Need to Know for Nov. 7

November 7, 2017 JMORE Staff

Natalie Portman will portray Maddie Schwartz, a bored Pikesville housewife and mother who reinvents herself as an investigative journalist to figure out an unsolved murder. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images, via JTA)

Election Day, Anthony Weiner, Larry David and Natalie Portman

A PR win for TJ Maxx

TJX Companies, the parent company of TJ Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods, is being praised for continuing to pay its employees in Puerto Rico even though their stores remain closed due to damage from Hurricane Maria, according to NBC Los Angeles. “Based on the devastating situation in Puerto Rico, we can confirm that we have continued to pay our TJ Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods Associates on the island,” the company said in a statement to NBC Boston. “We believe it is the right thing for us to do under these circumstances.” It was not immediately clear how many of the Massachusetts-based company’s 29 stores in Puerto Rico remained closed or how many people TJX employs on the island.

Read: Marshalls, TJ Maxx Still Paying Workers of Closed PR Stores

It’s Election Day again

In its roundup of races to watch across the country, NPR says the marquee races of 2017 are in Virginia and New Jersey where term limits mean that voters are picking new governors. Both Republican gubernatorial candidates, Ed Gillespie of Virginia and Kim Guadagno in New Jersey, have shed their country club Republican roots and embraced a Trump-style message about immigration and social issues, running law and order-centric ads emphasizing violence committed by Latino immigrants. One Gillespie ad accuses his Democratic rival, Ralph Northam, of casting “the deciding vote in favor of sanctuary cities that let illegal immigrants who commit crimes back on the street” while a Guadagno ad says her opponent, Phil Murphy “doesn’t have our backs. He has theirs,” referring to violent immigrants in the country illegally. Likewise, Northam and Murphy are banging the anti-Trump drum loudly as a way to harness the energy of grassroots Democrats in what are traditionally low-turnout elections. In Virginia, Democrats are banking on that energy to help them down the ballot and gain ground in the state legislature, where Republicans currently hold a commanding lead. There are also some big ballot measures in Maine, Ohio and New York and mayoral elections in New York, Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Pittsburgh and Seattle.

Read: What To Watch In Tuesday’s Elections Across The Country

In other political news…

Anthony Weiner, the former politician and now convicted federal sex offender, reported Monday morning to Federal Medical Center Devens, a federal prison in Ayer, Mass. He will begin serving his 21 months for sexting with a minor, according to CNN. According to the institution, FMC Devens is one of six federal medical centers in the country. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving brother in the Boston bombing attack, was also originally held at FMC Devens. While some federal inmates are transferred to Devens from other prisons when serious medical treatment is needed, Weiner was ordered to serve his term at Devons from the beginning. In May, Weiner, 53, pleaded guilty to one charge of transferring obscene material to a minor in federal court in Manhattan. The charges stem from communications that the former congressman had with a 15-year-old girl on social media sites between January and March 2016. At his sentencing in September, Judge Denise Cote of the Southern District of New York added that at the time Weiner was communicating with the girl, he was “in contact with 19 other women.” Weiner also was sentenced to three years of supervised release to come after his prison term. His probation terms will require him to register as a sex offender.

Read: Anthony Weiner reports to prison

More bad news for Anne Frank

A play that ignores Anne Frank’s Jewish identity and features an unfounded assault allegation against a Jew who hid with her is generating controversy in the Netherlands. The play, which is slated to premiere Saturday in the Netherlands, is set in modern times and mentions neither the Nazis nor why they murdered Anne Frank, the teenage diarist who wrote her world-famous journal while hiding in German-occupied Amsterdam during the Holocaust. A dress rehearsal last week attended by several critics included an invented assault by Fritz Pfeffer against Margot Frank, Anne Frank’s sister. Pfeffer was a real-life Jewish dentist who was in hiding with Frank and her family and died in the Holocaust. It has never been alleged that he assaulted Frank or anyone else. Esther Voet, the editor-in-chief of the Dutch-Jewish weekly NIW and a former leader of the CIDI watchdog on anti-Semitism, condemned the play as “an unscrupulous falsification of history” in a scathing op-ed published Friday. Apparently, “that pesky historical context, the one about the persecution of the Jews, that had to be done away with already,” she wrote of the play, which was produced by Arjen Stuurman and directed by Ilja Pfeijffer. It is titled “Achter het Huis,” a phrase that means “behind the house” and echoes the Dutch-language name that Frank gave the secret annex where she hid. Asked last week about his addition of the assault, Pfeijffer, the director, told the Volkskrant: “The diary itself contains no drama,” adding: “What actually happens in the secret annex, seen through the eyes of a 13-year-old is a bit lean for a theater show.”

Larry David on “SNL”

Comedian Larry David’s “Saturday Night Live” monologue included a joke about picking up women at a Nazi concentration camp. David, the Jewish creator and star of the HBO comedy “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” was slammed for the crack he made Saturday night. Many deemed it insensitive or in poor taste. “I’ve always been obsessed with women, and I’ve often wondered if I’d grown up in Poland when Hitler came to power and was sent to a concentration camp, would I be checking women out in the camp? I think I would,” he said. He also referred to the Harvey Weinstein scandal, which has encouraged other women to come out and identify their sexual predators, many of them in the entertainment industry, well known and Jewish. “I couldn’t help but notice, a very, very disturbing pattern emerging – which is that many of the predators – not all, but many of them are Jews,” David said. “And I have three words to say to that: Oy Vey Ishmeer. I don’t like it when Jews are in the news for notorious reasons. What I want: Einstein discovers the theory of relativity, Salk discovers a cure for polio. What I don’t want: Weinstein took it out.” Jews and non-Jews criticized David on social media even before SNL wrapped for the night.

Speaking of Weinstein…

Harvey Weinstein hired private security agencies to collect information on the women and the journalists trying to expose allegations of sexual harassment and assault against him, including an Israeli firm made up of former Mossad agents. Black Cube, which Weinstein hired in the fall of 2016 in order to suppress the allegations, has branches in Tel Aviv, London and Paris, and offers its clients the skills of operatives “highly experienced and trained in Israel’s elite military and governmental intelligence units,” the New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow reported Monday, citing the company’s literature and website. Farrow interviewed 13 women who said Weinstein sexually harassed or assaulted them and reported about it last month in the New Yorker, one of the first articles about Weinstein’s alleged abuses. The Black Cube agency was hired specifically to prevent the New York Times and the New Yorker’s investigative reporting on Weinstein, as well as actress Rose McGowan’s book which discusses his alleged abuse, the New Yorker reported, citing a contract signed with Black Cube last July. Over the course of a year, Weinstein had the agencies collect information on dozens of individuals, and compile psychological profiles that sometimes focused on their personal or sexual histories. Weinstein personally followed the progress of the investigation. He also enlisted former employees from his film companies to collect names and place calls that, according to some sources who received them, felt intimidating, according to the magazine.

Natalie Portman wins ‘Jewish Nobel’

Natalie Portman, a celebrated actress, director and social activist, was named the winner of the 2018 Genesis Prize. Portman’s award of the so-called “Jewish Nobel” was announced on Tuesday by the Genesis Prize Foundation. She joins artist Anish Kapoor, violinist Itzhak Perlman, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and actor-director Michael Douglas as recipients of the $1 million prize, which honors individuals who serve as an inspiration to the next generation of Jews through their outstanding professional achievement, commitment to Jewish values and to the Jewish people. Portman’s prize money will go to programs that focus on advancing women’s equality. The funds will be used for grants to organizations involved in promoting women’s educational opportunities, economic advancement, health and safety, and full participation in policy formulation and political activity. A significant portion of the funds will go to programs advancing women’s equality in Israel, the foundation said in a statement. Portman was born in Israel and, after moving to the United States as a child, retained a close connection to her Jewish and Israeli roots. She is a noted social activist in such areas as gender equality, combatting poverty, microfinance, and animal rights. Portman will be honored at the Genesis Prize Ceremony in Jerusalem in June.

J-Word of the Day

Boker Tov (Hebrew)
Meaning: Good morning
Usage: “Boker tov, everyone! Who wants to have some fun?”

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