The Antisemitic Campaign That Lost

Randy Fine crushed a primary opponent who said he wants to "kill Israelis." Fine won Florida's 6th Congressional District GOP primary Tuesday, 56.7% to Dan Bilzerian's 18%. Bilzerian's campaign posted "the Jew is scared" and ran an ad invoking Hitler; someone defaced a Fine campaign sign with a swastika. Fine called it "an organized pogrom against the Jews." ¹

A man charged in a Manhattan synagogue attack says he's Jewish, too. Federal prosecutors charged Larry Montes, 46, with hate crimes after he disrupted Shabbat services at Central Synagogue this month and punched a 63-year-old congregant. His Facebook is full of pro-Israel posts; per the complaint, he told investigators he "identified as Jewish." ²

Naftali Bennett wants Israel to hit Iran directly, not just its proxies. The former prime minister told his party's Tel Aviv conference Wednesday: "A strike by the Iranian octopus's tentacles inside Israel's borders will exact a price inside Iran's borders." He also accused Netanyahu's government of tearing "Israeli society to shreds." ³

Sunny Sandler's new movie doubles as a lesson in Ashkenazi genetics. Don't Say Good Luck, Julia Hart's Netflix drama from Adam Sandler's Happy Madison Productions, follows a New Jersey Jewish family (mezuzah, menorah, a deli called Birenbaum's) after the mom's cancer returns. The script works in that 1 in 40 Ashkenazi Jews carry a BRCA mutation, one of several details Kveller flagged as sharper than the genre usually bothers with. Steve Buscemi and Bebe Neuwirth play the grandparents. It's currently the #1 movie on Netflix. ⁴

Today is 7 Elul, three weeks before Rosh Hashanah. This week's parsha, Ki Teitzei, packs in more commandments than any other Torah portion — laws on lost objects, rooftop fences, and paying workers on time. ⁵⁶⁷