U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the U.S. will launch a team to help the Ukrainian authorities prosecute war crimes committed during the Russian invasion; the effort will be headed by Eli Rosenbaum, a 36-year veteran of the Justice Department who previously led U.S. eff0rts to identify and deport Nazi war criminals. Garland announced the initiative during a surprise visit to Ukraine on June 21.

Rosenbaum was head of the department’s Office of Special investigations, and was involved in more than 100 cases t9 revoke citizenship from or deport alleged Nazis. He also served as the department’s director of Human Rights Enforcement Strategy and Policy.

Nearly four months after Russia invaded Ukraine, Kyiv says it has identified thousands o0f suspected war crimes cases. Most notorious have been the allegations of wanton murder of scores of civilians in Bucha, just outside the Ukrainian capital.

Shul member Tom Byrne makes the “Jews in the News” column this month with an announcement that he will appear as Sigmund Freud in a dramatic reading of a new play by Jerry Levin, a member of North Fork Reform Synagogue. The reading will be held on Sunday, June 12, 4 p.m., at the Peconic Community Center on Peconic Lane. Admission free; vaccination required; masks appreciated; registration required at northforkreformsynagogue.org/.

In the playwright’s imagination, Freud, who founded psychoanalysis, and Theodore Herzl, who was instrumental in the creation of the State of Israel, live on the same street in Vienna. Each is transformed by the time in which they live: the rise throughout Europe of nationalism and antisemitism, and the personal and political motivations of each of the two extraordinary men. The result: a clash of giants.

For more information, contact the synagogue.

Joshua Cohen, an American novelist, won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel, The Netanyahus. The book imagines a college job interview in the 1950s for Benzion Netanyahu, academic and father of the future Israeli prime minister. The novel explores themes of Jewishness and diaspora as Netanyahu’s fatalistic view of Jewish history bumps up against that of the narrator, an assimilated American-Jewish professor. The Pulitzer committee described the novel as “…a linguistically deft historical novel about the ambiguities of the Jewish-American experience, presenting ideas and disputes as volatile as its tightly-wound plot.” The novel also won the 2021 National Jewish Book Award.

Shuly Rubin Schwartz began her work as the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary nearly two years ago, but it wasn’t until May 17, 2022, that the Conservative Movement flagship formally celebrated Schwartz’s appointment, which makes her the first woman to lead the 136-year-old seminary.

In a speech delivered at the seminary’s Manhattan home, the chancellor remarked on her own Conservative Jewish upbringing and the inspiration of her mother, an executive director of a Jewish children’s services agency. She said that studies show that “fewer Jews are building rich, sustaining Jewish lives bound up with the Jewish story, Jewish practice and learning, and helping Jews in need.” To address this, she said JTS would expand its cultural programming, both in person and virtually.

Prior to the chancellorship, she served as provost at JTS and was for 25 years dean of the Albert A. List College of Jewish Studies.

This just in: Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people of the year. In the U.S., he has an over 70% approval rating — a hero and an everyman.

Élizabeth Borne, whose family fled the Nazis in Poland in 1939, has been named the new Prime Minister of France, the first time in 30 years that a woman has held the position. Borne will replace Jean Castex in the role, the Elysée Palace said in a statement o May 23. Borne formerly served as minister of the environment, transportation and labor. Her appointment follows President Emmanuel Macron’s reelection on April 24.

Borne, 61, was born in Paris to Joseph Bornstein and Marguerite Lecésne. Her father is a Jew of Polish origin.

On March 30, the U.S. Senate officially confirmed Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt’s nomination to become the Biden administration’s special envoy to combat and monitor antisemitism. 

A wide range of Jewish groups had been lobbying the Senate to swiftly confirm Lipstadt pointing to her lofty qualifications and arguing that leaving the position open was significantly hampering the US’s ability to address a growing wave of antisemitism. Pressure to hold a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee rose following the January standoff at a synagogue in Colleyville, TX, where a gunman held four worshippers hostage.

Lipstadt, 75, is best known for her appearance in a landmark British legal case in which she fought a libel suit brought by Holocaust denier David Irving. That experienced was depicted in the Hollywood feature film “Denial,” with Rachel Weisz playing the part of Deborah Lipstadt.

She served most recently as the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust studies at Emory University in Atlanta, where she was the founding director of the Institute for Jewish Studies. She has also served in several roles at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and was asked by President George W. Bush to represent the U.S. at the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Lipstadt’s new position carries the rank of ambassador.