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WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION |
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Good morning. Today: Israeli authorities frustrated by group chat debacle • Honoring a freed hostage, with pancakes • 90 years since the release of the most infamous work of Nazi propaganda. |
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Make a tax-deductible contribution to the Forward todayand you’ll not only support the Forward’s independent journalism, you’ll also receive a free digital download of Jodi Rudoren’s timely essay, “Raising Inquisitive Children,” a perfect addition to your Haggadah this year! |
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Mahmoud Khalil appears at length in a new documentary, The Encampments. (Screenshot/Watermelon Pictures) |
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What Mahmoud Khalil says about Gaza and Israel in ‘The Encampments’ documentary. Khalil, “the recent Columbia graduate detained by ICE for his role in pro-Palestinian protests at the school, acknowledged he could be deported in a new documentary filmed prior to his arrest,” writes our Louis Keene. The documentary, Encampments, bumped up its U.S. premiere by months to debut on Thursday in the wake of Khalil’s arrest and detention. And the film provides the clearest information to date on Khalil’s worldview — a subject of serious interest “since his arrest on March 8 made him arguably the most famous pro-Palestinian protester in the world.” Read the story ➤
I’m scared about antisemitism, but my friends just want to talk about the war. “I’m pretty sensitive about antisemitism,” a student whose family was decimated by the Holocaust wrote to our advice column, Bintel Brief. But “Misunderstood” can’t help but notice that conversations about antisemitism always tend to lead to the same frustrating discussions about the Israel-Hamas war: “I know what’s happening to the Palestinians is bad, but I can’t help feeling like they bring it up to prove that antisemitism is justified.” Our Mira Fox responded, writing “I think the bigger issue is that you do not feel like your friends are emotionally supporting you, hearing your point of view or empathizing with your experience.” Read her advice ➤
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A Cornell University graduate student’s efforts to avoid deportation by the Trump administration hit a setback Thursday. (Bing Guan/Bloomberg via Getty Images) |
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Elsewhere on campus… A district judge rejected Cornell University student Momodou Taal’s request to block the government from deporting him after his student visa was revoked over his participation in pro-Palestinian campus protests. (AP)
Amid pressure on campuses from President Donald Trump’s administration, the University of Michigan will end its much-heralded diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, which have served as a model for schools nationwide. Jewish and Muslim students both reported harassment on the flagship Ann Arbor campus after Oct. 7. (New York Times)
A number of the 60 colleges and universities facing Trump administration investigations into antisemitism had previously been told the Department of Education had ended such investigations after they took action to improve the campus environment for Jews. (Reuters)
New York’s Yeshiva University may have announced it would grant recognition to a student LGBTQ+ club after a drawn-out battle — but its president said in a Tuesday email to the student body that the values of “Pride” are “antithetical” to the school. (JTA)
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Protesters against Israel’s government assembled in Tel Aviv on Thursday night. (Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images) |
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A drawn-out drama preceded the Thursday beginning of a controversial antisemitism conference in Israel, as global Jewish leaders dropped out in protest of the inclusion of far-right European politicians. One challenge organizers might not have expected: Being asked by Bosnia to execute a warrant for the arrest of Serbian leader Milorad Dodik, who is in Israel for the conference. Dodik faces charges of flouting Bosnia’s constitution; Israel — which is a member of Interpol, but has spent the last several months arguing against its own set of international arrest warrants issued for leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — faces a dilemma.
To our Israel-based columnist Sruli Fruchter, Israel’s welcoming of the far-right at the conference, which is ongoing, is cause for serious concern. “This myopic perspective refuses to understand history’s testimony that while the far-right may not be today’s most pressing problem, it almost certainly will be tomorrow’s,” he writes. |
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Plus… Protests against Hamas continued in Gaza on Thursday for the third day running, after Hamas and other Gaza-based terror groups suggested harsh repercussions would await anyone taking part in the demonstrations. (Times of Israel)
And Israelis protested against their government as the Knesset voted to pass a highly controversial law that would increase legislators’ control over judicial appointments. (Guardian)
Israel provided intelligence to aid the U.S. in conducting a strike on the Houthis, and Israeli authorities complained to U.S. officials after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s sharing of sensitive information about the operation in a Signal group was made public. (Wall Street Journal)
The U.S. offered Hamas a new proposal to help restore a ceasefire, contingent on the group freeing American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander. In return for Alexander’s release, Trump would publicly call for calm in Gaza and for renewed ceasefire negotiations. (Times of Israel)
A Tel Aviv pop-up, Keith Siegel’s Pancake House, aims to honor the freed hostage and keep attention on the 59 hostages who remain in Gaza. At its opening, Siegel said that, for him, the joy in food comes from “being with the people I love.” (JTA)
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The Supreme Court’s upcoming docket could provoke small but significant shifts in American Jewish life. (Win McNamee/Getty Images) |
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Opinion | The Supreme Court is taking on 3 cases that could help reshape American Jewish life. “After a year of relative quiet, the Supreme Court has jumped back into the church-state wars with a vengeance: Three blockbuster cases to be heard in coming weeks could significantly impact the relationship between church and state generally, with particular consequences for American Jews,” writes law professor Michael A. Helfand. “What’s at stake: When can Jewish families opt out of public school curricula? What kind of Jewish schools ought to be eligible for government funding?” And more. |
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WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
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Rep. Elise Stefanik will be, at least for now, staying in the House of Representatives. (Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Anti-Defamation League) |
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In D.C…. Trump withdrew his nomination of pro-Israel darling Rep. Elise Stefanik as ambassador to the United Nations, citing a need to maintain Republicans’ very slender majority in the House of Representatives. (JTA)
Vice President JD Vance lashed out against the online publication Jewish Insider after it ran a piece suggesting his comments about Europe in the leaked Signal group chat raised the hackles of some Republican senators. (X)
Washington, D.C., officially banned child marriages following a push led in part by a Jewish organization; now, anyone who wishes to get married in the District will have to be 18 or older. (JTA)
In the rest of the world… The Anti-Defamation League has quietly ended its celebrated anti-bigotry program, A World of Difference, amid a pivot to focus more completely on fighting antisemitism. (Jewish Currents)
Argentina will declassify documents related to the so-called “ratlines” that aided Nazis fleeing Europe for South America after World War II. (Times of Israel)
The British government is following Australia’s lead, and trying to institute new measures to prevent protests in front of houses of worship, and specifically synagogues. (JTA)
The Portland Trailblazers bet big last year on the Israeli basketball star Deni Avdija — and now he’s helping remake the struggling franchise. (Forward)
And in the Middle Ages… If it has ever occurred to you to wonder what opinion your average American might hold of Maimonides, the great 12th-century Torah scholar — and who among us has not asked this exact question? — a new poll holds answers. Twenty-one percent favorability isn’t bad; but the idea that 8% of Americans are walking around with actively poor impressions of the sage is, well, worth pondering. (YouGov)
What else we’re reading ➤ A Jewish graduate student writes: “Columbia expelled me for my Palestine activism, but I won’t be silenced” (The Nation) “Will ICE come to my dorm today?” (The Cut) “Human-rights groups aren’t considering Israel’s side” (The Atlantic)
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Ninety years ago today, director Leni Riefenstahl’s Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will premiered in Berlin. But the film hasn’t been consigned to the dustbin of history; in 2019, some 400 film experts ranked it as the 45th-best movie ever made by a woman. The year after, I wrote about the mystery of why so many people seemed determined to excuse Riefenstahl’s role in the Third Reich: “Her struggle to succeed in a system arrayed against her due to her gender was of so much value,” their argument seemed to go, “as to negate the effect of what she produced, or the intent with which she produced it.” |
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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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