WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Good morning. Today: Israeli contestant advances to Eurovision finals • Palestinian star of documentary on Gaza mourned at Cannes premiere • Trump sanctions pause ICC investigations • And more.

OUR LEAD STORY

Does Wikipedia really have an antisemitism problem? (iStock by Getty Images)

Opinion | Is Wikipedia a cesspool of antisemitism? Don't trust the ADL's answer. A recent ADL report claimed to find broad, systemic evidence of antisemitism on Wikipedia, prompting two dozen members of Congress to call into question the site's approach to moderating content related to Jews. Only one problem: Some researchers cited by the ADL, in its report, say their findings have been misconstrued. “The data the ADL does give is cherry-picked to show Wikipedia’s alleged overemphasis on Israeli crimes and underemphasis on Palestinian violence,” writes one, Shira Klein, who co-authored a study on Holocaust distortion on the platform. Read her essay ➤

ISRAEL

An exhibit of Sam Griffin’s post-Oct. 7 oil paintings is currently on view in Manhattan. (Bernard Heller Museum)

How the war changed an artist’s life, his politics — and his painting. The painter Sam Griffin — who spent close to four months serving in the IDF in Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas war — has a new solo exhibit at Hebrew Union College’s Bernard Heller Museum, focused on his work after the Hamas attack of Oct. 7. They tell a story of the psychological dissonance that’s descended on much of Israel since that brutal day. “We moved from settlement to settlement, entering buildings not knowing if we’d be ambushed by terrorists at any moment,” Griffin told our contributor, Simi Horwitz. “I began to take photographs and do small sketches as a way to calm myself. But when I returned home without any transition between being a soldier in Gaza and diapering the baby — that’s when the real trauma began.” Read the story ➤

Opinion | Netanyahu got his own son’s name wrong — was this a trivial mistake or a revealing Freudian slip?At a recent event, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mistakenly referred to his son, Avner, as Avraham. For some watching, the error felt profound, as Netanyahu champions a new military operation in Gaza despite a lack of public appetite for a continuing war. “In Israel, the mere mention of a biblical name can create immediate associations,” writes our contributor Aviya Kushner. “And some immediately wondered whether what Netanyahu is thinking about these days, in private, in his heart of hearts, is Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice.” Read her essay ➤

Palestinians seek food rations outside a crowded distribution center in the northern Gaza Strip. (Bashar Taleb/AFP via Getty Images)

More on Israel…

• President Donald Trump said “a lot of people are starving” in Gaza as he concluded a trip to the Middle East, his first foreign tour of his second term, during which he skipped a visit to Israel. (Yahoo)

  
  

• Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, said that Trump’s administration doesn’t intend to compel Netanyahu to wrap up the war amid ongoing negotiations over potential hostage releases. (Times of Israel)

  
  

• Israel is engaged in talks with Syrian leaders about the country potentially joining the Abraham Accords, the first term Trump initiative that saw several Arab countries normalize relations with Israel. (Times of Israel)

  
  

• Trump’s February sanctions on the International Criminal Court over its arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, have stalled the court’s work, with chief prosecutor Karim Khan losing access to his email amid other far-reaching consequences. (AP)

  
  

• Several freed Israeli hostages will march in Manhattan’s annual Israel Day parade this Sunday. (Times of Israel)

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CULTURE

Max Kozloff in Battery Park, standing in front of Ned Smyth’s Upper Room, 1987. (Pedro Meyer)

The towering Jewish critic who taught me to grok art and hate Picasso. Jessica Siegel first knew Max Kozloff, an influential art historian who died in April, as the father of a young charge for whom she babysat. “A half century later, his standing-room-only memorial at the Greenwich Village Funeral Home doubled as a surprising education in 20th century art controversies” — including over what it means to be a “Jewish” artist — “and a return to the people and places of my youth,” she writes.

The woman who saved stolen Jewish art — and the writer who is finally telling her story. The writer Michelle Young became obsessed with Rose Valland — a “quiet, relentless French art historian who risked everything to save Jewish-owned art from the Nazis,” writes Laurie Gwen Shapiro — through reading copious amounts of nonfiction about women spies during WWII. Valland, Young told Shapiro, kept popping up “as the plucky nemesis to Hermann Göring’s Nazi art dealer in Paris” — and eventually, Young decided to give her a biography of her own.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Harvard University. (Mel Musto/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

👨‍🎓  Shabbos Kestenbaum, the recent Harvard Divinity School graduate who became a major voice critiquing universities’ handling of campus antisemitism after Oct. 7 — and then a campaign surrogate for President Donald Trump — settled a lawsuit against his alma mater. (Harvard Crimson)

🎤  Israel’s Eurovision contestant, Nova music festival survivor Yuval Raphael, earned a place in Saturday’s finalcompetition after her appearance in Thursday night’s semifinal, amid ongoing protests over Israel’s participation in the contest. (AP)

📽️  Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, a documentary featuring Fatma Hassona, a Palestinian photojournalist based in Gaza, received an emotional premiere at Cannes, weeks after Hassona was killed in an Israeli missile strike. (Variety)

😨  Three right-wing extremists in the United Kingdom were convicted on terrorism-related charges over a plot to attack synagogues or mosques. (Haaretz)

👀  Rahm Emanuel, former President Barack Obama’s one-time chief of staff and a former mayor of Chicago, suggested he was open to a 2028 presidential run. (Politico)

Shiva call ➤ Charles Strouse, the composer behind Broadway hits like Annie and Bye Bye Birdie, died at 96.

Mazel tov ➤ To my colleague Arno Rosenfeld, who took home a Deadline Club award last night for his reporting on one kibbutz’s agonizing debate over how to move forward from Oct. 7.

What else we’re reading ➤

• “The Israeli reporter getting the scoop on Trump’s high-stakes diplomacy” (Vanity Fair)

• “From 1948 to now, a Palestinian woman in Gaza recounts a life of displacement” (AP)

• “Inside the growing push for more religion in public schools” (Axios)

VIDEO OF THE DAY

As we await the new Superman movie — trailer, above — read up on the most important Jewish facts about the beloved superhero. And keep an eye out for Rachel Brosnahan, who rose to fame as the titular (very Jewish) comic on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, as Lois Lane.

Today’s newsletter made me:

🤓 Confident I understand issues impacting American Jews.

🔗 Connected to the Jewish world.

💡 Curious to learn about something I read.

🤷🏽‍♀️ No different.

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