Good Monday morning.
In case you are in need of a rude awakening, there are 41 days remaining until the autumnal equinox ( Sunday, Sept. 22), which is – technically speaking – the first official day of fall. That said, the unofficial end of summer, Labor Day, is only 22 days away. After that, it’s back to sweaters and backpacks and all things pumpkin spice.
Better get your summer living in while you can. The tomatoes are amazing right about now. I had a simple tomato salad at the home of a good friend on Saturday night – ripe tomatoes, onions, oil and vinegar, salt and pepper, torn mint and basil. Delicious.
I followed that up with a version of my own last night to which I added corn, cucumbers, and some lemon juice instead of the vinegar. Again, delicious. There was also a watermelon gazpacho served at this friend’s home (he’s an amazing chef) with more mint and feta that I am still thinking about. I’m sure I will be thinking about it when January rolls around.
I don’t mean to sound a melancholy note here, but I am feeling a little on the gray side. Maybe it’s because it’s the saddest day on the Jewish calendar – Tisha B’Av, which is the culmination of a three-week period during which Jews mark the destruction of not one, but two Holy Temples in Jerusalem.
The First Temple was burned by the Babylonians in 423 BCE. The Second Temple fell to the Romans in 69 CE, unleashing a period of suffering from which – those who are observant believe – the nation of Israel (I’m using this term to refer to the Jewish people, not the actual place) never fully recovered.
As I’ve said in this space many times before, I am not particularly observant, but I feel very culturally Jewish – now more than ever, given the turn of events we’ve seen in the past nine moths. I have felt compelled to delve more deeply into my heritage and my religion, and simultaneously felt more frightened about identity than ever before.
Tisha B’Av is observed through fasting, deprivation and prayer.
Since this is a day of mourning, many of the Jewish laws related to how to properly grieve a loss apply – including, in this case, neither eating nor drinking; avoiding engaging in marital relations (in other words, no sex); eschewing leather footwear, fine clothing, creams and ointments; and even avoiding the sending of gifts or exchanging greetings – though if someone greets you, you are allowed to respond in kind, so as not to seem rude.
The fast lasts 25 hours, as Tisha B’Av is one of six fast days in Judaism and also one of the two “major” fast days, meaning that one abstains from the aforementioned activities (plus a few more) from sundown the night before to sundown on the day of the holiday itself. There are also four “minor” fast days, which last only from sunrise to sundown.
The most well known major Jewish fast day is Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). One of the minor fasts actually celebrates (maybe “honors” is a better word?) Queen Esther, who is the hero of Purim. The fast actually occurs the day before Purim, and I had no idea that it existed until today, which should give you some idea of just how much I have to learn about my own religion.
It was kind of a weird weekend, weather-wise, thanks to the remnants of Debby. Clear without much humidity, but oddly windy, I found. Thankfully, a lot of branches came down in the backyard, but we didn’t lose any more trees. Today will be gray and sort of chilly, with clouds in the morning and showers in the afternoon. Temperatures will only reach highs in the low 70s.
In the headlines…
Donald Trump’s campaign, which has whiffed in its early attacks on Kamala Harris’ new presidential campaign, will grapple this week for a more effective foothold after the vice president transformed an election of stunning surprises.
Trump has taken his new obsession with the large crowds that Harris is drawing at her rallies to new heights, falsely declaring in a series of social media posts on Sunday that she had used artificial intelligence to create images and videos of fake crowds.
Harris, whose political career was born in San Francisco two decades ago, returned to the city for the first time since clinching the Democratic presidential nomination, hoping to reset relations with a tech community that has soured some on President Biden.
Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and California governor Gavin Newsom attended a Harris fundraiser in San Francisco at the Fairmont Hotel, where nearly 700 people had purchased tickets that cost at least $3,300 and as much as $500,000.
In response to the controversy over Walz claiming he carried certain weapons “in war,” a spokesperson for the Harris-Walz campaign clarified on Saturday that Walz “misspoke.”
The Democratic vice-presidential candidate is facing scrutiny over the comments he made in a 2018 video about his military service, with conservatives blasting the governor for misrepresenting his service, suggesting he served in a combat zone when he did not.
Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance sought to turn the tables on Walz, asserting that the Minnesota governor is the one being “weird.”
In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, the Ohio senator pointed to Walz shaking his wife’s hand before hugging her onstage at the rally in Philadelphia at which Harris unveiled him as her running mate.
Walz, now the Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee, asked his high school students in 1993 which country was most at risk for genocide. Their prediction came to pass: Rwanda. Thirty-one years later, the class project is drawing new attention.
Trump claimed credit for securing Los Angeles as the host city for the 2028 Olympics, in a late-night Truth Social post.
For the third presidential election in a row, the foreign hacking of the campaigns has begun in earnest. But this time, it’s the Iranians, not the Russians, making the first significant move.
Trump’s campaign said Saturday in a statement that it had been hacked after Politico reported that it had received emails from an anonymous account with documents from inside Trump’s campaign operation.
A first of its kind cultural center and museum dedicated to Dominican history and heritage is coming to New York City, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced.
Hochul held a live briefing yesterday in the aftermath of major flooding in Steuben County, specifically around the Town of Canisteo. You can watch the full briefing at the top of this article.
Following months of backlash and criticism over her interactions with the state’s Muslim community in the wake of the war in Gaza, Hochul has hired her office’s first director for Muslim American affairs: Mamadou Siré Bah.
Both Hochul and her former boss, ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, were scheduled to be in the Hamptons over the weekend.
Mayor Eric Adams, who has focused heavily on rodent extermination efforts across the city, got a $300 ticket thrown out last week that alleged a rat infestation is persisting at his Brooklyn property.
Members of Adams’ inner circle are ensnared in this summer’s hottest legislative battle at City Hall: a bill pushed by labor and reviled by industry to require hotels to be licensed.
Norman Siegel, an informal Adams advisor, decided to double down on his initiative to get people without homes to enter the city’s shelter system voluntarily, seeking to prove to the mayor that he doesn’t need to commit people against their will.
The latest round of illegal smoke shop busts in Manhattan revealed startling and dangerous conditions in the bowels of city storefronts, Adams and the NYC Sheriff say.
Businessman and philanthropist Robert Tucker today is expected to be named the Fire Department of New York’s new commissioner, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the appointment.
Tucker, 51, is the CEO of a private security company and a longstanding member of the board of directors of the FDNY Foundation, the official not-for-profit organization of the FDNY.
Tucker will succeed Laura Kavanagh as leader of the Fire Department of New York City. A longtime supporter of the department, he has worked for 25 years in law enforcement and private security.
Columbia University is restricting access to its Manhattan campus to only those who have school IDs as part of a new fall policy to deal with the possible return of unruly anti-Israel protesters.
After relaxing its color-coded threat-monitoring system to its lowest level, green, and allowing the school to be open to all this summer, Columbia will raise its threat level to orange and only allow students and staff on the Morningside campus starting today.
Authorities abruptly shut down the Dominican Day Parade in Manhattan yesterday when a massive, unruly crowd swarmed the Midtown route and a teen slashed a 65-year-old man across the face, law-enforcement sources said.
New York Democratic ex-Rep. and current congressional candidate Mondaire Jones is coming under fire for championing proposed legislation while in office that would have allowed convicts including rapists and murderers to vote from prison.
Queens Democratic Councilwoman Nantasha Williams is trying to drum up Council support for a controversial state bill requiring police officers to buy personal liability insurance in case of lawsuits — a move critics say is a veiled attempt to “Defund the Police.”
After an almost year-long delay due to budget cuts, officials said the Queens Public Library’s renovated Broadway branch in Astoria will reopen today.
Around 11% of New York City’s public restrooms are out of commission, according to a Gothamist analysis of the most recent data posted to the city’s OpenData portal by the parks department.
Marriott International has filed a $2.6 million federal lawsuit against a hotel in Queens for becoming a migrant shelter in violation of its franchise agreement.
NYC Algebra teachers are dreading the next school year — when nearly all of them will have to use a commercial math curriculum being blasted as “a complete disaster.”
A 19-year-old woman knocked to the ground and molested early Saturday in a tony Upper East Side neighborhood near Gracie Mansion was rescued by a nearby doorman, cops said.
A 22-year-old Brooklyn man was charged with assault as a hate crime after the police said he yelled “Free Palestine” and “Do you want to die?” before stabbing a young man near a synagogue in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn early Saturday.
Bad news for anyone with Dolcezza ice cream in the freezer: the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recalled 13 of the brand’s products due to listeria contamination.
Steve Symms, a former Idaho GOP lawmaker who made staunch conservative views his political brand and rattled the 1988 presidential campaign by falsely claiming that Kitty Dukakis once burned an American flag, has died at 86.
A joyous Games, a cleaned-up Seine and improvements to the region brought cheer to Parisians as they handed off the Summer Olympics to Los Angeles.
The U.S. Men’s Basketball Team’s 98-87 victory over France averaged 19.5 million viewers on NBC and Peacock. That ranks as the most-watched gold medal game since the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, based on fast national data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics.
In their winning bid to host the 2028 Summer Olympics, Los Angeles leaders pledged that the city’s version of the Games would be the greenest ever — a goal they planned to achieve in large part by making access to the event “car-free.” Is it possible?
USA Gymnastics said it has obtained new video evidence showing that Chiles’ coach, Cecile Landi, submitted the inquiry into her score in the women’s floor exercise final before the one-minute deadline − 47 seconds after her score was announced, to be exact.
The governing body said in a statement that it has submitted the video, as well as a formal letter, to the Court of Arbitration for Sport as part of a request to reinstate Chiles’ score of 13.766 and allow her to keep her bronze medal from the Paris Olympics.
The USA women’s basketball team laid their claim as the most dominant team in the history of the Olympics, surviving a nerve-shredding final against France to win 67-66 and secure their eighth consecutive gold medal in the final event of the Paris Games.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
