What Happened: August 3, 2021

The Big Story

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women, including touching “intimate body parts” without consent, according to an independent probe commissioned by State Attorney General Letitia James. The report released Tuesday also accuses Cuomo of creating a toxic work environment in which employees were harassed and intimidated and at least one of the governor’s public accusers was subjected to retaliation. Cuomo has maintained his innocence since he was initially accused of sexual misconduct earlier this year, and again denied the accusations against him on Tuesday.

It has been a steep fall from public acclaim for the three-term governor who was being celebrated as a national hero last year for his supposed leadership during the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, the governor’s order forcing nursing homes to accept elderly COVID-19 patients likely led to thousands of additional deaths—a toll that remained unknown for months because Cuomo and his top aides actively concealed the body count. Yet Cuomo’s reputation was bolstered by many in the media, including his brother, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo. Chris Cuomo, who is still employed by the cable news network, met with the governor’s executive team to help coordinate media strategy in the wake of the accusations against his brother.
Read it here: https://nypost.com/2021/08/03/ag-to-release-report-on-andrew-cuomo-sex-harass-probe-sources/

Today’s Back Pages: Out of the Fog: ‘Do You Jewess…’ Forbidden tales of old world intermarriage.

The Rest

The number of unaccompanied minors detained at the U.S.-Mexican border hit a record high in July. More than 19,000 children traveling alone were picked up at the border last month despite the extreme summer heat that usually leads to a drop in border crossings.

One month later than the White House initially projected, the administration has achieved a key milestone: 70% of U.S. adults have now received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

New York is becoming the first city in the United States to impose a vaccine mandate. The measure, announced Tuesday by Mayor Bill de Blasio and set to go into effect later this month, will require New Yorkers to provide proof that they have received at least one shot of a vaccine to be allowed in indoors businesses such as restaurants and gyms.

With less than six weeks to go, the California recall election targeting Governor Gavin Newsom is tightening. Two new polls show an increase in support for recalling Newsom, a Democrat, as well as an enthusiasm gap, with 80% of Republican registered voters saying they would definitely vote compared to just 55% of Democrats. As Fivethirtyeight points out, “Republicans’ enthusiasm for this race is so high that they make up roughly one-third of the survey’s likely electorate, even though they constitute only about one-quarter of California’s registered voters.”
Read it here: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gavin-newsom-has-reason-to-worry/

Tinder had its busiest year ever in 2020, as use of dating apps overall spiked during the pandemic. Another dating app Hinge tripled its revenue in 2020 compared to 2019, the Associated Press reports.
Read it here: https://apnews.com/article/technology-lifestyle-dating-europe-health-2e9ed87a53d89d1c34f66e8a1fa202db

A week after dropping out of Olympic competition to focus on her mental health, U.S. gymnast Simone Biles took bronze on the balance beam.

A Belarusian political activist who had gone missing, Vital Shyshou, was found hanged in a park near his home in Kyiv on Tuesday. Ukrainian police have launched a criminal investigation.

China’s government has been aggressively targeting the country’s tech sector with fines, legal threats, and regulatory crackdowns to curb its influence. In the latest episode, shares of the video game company Tencent cratered after a state-run newspaper blasted gaming as “spiritual opium” and called for more restrictions on the industry. That led investors to suspect government actions against the gaming giant were coming soon, much the same as happened to the country’s private tutoring business after President Xi Jinping called it a “chronic disease.”

Tech site The Markup reports that Uber offered to assist a driver who was carjacked while working for the company by reimbursing him for a $1,000 insurance deductible only if he signed away his rights to discuss his experiences or disparage the company.
Read it here: https://themarkup.org/working-for-an-algorithm/2021/08/03/uber-requires-nondisclosure-agreement-before-helping-carjacked-driver

Russian authorities recruited 52-year old rabbi Yury Tkach to fake his own death in a ruse set up to bust the Jew-hating cult members who arranged to have Tkach assassinated. The suspects, members of a group that believe the Soviet Union still exists, are on trial in the Krasnodar region of southern Russia.

The Back Pages

In “Out of the Fog,” historical detective Brian Berger digs through newspaper columns, clippings, and other clues to bring readers the fascinating, scandalous, and forgotten tales of the past.

This week: three tales from the late 19th century through the roaring ’20s of forbidden love finding a way from “The City of Churches”—later “The Borough of Churches”—as Brooklyn was once well-known. (Keep in mind, these nicknames were also used sarcastically, to highlight Brooklyn’s plenitude of crimes and civic immoralities.)

***

In 1876, Marie Ryan, Irish Catholic, and Herman Goldschmidt, the only son of a retired clothier on Gold Street in downtown Brooklyn, fell in love. “His father and mother were among the straightest of their sect, and while they would forgive much,” the Daily Eagle reported, intermarriage was something they couldn’t abide. The couple wed anyway in a civil ceremony performed by a Brooklyn alderman. Afterward, Marie began a process of conversion. That October, with Rabbi Isaac Schwaab presiding, the conversion was performed at Temple Beth Elohim on Pearl Street (this congregation is still active in today’s Park Slope), after which a traditional Jewish wedding followed, as did the Eagle headline “A Woman—Renouncing Christianity for Judaism—“The Love of a Christian Maiden Greater for the Husband of Her Choice Greater Than Her Reverence for the Faith of Her Fathers.” 

***

In December 1896, Rebbeca Bodkin Clemus, “a good-looking young woman,” went to Flatbush police court to get an arrest warrant for her husband, Nickolay, of Malbone Street, who’d recently abandoned her.

They had met in a candy store. Nickolay wooed her and, believing him of “Hebrew origin ... although he did not seem very well versed in her religion,” they were married in a civil ceremony. Her husband promised that a proper Jewish wedding, conducted by a rabbi, would follow, but this never took place. Indeed, Nickolay was in fact a Roman Catholic, and his family was so unamused by their son’s romantic ecumenicism, they made life miserable for both bride and groom.

But, as reported by the Eagle, Rebecca’s visit to the police got results. Just one day later, the couple had reunited. At their court hearing, Nickolay told the presiding judge, “Your honor, I am willing to take care of my wife. I am going to have an addition built onto our house, that we can live in rooms all by ourselves, and there can’t be any fighting between my wife and the old folks.”

***

In the fall of 1925, the problem of forbidden intermarriage confronted Harry Healy, a young man of Irish descent living on Quincy Street in today’s Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Ida Weinberg, a “Jewess” of 683 Flushing Avenue, in the heart of Jewish Williamsburg. Unwilling to give up on his love, Healy hit upon a solution to their alleged incompatibility. Leaving the issue of religious practice, and his conversion, to another date, Healy went to Kings County court to change his surname so that it appeared Jewish, which was enough to spare his wife the admitted “embarrassment” of being perhaps the world’s only Jewish Healy. 

“Well, I don’t intend to start an argument here,” said a somewhat skeptical Judge Martin. “I guess the best thing for me to do is to sign this application and say nothing.” Or, as the Eagle headline told it, “Healey Becomes Schwartz So He Can Wed Ida, a Jewess, in Ancient Rites of Her Race.”