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| WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION |
| | | | | | Good morning. Here’s what you need to know to start your day. Tech: The Department of Defense has awarded a contract to Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, which last week went on an antisemitic conspiracy spree.
Israel: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government may be on the verge of toppling, as a key Haredi party said it would quit his coalition.
Baseball: A Jewish pitcher was set to start at tonight’s MLB All-Star Game. He bowed out in the menschiest of ways.
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| | | | Marc Ribas holds a flag and wears independently produced merchandise advertising “Alligator Alcatraz,” the new state-managed immigrant detention facility in Ochopee, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) |
| Opinion | First Camp Auschwitz, now Alligator Alcatraz — why the right is obsessed with commodifying brutality: The Florida GOP and others are selling T-shirts and beer koozies promoting a controversial new immigration detention facility in the Everglades; reports of inhumane treatment of detainees are already proliferating. “Memes, silly names, jokes and cartoonish merch — all of this commodification does the same thing,” writes our deputy opinion editor, Nora Berman. “It turns the Trump administration’s devastating crackdown on immigrants into a joke for his supporters to laugh at, rather than a set of real-world policies affecting very real people for whom they could conceivably have compassion.” Read her essay ►
Why is the Department of Homeland Security quoting the Bible on Instagram? Scroll through social media and you may see a verse from Isaiah, posted by President Donald Trump’s administration as a way to underscore their deportation plan. “The aesthetics of these videos,” writes our Mira Fox, “suggest that the U.S.’s actions are not only exciting or noble, but also divinely ordained.” Go deeper ►
Plus… Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok — which last week spewed antisemitic content and praise for Hitler — will now be used at the Department of Defense. The contract is worth up to $200 million. (Washington Post)
A new Christian nationalist-aligned church in D.C. has opened, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was spotted in the pews. (Religion News Service)
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| | | | Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press last week in Washington, D.C. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images) |
| In a move that could topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, a key Haredi party in his coalition said early Tuesday that it was quitting over disputes about a bill on military draft exemptions for yeshiva students. (AP)
War with Hamas… In a video posted to social media Monday night, Netanyahu denied any blame for the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, insisting that Israel’s intelligence services — rather than its political leaders — failed to act on warnings, even as criticism over the war and his leadership mounts. (Times of Israel)
The Israeli military said it killed a Hamas militant who took Emily Damari hostage during the Oct. 7 attack. Damari said she’s glad he’s gone — although the “true victory,” she added, will be bringing home the 50 hostages still in Gaza, only 20 of whom are believed to be alive. (Jerusalem Post)
The three members of a United Nations commission investigating Israel resigned this month — a move that came as the Trump administration has taken to issuing sanctions against international investigators seen as hostile to Israel. (Times of Israel)
War with Iran… During their recent 12-day conflict, Israel and Iran waged a parallel battle online, using AI-generated disinformation and coordinated social media campaigns to shape public perception. (New York Times)
A covert Iranian bot network spreading disinformation about British politics went silent for 16 days after Israeli airstrikes on June 13 knocked out parts of Iran’s internet, offering what analysts say is direct evidence of state-sponsored Iranian online interference in foreign politics. (JTA)
Plus… Israel carried out airstrikes in both Syria and Lebanon; the latter hit Hezbollah sites as a warning against the group’s efforts to rebuild its attack capabilities. (Washington Post, Reuters)
Palestinian journalist Nasser Laham was released Tuesday after eight days in custody. The Israeli police claim that Laham ran a Hezbollah-linked TV outlet’s West Bank office; he says he cut ties with the network in Nov. 2023. (Haaretz)
Aladin Hassan, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and professional soccer player, says Israeli security officials threatened to revoke his citizenship over his decision to play for the Palestine national team and a Qatari club. (Haaretz)
The family of Saif Musallet, a 20-year-old Palestinian-American allegedly beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, is urging the U.S. to investigate, a call echoed by J Street and others demanding accountability for his killing. (JTA)
Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett rejected Tucker Carlson’s claim that Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier accused of sex trafficking, worked for the Mossad. (JTA)
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| | | | A Superman billboard in Times Square. (Craig T Fruchtman/Getty Images) |
| The new ‘Superman’ is being called anti-Israel, but does that make it pro-Palestine?
The film depicts a war between two nations: Boravia, a U.S. ally, and Jarhanpur, a country under authoritarian rule. They’re both fictional, writes our Olivia Haynie, but that hasn’t stopped people from finding real-life parallels. Context: Director James Gunn insists he wasn’t thinking of the Middle East when writing the film. But online commenters are drawing parallels between Boravia and Israel, and Jarhanpur and Palestine — fueling claims that the movie takes sides in a real-world conflict it never mentions.
Analysis: “The fact that the movie sides with the country possibly representing Palestine doesn’t seem to be a reason to call it anti-Israel — Superman is against the killing of innocent people no matter who they are,” Olivia writes. “Superman also would have stopped the massacre on Oct. 7, not because he’s pro-Israel or anti-Palestinian, but because his primary concern, as he tells Lois in an impassioned defense of his actions, is the preservation of life.”
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| | Is a plot twist in the new film antisemitic?
Many have long insisted on a Jewish interpretation of Superman, who was created by the children of Jewish refugees and made his comics debut in 1938. But a revelation made by the villain Lex Luthor in the new film hints that Superman’s parents may have wanted him to believe he was superior and encouraged him to “infiltrate his host planet and change the makeup of its population,” writes our PJ Grisar. “It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a variation of the Great Replacement Theory!” Go deeper ►
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| | | | WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
| | Max Fried was one of two Jewish stars set to play in the All-Star Game. Both are out due to injury. (Jim McIsaac/Getty Image) |
| On campus…
🎒 New York University has been working for years with a pro-Israel antisemitism consultancy, which may have played a role in the school’s clampdown on pro-Palestinian speech and demonstrations. (Washington Square News)
✍️ Nearly 400 Jewish groups and synagogues signed a letter to the head of the National Education Association, warning of rising antisemitism within teachers’ unions — a concern heightened by the NEA’s recent move to break ties with the Anti-Defamation League. (Jewish Insider, Forward)
And elsewhere…
⚾ Jewish pitcher Max Fried was tapped to start in tonight’s Major League Baseball All-Star game. But he passed, letting a rival take the mound instead. It was “a menschy move,” writes our sports reporter, Louis Keene. (Forward)
🎞️ Britain’s media regulator is investigating a BBC documentary about children in Gaza after a review found it violated editorial standards; the 13-year-old narrator is the son of a senior Hamas official. (AP)
🔥 The BBC is also shelving a documentary about the Los Angeles wildfires from the same director. (Deadline)
Shiva call ► Brian Clarke — a leading stained-glass designer whose work can be seen all over the world, including at the Holocaust Memorial Synagogue in Darmstadt, Germany — died at 71.
What else we’re reading ► “The Diary of Anna Franco” by Larry David (New Yorker) … “Jewish food is making a comeback in Poland” (Smithsonian Magazine) … “Evangelicals rehearse ancient red heifer ritual linked to Jerusalem temple prophecy” (Religion News Service) |
| | | | | First in Forwarding: My wife, Elizabeth, and I adopted a pug puppy over the weekend. We’ve named her Bluma Cohen — pronounced Bloo-ma; “Blue” for short. It’s Yiddish for “bloom/flower/blossom.”
She’s already making herself at home alongside our other pug, Fergus; Jolene, our Great Pyrenees; Eggnog the cat, and a flock of chickens known as the Co-Hens.
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| Thanks to PJ Grisar, Louis Keene and Jacob Kornbluh for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Talya Zax for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com. |
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