Texas Un-Bans the Holocaust Books

Texas's lieutenant governor walked back a book-ban list after Jewish groups noticed it included "Night" and "The Diary of Anne Frank." Dan Patrick had pushed to pull 2,000-plus titles flagged by the group Recover America; after the outcry, he told JTA that Texas students "must learn about the Holocaust." ¹

Hundreds of Jewish day-school students rallied outside Gracie Mansion Friday, the very site nearly 400 had petitioned organizers to avoid. They worried it would look political; organizers used it anyway, and nearly 80 of SAR's 90 eighth-graders got excused absences to attend. Rabbi Avi Weiss called Mayor Zohran Mamdani's rhetoric on Israel "antisemitism": "You're talking about my grandchildren." ²

Deborah Lipstadt is opening a shop to train the people who actually write antisemitism policy. The former U.S. antisemitism envoy launched the Emory Policy Institute on Countering Antisemitism last week, pairing undergrad fellowships with funded D.C. internships. Her pitch: "laser focused on policymaking," not another research center. ³

Two new Israeli spy shows are testing whether audiences still want them. Fauda's fifth season, streaming on Netflix since Sept. 8 and built around October 7's aftermath, just became the most-watched season in the history of Israel's Yes network. Checkout, a dark comedy about an aging Mossad man, sold out its Quad Cinema premiere in New York, then went hunting for a U.S. distributor and found, per director Jonathan Dekel, "crickets all over." A March Pew poll found 60% of Americans view Israel unfavorably, and Dekel says pitching Israeli stories abroad now runs into what he calls "the 'P' problem." The home audience showed up. Everyone else is still deciding. ⁴

Yom Kippur begins at sundown tonight, 9 Tishrei on the calendar. It's also 53 years since Egypt and Syria opened the Yom Kippur War on this exact holiday in 1973, catching Israel mid-fast. ⁵⁶