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| | | WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION |
| | Good morning. Today: Trump says decision on Iran strike to come within two weeks; Arab Israeli towns lack protection from missile strikes; and Jewish Ohio Congressman speaks out after violent highway encounter. |
| | | | A demonstrator holds a picture of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran. (Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images) |
| President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he’ll make a decision “within the next two weeks,” on whether to join Israel’s attacks on Iran, adding “there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future.” His statement was a change from previous comments that suggested that he might make a hastier choice: “I like to make the final decision one second before it's due, because things change, especially with war,” Trump said on Wednesday.
The president’s looming decision has sparked recollections of former President George W. Bush’s choice to invade Iraq in 2003: Google searches for “Iraq war” have skyrocketed since the onset of Israeli airstrikes in Iran last week. Here, two of our writers offer arguments for why that parallel isn’t accurate — for worse, or for better.
For worse: “I believe history will judge a war of regime change — especially if Trump brings our country in — as an epic catastrophe whose magnitude will exceed George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq by several orders,” writes Larry Cohler-Esses, who once lived in Iran, and who reported from the country around the signing of the nuclear deal brokered by former President Barack Obama in 2015.
“I hope I am wrong about this; because if we do join in, a U.S. population that never sought this war and was not prepped for it in any way by its leaders (unlike with Bush) will view Israel as having sucked the U.S. into its own fight,” Larry writes, “with the associated costs in treasure and possibly blood.” Read more ➤
For better: “While concerns that a U.S. attack on Iran might result in another Iraq-scale disaster are understandable, the parallels are ultimately superficial,” writes Dan Perry, our Israel-based columnist and a former Middle East bureau chief for the Associated Press. Start with the most important fact, he argues: “There is no serious indication that the U.S. intends to invade Iran or carry out regime change through boots on the ground.” Read more ➤ |
| | A Jewish veteran’s tombstone, embellished with the Star of David, at the Santa Fe National Cemetery. (Robert Alexander/Getty Images) |
| The far-right is saying Jews don’t serve in the military — they’re wrong. Trump’s base is arguing over whether his openness to engagement in Iran is an abandonment of the isolationism of his “America First” politics — and, as they do, conspiracy theories about the forces that might draw Trump into the conflict are proliferating online. Among them: “a pernicious claim that Jews are trying to drag American soldiers into a war they would never fight in themselves,” writes our antisemitism reporter, Arno Rosenfeld. There’s a long history to that particular trope; as with many longstanding antisemitic canards, the facts tell a different story. Read more ➤
And: The MAGA rift over Iran has given new life to another old question: Should AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby, be registered as a foreign agent? Our Hannah Feuer has the answer.
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| | Friends and family mourn over the coffins of victims of an Iranian missile attack that destroyed a building in the northern Arab-Israeli city of Tamra last weekend. (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images) |
| The latest: While 82% of Israeli Jews support the government’s choice to launch strikes against Iran, only 11% of Arab Israelis share that sentiment, according to a new poll. (Haaretz)
A video in which Israeli Jews appear to celebrate an Iranian missile falling on an Israeli Arab village has gone viral; “they sang about what happened to my family,” said a survivor of the strike, which killed four of his family members. Separately, Yair Golan, chairman of Israel’s Democrats party, issued a sharp critique of the country’s “huge gaps in defense for Arab society.” (BBC, Times of Israel)
An Iranian strike that hit the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot wiped out labs, with one professor at the institute saying “they managed to harm the crown jewel of science in Israel.” (AP)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked outrage after speaking about his family’s postponement of his son Avner’s wedding as a sacrifice made amid the conflict, while standing in front of a hospital building in Beersheba badly damaged by a missile. (Guardian)
The reported two dozen Israeli civilians killed so far include a 94-year-old woman, whose 100-year-old husband survived a strike on their apartment building. More than 200 Iranian civilians are estimated to have been killed in Israeli airstrikes so far, including an 8-year-old girl and a poet who was about to turn 24. (Haaretz, Reuters, New York Times)
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| | | | Abraham Cahan, founder of the Forward. (New York World-Telegram and the Sun staff photographer – Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division) |
| Yes, it’s a challenging time. So, for a change of pace, here are two sweet stories to take you into the weekend:
Fifth graders write — Why is Abraham Cahan, founder of the Forward, worth celebrating? For Jewish American Heritage month, in May, students at one Long Island school were tasked with learning about Cahan, the socialist founder of this very publication. The best part? They shared their thoughts on his legacy with us. “Just like all the other Jews that are more famous than him, he also put a lot of work in to make this country better,” one student wrote.
How my grandparents met: a Yiddish-American romance. “My grandpa Harry fell in love with my grandma Lil at an anti-war meeting” in New Haven, writes Emily Kaplan — an origin story of which Cahan himself might have been proud. After “falling in love in the 1930’s, then the anxiety of the war years” — during which Harry served at the Battle of the Bulge — “they fell into a daily routine of raising three children on a modest field organizer’s salary.”
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| | | | WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
| | Rep. Max Miller, an Ohio Republican, on Capitol Hill in November, 2024. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) |
| On politics… Ohio Rep. Max Miller, who is Jewish, said he was run off the road Thursday morning by a man who displayed a Palestinian flag and threatened the lives of Miller and his family. Separately, New York City police are investigating Islamophobic threats against Zohran Mamdani, a leading mayoral candidate. (CBS, New York Times)
Vance Boelter, who allegedly assassinated a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband and wounded another lawmaker and his wife in a shooting last week, had previously expressed concerns that the U.S. was abandoning Israel and its “Judaic/Christian foundations,” an acquaintance said. (New York Post)
On everything else… After a person who allegedly planned a mass shooting at a San Antonio Jewish Community Center was arrested, one Jewish leader expressed frustration at how “routine” such scares are becoming: “It’s terrible. It’s tragic. It’s not OK. And yet, this is just part of what we do.” (KSAT)
An Australian journalist who reported last year on Columbia University protests over the Israel-Hamas war was denied entry to the U.S. last week — after being flagged for questioning because of that reporting. In a Customs and Border Protection interview after landing in Los Angeles for a stateside visit, the journalist wrote, an agent “asked my opinion of Israel, of Hamas, of the student protesters. He asked if I was friends with any Jews.” (New Yorker)
New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage reportedly removed images of Trump from an exhibit about hate speech last fall, prompting employee concerns. (Jewish Currents)
The wife of the man who attacked Jews in Boulder, Colorado earlier this month issued a plea for compassion after she and the couple’s five children were detained, with the Trump administration pushing for their deportation. “We have been cooperating with the authorities, who are trying their best to get to the bottom of this,” she said in a statement. “We send our love to the many families who are suffering as a result of the attack.” (Fox 31)
Shiva call ➤Edward Anders, a cosmochemist who escaped the Nazis and worked to preserve the memories of Latvian Holocaust victims, died at 98 … Suzanne Rappaport Ripton, a Holocaust survivor who was awarded the British Empire Medal, died at 88.
What else we’re reading ➤ “I’d barely drifted back to sleep when another siren sounded, followed by the scariest moment of my life” (JTA) “Edan Alexander, freed from Hamas captivity after 584 days, feted on return home to New Jersey” (JTA) “Haim Sets Off on a Rampage” (New Yorker) “Germany’s young Jewish and Muslim writers are speaking for themselves” (Conversation)
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| | | | Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images |
| Congregants celebrated after an Iranian missile struck a synagogue in the city of Holon on Thursday — because, despite the destruction, the Torahs made it out intact. |
| Thanks to Benyamin Cohen for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Julie Moos for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com. |
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