Good morning. Jewish schools around the world have temporarily closed in fear of attacks after a former Hamas leader issued what some saw as a threat of more violence. That, and more of the latest from the war, below. |
TEL AVIV: Friends comfort Osa Me'ir (center) Friday after she learned that the second of her twin brothers was confirmed killed during the Hamas attack. (Leon Neal/Getty Images) |
With 400,000 Gaza residents already displaced, the Israeli Defense Forces called early Friday for 1.1 million people in the strip to relocate south. The United Nations said Israel had given Gazans only 24 hours to make the move, with many roads within the strip already reduced to rubble, and pleaded for Israel to rethink the order, warning of a humanitarian disaster. Here’s what you need to know this morning:
• An Israeli embassy worker in Beijing was stabbed Friday. China’s foreign ministry said the attack happened outside embassy grounds; the victim is in stable condition. • The former leader of Hamas called for Muslims to join a “day of rage” with global protests against Israel, sparking fears at Jewish institutions of the potential for further violence. In the U.S. and across the world, some Jewish schools closed for the day in preparation, while others have heightened security. • The Gaza Health Ministry said that 1,537 Palestinians, 500 of them children, had been killed since Israel began counterstrikes after the Hamas attack. • Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on a whirlwind tour of the Middle East as the U.S. aims to prevent the conflict, which has already seen military engagement from Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon, from spreading. Today, Blinken met with King Abdullah II of Jordan before meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority; he is also scheduled to stop in Qatar, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. On a Thursday visit to Israel, Blinken affirmed U.S. support for Israel and met with the families of Americans taken hostage by Hamas.
• Jewish Republicans issued a rare rebuke to former President Donald Trump after he bashed Israel in a Wednesday speech. While Trump was perceived as a champion of Israel while in office, one Republican Jewish Committee board member said, “He’s speaking as a candidate again and he’s giving all of us a clear reason not to support him.”
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Hayim Katsman was murdered by Hamas on Kibbutz Holit, and died shielding a woman who later saved the two children. (Hannah Wacholder Katsman) |
He was a peace activist with a PhD. In dying, Hayim Katsman saved 3 other lives. Katsman, 32, was a car mechanic, landscaper and musician who studied the relationship between religion and radicalism in researching religious Zionist communities. “My father grew up in Poland. He survived the Holocaust with false papers,” Katsman’s mother told our reporter Beth Harpaz. “My mother was a refugee from Germany who left after Hitler came to power. It’s chilling to me that my son died hiding in a closet.” Read the story ➤ He wanted to tell the story of ordinary Palestinians — will anyone want to listen now? Nathan Thrall, who lives in Jerusalem, and Abed Salama, a Palestinian resident of a village in the occupied West Bank, were in the U.S. together to promote Thrall’s new book about the 2012 death of Salama’s 5-year-old son when news broke of Hamas’ attack on Israel. Irene Katz Connelly, a Forward culture writer, spoke to Thrall about the resonances between the stories he tells in the book and the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza: “I think that what happened on Saturday is going to make it tremendously more difficult for people to have any receptivity to hearing about the ordinary lives of Palestinians under occupation,” he said. Read the story ➤ Plus: • Why we need to stop calling Hamas attackers ‘militants’ or ‘gunmen’ and start calling them ‘terrorists’ • I grieved at a funeral in Israel this week. But not for too long — another was about to start • ‘I pray for those families’: Pope Francis calls on Hamas to free Israeli hostages |
Rabbi Samuel Stern at Temple Beth Sholom in Topeka. (Courtesy of Samuel Stern) |
How one heartland rabbi is helping congregants connect to Israel this Shabbat. As synagogues across the U.S. expect a surge in attendance for the first Shabbat after Saturday’s attack, Samuel Stern, a Reform rabbi, is planning to incorporate writings by Zionist thinkers and poets to meet the needs of his small Jewish community of Topeka, Kansas. “It’s kind of a reestablishment of not just an Israeli identity for some people but a Jewish identity for them as well,” he told our reporter Louis Keene. Read the story ➤ Plus: • Wedding during wartime: A donated cake, a volunteer band, fairy lights by the bomb shelter • Explaining to my American friend why I’m staying in Israel • Playing Monopoly to the sound of warplanes Columbia University keeps rallies for Israel and Palestine far apart a day after alleged assault on Israeli student. After a 24-year-old Israeli student was allegedly attacked with a stick on Wednesday, Columbia closed its campus to anyone without a student I.D. Thursday in preparation for the charged gatherings. The campus has seen particular tension since the onset of the war, reports our editorial intern Camillo Barone, including after some members of the General Studies students’ WhatsApp group chat appeared to praise Hamas and mock Israeli hostages. Read the story ➤ Plus: • Stanford instructor removed for targeting Jewish students as ‘colonizers’ after Hamas attack on Israel • France bans pro-Palestinian rallies as antisemitic incidents spike Stay informed: You can follow our partners at Haaretz for live updates throughout the day. And we’ve taken down our paywall for coverage of Israel’s war with Gaza. Read all of our stories here. |
Join the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies & The Naomi Foundation for the 2023 Naomi Prawer Kadar Annual Memorial Lecture with academic and cultural critic Dr. Ilan Stavans, a virtual talk titled “Yiddish and Ladino: Forking Paths.” This event will take place at noon on Wednesday, October 25 on ZOOM. |
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
Orthodox children in Borough Park, Brooklyn. Jacob Daskal, who subjected his victim to, in her words, “nightly rape sessions,” was head of a private crime patrol called the Boro Park Shomrim Society. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) |
⚖️ The former head of an Orthodox crime patrol was sentenced to 17 years in prison over charges related to sexual abuse of a 15-year-old girl. (New York Times) 👀 Prosecution of a Jewish man who attempted to enter his former Jewish school with a gun will move forward in Tennessee after the man waived an initial hearing; the case will be presented to a grand jury. (Associated Press) 😨 Boston police are investigating after the spray-painted word “Nazis” appeared on the Palestinian Cultural Center for Peace. The vandalism is being treated as a hate crime. (Boston Herald) 🏈 The NFL will hold a moment of silence before weekend games to honor Israeli civilians killed by Hamas. The first took place at last night’s matchup between the Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs. (CBS Sports) 😔 An Australian man faces charges over alleged antisemitic harassment of four Sydney teenagers who displayed an Israeli flag on a car. The man was granted bail on the condition he stay away from areas of Jewish communal gathering. (Guardian)
What else we’re reading ➤ Israel’s war with Hamas “shows just how broken social media has become” … Processing conflict despite “the numbing sameness of war footage” … “Taking care of yourself is a mitzvah.”
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(JACQUELYN MARTIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) |
During his Thursday visit, Secretary Blinken embraced a dual American-Israeli citizen who survived Hamas’ devastating attack on a music festival, which killed almost 300. --- Thanks to Benyamin Cohen for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Beth Harpaz for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com. |
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