MIDTERMS: “Sean ‘Simcha’ Eldridge, the Upstate New York congressional hopeful has fallen so far behind Republican incumbent Chris Gibson — 24 points, per the latest poll — that the Cook Political Report has moved New York’s 19th congressional district from ‘lean Republican’ to ‘likely Republican.'” [Politico]

LOIS LERNER BREAKS SILENCE: “Employers won’t hire her. She’s been berated with epithets like “dirty Jew.” Federal agents have guarded her house because of death threats. And she’s spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending herself against accusations she orchestrated a coverup in a scandal that has come to represent everything Americans hate about the IRS. Lois Lerner is toxic — and she knows it. But she refuses to recede into anonymity or beg for forgiveness for her role in the IRS tea party-targeting scandal.” [Politico]

TALK OF OUR NATION: “Three leading American Jews have decided to undertake the important mission of preventing the world from forgetting. Filmmaker Steven Spielberg, World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder and Israeli-American media tycoon Haim Saban have joined the organization coordinating the memorial ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camps by the Soviet Army.” [YNET] • Newly released CIA documents reveal fascinating details about Nazi counterfeiters. [Daily Beast]

AMERICAN JAILED IN CUBA TAKES ON THE US GVT: “A government subcontractor who has spent over four years imprisoned in Cuba should be allowed to sue the U.S. government over lost wages and legal fees, his attorney told an appeals court Friday.” “Gross was detained in December 2009 while working to set up Internet access as a subcontractor for the U.S. government’s U.S. Agency for International Development, which does work promoting democracy in the communist country. It was his fifth trip to Cuba to work with Jewish communities on setting up Internet access that bypassed local censorship. Cuba considers USAID’s programs illegal attempts by the U.S. to undermine its government, and Gross was tried and sentenced to 15 years in prison.” [AP]

SUSPECTS IDENTIFIED IN MURDER OF MIAMI RABBI: “Just days before the start of the Jewish High Holy Days, detectives believe they have identified “some of the people involved” in Rabbi Joseph Raksin’s murder according to Miami-Dade Police Director JD Patterson. “We’re trying to build a case,” Patterson told CBS4 News. “We do think we have some sense of some of the people involved, I’ll just put it that way. But we still have to build a case before we can actually formally charge anybody. And we won’t do that in isolation, we’ll do that in cooperation [with the State Attorney’s Office].” Raksin was shot to death walking to a North Miami Beach synagogue on August 9. The 60-year-old rabbi from Brooklyn was in South Florida visiting his daughter. His killing set off prayers and vigils from Miami to New York.” [CBS]

BOOK REVIEW: Tom Nolan reviews David Liss’ new book “The Darkest Hour,” an alternative-history thriller in which “the fascist Oswald Mosley is prime minister, King Edward is on the throne and Winston Churchill is in exile in Canada. The Axis powers have won World War II, and the SS and Gestapo supervise a Nazi-occupied Britain.” [WSJ]

HOLLYWOOD: “Why Won’t Tina Fey’s New Movie Make Its Jewish Plot Known in the Marketing?” by Noah Gittell for Mic: “The movie tells the story of four Jewish siblings who come together after the death of their father to sit Shiva, a weeklong mourning period for immediate family members. The word “Shiva,” however is not mentioned in the trailer, nor in any interviews done by the cast and crew, nor in press notes. Neither, for that matter, is the word “Jewish.” Instead, the forced reunion of these often antagonistic family members is depicted in all promotional materials as a “last request” of their deceased father, a quirky, sitcom-type punishment instead of the hallowed religious tradition that it is.”

—“The degree to which the religious aspect is hidden in all promotional materials raises good questions about how accepting mainstream America is of Jewish stories, or rather how accepting Hollywood thinks mainstream America will be. Here is the surprising, alarming truth: Although there are many prominent Jewish directors and producers, lead characters that both identify as Jewish and are played by Jewish actors rarely make it to the screen. If you look at the top grossing movies of 2013, you have to go all the way down to No. 17 to find a Jewish protagonist. That would be Irving Rosenfeld of American Hustle, played by Christian Bale, a gentile.” [MIC]

SPORTS BLINK: The US Tennis Association says a team of Orthodox Jewish old-timers must play on the Jewish Sabbath or forfeit a shot at title. The USTA insists there is no discriminatory intent.A hearing is set for Wednesday. [NYDN]