WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Today: Orthodox man sues United Airlines • Egypt’s new ceasefire deal • March Madness coach highlights Israeli hostages • and much more.

ON CAMPUS

An entrance to Columbia University in New York City. (Getty)

First in Forwarding

Eliana Goldin, a senior at Columbia and a leader in the campus pro-Israel movement, has been pushing the school to take stronger action against mounting antisemitism for months. But last week, as the university agreed to take steps demanded by President Donald Trump’s administration in an effort to preserve $400 million in federal funding, Goldin found herself grappling with a hollow sense of vindication.

• “Columbia should have done all this beforehand,” she said. “I don't want Trump involved in my school. I don’t think anyone does. But the reality is that nothing was changing until Trump started waving the money over their heads.”

  
  

• In an interview, Goldin also weighs in on the Mahmoud Khalil case, the need for nuance at campus protests and what’s next for the university.

President Donald Trump poses with Secretary of Education Linda McMahon after signing an executive order aimed at closing the Education Department at an event Thursday in the White House. (Getty)

Antisemitism on campus

While pledging to fight campus antisemitism, Trump has cut the office investigating it in half, reports our Arno Rosenfeld. The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has fielded a record number of complaints from Jewish students and groups since October 2023, but the agency said this month it was closing 7 of the 12 regional offices tasked with carrying out investigations, and laying off 250 of the office’s 550 employees. Go deeper ►

• Hundreds of people affiliated with Harvard signed an open letter calling on the university’s president to permanently shut down the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee, accusing the group of “consistent and unrepentant antisemitism.” (The Crimson)

  
  

• Betar, a far-right pro-Israel group, took credit for getting immigration authorities to seek the surrender of Momodou Taal, a pro-Palestinian activist at Cornell University. (JTA)

Opinion | October 8 is a new documentary about the spread of antisemitism on college campuses after the Hamas terror attacks. But our Nora Berman argues that the film’s thesis is hindered by what they decided to omit: Israel’s war in Gaza. The “film advances a mindset that suggests Jews can only be victims, and never aggressors,” Nora writes, adding that “narrowing the experience of being Jewish after Oct. 7 to one of flat victimhood doesn’t help.” Read her essay ►

ISRAEL AT WAR

The aftermath of a car-ramming attack today at a bus stop in Israel. (Getty)

The latest…

• A terrorist rammed his car into a bus stop in Israel, then opened fire, killing an elderly man and critically injuring a soldier before being killed by police. (Haaretz, Times of Israel)

  
  

• An Israeli airstrike on a hospital in Gaza on Sunday night killed a top Hamas political leader, who was a patient there. Another Hamas leader was killed Saturday, as the military broadened its offensive throughout Gaza. (BBC, Times of Israel)

  
  

• Egypt put forward a new ceasefire proposal today: Hamas would free five living hostages, including an American-Israeli, in exchange for a weeks-long pause in fighting, more humanitarian aid into Gaza and the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners by Israel. (AP)

  
  

• Israel’s cabinet on Sunday passed a no-confidence vote to begin ousting the attorney general, a move critics say is part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s push to weaken judicial independence and remove dissenters. (New York Times)

  
  

• Michal Cotler-Wunsh, Israel’s antisemitism envoy, said she was not consulted when Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister for Diaspora Affairs, invited far-right leaders from Europe to an antisemitism conference set for later this week in Jerusalem. (JTA)

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

(iStock)

✈️  An Orthodox passenger alleges in a new lawsuit that a United Airlines pilot forcibly removed him from the plane’s bathroom, exposed him to other passengers and made an antisemitic comment while threatening arrest. (AP)

🇫🇷  The chief rabbi of Orléans, France, was assaulted in the city on Saturday night — an attack French President Emmanuel Macron condemned as a reminder of the “poison” of antisemitism. (Times of Israel)

💰 Nearly 80 bipartisan members of Congress are urging the White House to lift its freeze on security funding for religious institutions — which was part of broader budget cuts to FEMA. (JTA)

🇺🇸  Ahead of his confirmation hearing this week to be the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, former Gov. Mike Huckabee visited the gravesite of the Lubavitcher Rebbe on Sunday, one of the most popular Jewish sites in the world. (X, Forward)

🇮🇶  Emma Tsurkov, sister of kidnapped Princeton graduate student Elizabeth Tsurkov, is set to visit Washington, D.C., today with family from Israel for a rally and to mark two years since her sister’s abduction in Iraq. Catch up on Elizabeth’s story in this column from Jodi Rudoren.

⚽  A court ordered the German parliament’s soccer team to remove its ban on players who belong to the far-right AfD political party. “I just don’t want to have to shower with Nazis,” said one lawmaker opposed to the move. (FT)

🍽️  Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, whom we profiled last week, signed the Faith by Plate Act, requiring the availability of kosher and halal meals in state-run schools, hospitals and prisons. (Fox 32)

✝️  Pope Francis, 88, returned to the Vatican on Sunday after five weeks in the hospital with severe pneumonia, pausing for a surprise visit to his favorite basilica before beginning two months of rest. (AP)

Shiva call ► Max Frankel, who fled Nazi Germany as a Yiddish-speaking boy and became a top editor at The New York Times, died at 94. “If you’re looking for an all-American tale of immigrant success, you’d be hard-pressed to find a story better than Frankel’s,” wrote our Adam Langer in this 2018 essay.

VIDEO OF THE DAY

Auburn’s Bruce Pearl, one of four Jewish coaches in this year’s March Madness college basketball tournament, began his post-game press conference Saturday by bringing attention to Edan Alexander, the last living American hostage still held in Gaza. “There aren’t enough people in this country that know his name,” said Pearl, adding, “Bring the hostages home.” Auburn will next face the University of Michigan, and its kosher-keeping 7-foot star, on Friday. Go deeper ►

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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