Good Tuesday morning.
Jewish holidays are generally something that I – as a not terribly observant member of the faith – associate with the fall and winter.
There are, of course, a wide variety of observances that occur year-round, and every time one pops up on my radar screen (usually in the context of writing these daily missives), I promise myself I will do better at keeping track.
And then, as is the case with so many resolutions, I forget and have to start all over again the next time a holiday is flagged in my Google search results. Such is the case with Shavuot, which begins today at sundown and lasts through sundown tomorrow.
“Shavuot” means “weeks” in Hebrew. The holiday occurs seven weeks after Passover and marks two significant milestones – one religious, the other not. The first is the receiving of the Torah on Mount Sinai by Moses – remember, this was something of a belabored process – and second is the start of the summer harvest.
There are two main traditions when it comes to observing Shavuot.
The first is pretty self explanatory – staying up all night to read Torah, which, of course, isn’t for everyone, and so some simply go to synagogue and listen to the ten commandments read aloud.
The second – consuming lots of dairy products, from cheesecake to cheese blintzes – is a little bit harder to explain, and there are multiple theories espoused (as per usual, with Judaism).
Some believe that the Israelites learned about keeping kosher upon receiving the Torah, and therefore were unable to consume any of their previously ill-butchered meat and so stuck to dairy – just to be on the safe side – until they got the new regimen down.
Others think the dairy consumption tradition is a nod to the “land of milk and honey” promised to the Israelites by God. Practically speaking, there was an abundance of milk available in the spring and early summer because that’s when cows were birthing in pre-industrial times, and so there was a lot of cheese being made to preserve this bounty.
Then there are still others who think the whole thing was a marketing scheme cooked up by the industrial dairy producers as a means of getting people to consume more of their products. (You might be inclined to believe this when you learn that many Jews are lactose intolerant and some studies suggest up to two thirds of Ashkenazi Jews can’t break down the sugar in dairy products).
For those among us who are not so big on the dairy thing – and I feel for you, because what is life without cream cheese as a foundation for your bagel and lox? – you can take comfort in the fact that eating dairy on Shavuot is a custom and not a requirement.
So, go ahead, indulge in that tofu “cheesecake” and don’t feel an ounce of guilt about it – no religious guilt, anyway, I can’t speak for the calorie content there.
It’s still on the unseasonably cool side, with temperatures hovering in the low 70s. Skies will be mostly cloudy – again – with the chance of a stray shower of thunderstorm.
In the headlines…
The U.N. Security Council adopted a U.S.-backed cease-fire plan for the Gaza Strip after Russia opted not to block it, adding extra heft to a growing international push for an end to the fighting; 14 of the 15 Council members voted in favor, with Russia abstaining.
It means the Security Council joins a number of governments, as well as the G7 group of the world’s richest nations, in backing the three-part plan that was unveiled by President Joe Biden in a televised statement on May 31.
Israel vowed to persist with its military operation in Gaza, saying it won’t engage in “meaningless” negotiations with Hamas, shortly after the Security Council overwhelmingly approved a US-drafted ceasefire plan intended to bring an end to the eight-month war.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday in Jerusalem, as the United States sought to put pressure on Hamas and Israel to agree to a cease-fire in Gaza.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that the “progressive movement is undermined” by the antisemitism that is on the rise in the U.S.
Ocasio-Cortez hosted a discussion with Jewish Council for Public Affairs CEO Amy Spitalnick and Stacy Burdett, a former staffer at the Anti-Defamation League, on Monday to discuss antisemitism and the “fight for democracy.”
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators at UCLA clashed with law enforcement officers yesterday, sometimes physically, as they attempted to occupy outdoor areas and re-establish a protest encampment in the last days of the spring quarter.
Anti-Israel protesters chanted “Long Live the Intifada” during a depraved celebration outside a downtown Manhattan exhibit that memorializes the murder and rape victims of the Oct. 7 Nova Music Festival where 364 people were killed by Hamas terrorists.
Donald Trump’s mandatory pre-sentencing interview yesterday ended after less than a half-hour of routine and uneventful questions and answers, a person familiar with the matter told the AP.
Trump met with his probation officer, only unlike most every other New York City defendant required to attend the sit-down in person, he did so from the comfort of his Florida home and with his attorney present.
Trump answered all questions in the virtual interview and was described as polite, respectful and accommodating to the probation officers, according to a New York City official familiar with the interview.
The city’s public defenders criticized what they said were “special arrangements” for Trump and urged the probation department to “ensure that all New Yorkers, regardless of income, status, or class, receive the same pre-sentencing opportunities”.
Legal expert Jonathan Turley said that it would be “absurd” if Trump were sentenced to jail for his conviction on felony charges, predicting that he would instead get off with a lighter punishment.
The attorney general’s office of New Jersey is reviewing whether Trump’s recent conviction in the New York hush money case could impact him holding liquor licenses at three of his golf courses in the state.
A federal judge slightly narrowed the classified documents case against Trump, saying prosecutors cannot charge him based on an episode in which he is said to have shown a highly sensitive military map to a political adviser months after leaving office.
Newly revealed footage from Jan. 6, 2021, shows Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer berating Trump administration officials over the former president’s refusal to order the National Guard to break up the Capitol riots.
The Biden administration is considering a plan to protect from deportation undocumented immigrants who are the spouses of U.S. citizens and give them access to work permits.
Though final details have not been decided, officials are reviewing an existing legal authority known as “parole in place” that would shield select undocumented immigrants from deportation and allow them to work legally in the country as they seek citizenship.
The White House is weighing relief for immigrants who crossed the border unlawfully but are eligible for green cards through marriage to U.S. citizens.
Biden warned of “old ghosts in new garments trying to take us back” in remarks commemorating Juneteenth, and vowed that his administration was committed to protecting Black history and civil rights.
Jurors in Hunter Biden’s federal gun trial began deliberations late yesterday after prosecutors concluded their case with an exhaustive inventory of evidence they presented in hopes of proving he knowingly falsified a firearms application in 2018.
Jurors return this morning to consider evidence against the president’s son, who has pleaded not guilty to three charges related to his buying of a gun in 2018 that prosecutors say violated federal law because he was addicted to crack cocaine.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. told a woman posing as a Catholic conservative last week that compromise in America between the left and right might be impossible and then agreed with the view that the nation should return to a place of godliness.
Alito’s wife said that she wants to get back at people who raised a controversy after she and the justice were criticized last month for flying politically affiliated flags at their homes.
“You come after me, I’m gonna give it back to you,” Martha-Ann Alito said in the recording of a private conversation at the Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual dinner on June 3.
“You know what I want?” the justice’s wife said to Windsor, who secretly recorded the conversation. “I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag because I have to look across the lagoon at the Pride flag for the next month.”
The comments from Ms. Alito were posted online late yesterday by Windsor, who describes herself as a documentary filmmaker and “advocacy journalist.”
The shipping lane into the Port of Baltimore fully reopened yesterday evening, allowing full capacity cargo traffic into the port for the first time since the Francis Scott Key Bridge was struck and collapsed in March.
“We’ve cleared the Fort McHenry Federal Channel for safe transit,” said Col. Estee Pinchasin, Baltimore district commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, in a statement. “USACE will maintain this critical waterway as we have for the last 107 years.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul made three new leadership appointments to the New York Office of Cannabis Management, her office said, following an assessment of the office targeted to find opportunities for improvement amid the legal cannabis rollout.
Among the appointments is Felicia A. B. Reid as the executive deputy director and acting executive director. A nationwide search is underway for a permanent executive director.
Susan Filburn, a deputy commissioner of employment security at the Department of Labor, has been appointed chief administrative officer at OCM. The governor’s office said this is a new position.
Hochul’s decision to pull the plug on congestion pricing has plunged the future of the MTA’s ability to maintain and upgrade the region’s transit system into disarray, but the governor said that those who insist the work can’t go forward “lack imagination.”
“To assume that the only funding source had to be congestion pricing shows a lack of imagination,” Hochul said, without elaborating on other possibilities.
Hochul said that politics were not behind her last-minute decision to delay a New York City congestion pricing program that stunned lawmakers last week.
Organized by the Riders Alliance, protesters gathered outside Broadway Junction station, hoisting picket signs taking Hochul to task for, as many protesters described it, betraying the city and its transit riders by pulling the plug on congestion pricing.
While warning of a previous era when transit “was in the toilet,” the head of the MTA vowed to move the agency forward by reordering and shrinking its list of planned improvements following Hochul’s announcement of a “pause” to congestion pricing.
MTA CEO Janno Lieber said the agency would emphasize “basic stuff to make sure the system doesn’t fall apart”, adding: “For New Yorkers, mass transit is like air and water. We need it to survive.”
The MTA will be ready to forward with congestion pricing “if and when” the program gets the green light, Lieber said. “We at the MTA aren’t giving up on congestion pricing, not at all,” he told reporters.
The credit rating on the MTA’s farebox revenue bonds could be hurt by the delay of New York City’s congestion pricing plan, according to S&P Global Ratings.
Hochul moved to fund doula care and paid time off for expectant mothers before they give birth as she unveiled an $8 million plan for a new maternal health center in the Bronx.
The Democratic-led state Legislature passed a bill to add 12 new Civil Court judgeships throughout New York City to address backlogs in cases — but excluded Staten Island, the most Republican borough.
A judge ordered the state ethics commission to halt its prosecution of former state Sen. Jeff Klein, who filed a petition arguing the panel was formed in violation of the state constitution and lacks the authority to investigate the allegations against him.
The New York State Education Department proposed ending a requirement that students pass Regents exams to earn a high school diploma, as part of the most sweeping overhaul of public school graduation measures in decades.
If implemented, the move would represent a shift away from standards that have been in place in some form for more than 100 years.
A political action committee formed by allies of Biden has filed a challenge against the New York petitions submitted by presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to appear on a third-party line in November.
Mayor Eric Adams wouldn’t answer questions about revelations that a federal grand jury is reviewing evidence as part of an investigation into his 2021 campaign, promising to not be bothered by “distractions” and criticizing reporters for asking.
One member of Adams’ Charter Revision Commission maintains a New Jersey residence, drives a car with Garden State plates and is registered to vote at a Brooklyn address where he doesn’t live — raising concern about whether he’s legally permitted to serve.
New York City politicians broke ground yesterday on a new wind turbine factory in Brooklyn that will become the largest of its kind in the U.S. once it’s completed over two years from now.
The leader of one of New York’s most elite schools has stepped down after a damning internal audit found “disquieting problems of religious and cultural bias” at the school.
Port Authority officials announced plans to expand the use of license plate readers at crossings between Staten Island and New Jersey to crack down on car theft and other crimes.
The husband of a Bronx daycare owner pleaded guilty to federal charges after a 1-year-old died from being exposed to fentanyl at the center, officials said.
Mark Graham, a prominent local chef hired by Hattie’s Restaurant to run the kitchen of its Albany location two years before it opened, is no longer employed by the company.
The nurses at Schenectady’s Ellis Hospital say they and management have averted a strike and reached a tentative contract agreement with management.
A Chinese retailer offering a variety of household items and other inexpensive goods, including plush toys, stationery, perfume and skincare products, is opening at Crossgates Mall.
Stand-up comic and Saturday Night Live alum Pete Davidson will perform at the Palace Theatre in Albany on Sept. 14, Live Nation announced. Tickets will go on sale 11 a.m. Friday at livenation.com.
Could Farm Aid be heading back to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center? A close reading of Neil Young’s tour “tee” leaves points to maybe.
Schenectady’s new Central Park Pool, paid for with at least $10 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds, will open on June 22.
A federal advisory panel voted in favor of recommending Eli Lilly’s new drug that is under consideration for its potential to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
The drug, made by Eli Lilly, is donanemab. It modestly slowed cognitive decline in patients in the early stages of the disease but also had significant safety risks, including swelling and bleeding in the brain.
Christophe Deloire, who negotiated to free imprisoned journalists around the world and offered refuge to reporters under threat as the head of media freedom group Reporters Without Borders, died Saturday. He was 53.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
