” he said. (JTA)
