JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.

WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Gazan poll finds drop in support for Hamas, Students for Justice in Palestine sues University of Maryland, American Jew sentenced to death in the Congo, rabbi weighs in on Trump’s immigrants-eating-pets claim, and new DVD set recalls the time Bob Dylan played Elijah the prophet in an underrated Western.

ISRAEL AT WAR

An ambulance takes the wounded to a hospital in Beirut on Tuesday, after pager explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon. (Getty)

Paging Hezbollah

At least 11 people were killed and nearly 3,000 injured Tuesday when hundreds of pagers equipped with explosives and issued to Hezbollah members detonated across Lebanon at 3:30 p.m. local time.

Old-school tech: Hezbollah began widespread use of pagers after Oct. 7, out of fear that Israeli intelligence operations could track their cell phones.

Bad batch: The pagers came from a Taiwanese company and were apparently tampered with before reaching Lebanon. (The company shifted the blame to a manufacturer in Hungary.) Some pagers from that shipment also ended up in Syria, where at least 14 people were injured.

Use it or lose it: Israel planned to use the pager attack later on “as a surprise opening blow in an all-out war to try to cripple Hezbollah,” according to a former Israeli official, but sped up its plans over concerns that the secret operation was about to be exposed.

What’s next? Israel has not taken credit for the operation. Hezbollah has vowed revenge.

Opinion | A daring attack on Hezbollah may reveal Israel’s strengths — and its most terrifying weakness:Before the pager incident, there was talk of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanting to fire his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and replace him with a lawyer who has no security credentials. “The removal of the cabinet’s one real military expert would be a cause for enormous alarm,” argues our columnist Dan Perry. Read his essay ►

From our opinion section in August: With Israel’s north on the brink of war, a chef commits to the land he loves.

Vice President Kamala Harris made remarks about Israel while speaking Tuesday at an event hosted by the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia. (Getty)

In other Israel news…

Vice President Kamala Harris was asked about Israel’s war with Hamas on the campaign trail Tuesday. “I am entirely supportive of the pause that we’ve put on the 2,000-pound bombs. And so there is some leverage that we have had and used. But ultimately, the thing that is going to unlock everything else in that region is getting this deal done.”

A poll in June found that a majority of Gazans thought Hamas was correct to attack Israel on Oct. 7. When the poll was conducted again this month, it found something different: Most Gazans no longer support the attack. (Read more findings from the survey.)

Institutional investors diverted roughly $40 billion out of Israel since the onset of the war.

What can help us better understand antisemitism in relation to Israel? Using precise terminology, explains my colleague Arno Rosenfeld in the latest edition of his newsletter.

ELECTION 2024

(Getty)

Opinion | Jews are commanded to love the convert. What about the immigrant? After former President Donald Trump falsely claimed that Haitian immigrants were eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio, the quiet Midwestern town has seen an uptick in violent rhetoric. “The anti-immigrant bandwagon is a large and, sadly, welcoming one,” writes Rabbi Avi Shafran. “But the Jewish attitude toward the foreign-born people” should “be one of mercy and concern, whether those immigrants are here legally or otherwise.” He adds: “We Jews, whose immigrant forebears, strangers in a strange land, experienced pain and fear, need to recognize the similar pain and fears of others.” Read his essay ►

Related: A Jewish musician whose remix of Trump’s cat claims went viral previously transformed a section of Psalms into a certified bop.

Former President Donald Trump spoke at an August event about Israel at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. (Getty)

Trump again targets Harris in his latest initiative against antisemitism

Trump is scheduled to give a speech Thursday in D.C. about “fighting antisemitism in America” where, according to the announcement, he plans to link Harris to Hamas.

Shortly afterwards, Trump is set to speak at a conference of the Israeli American Council. And he is also apparently planning to visit on Thursday the neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, home to a large Hasidic population.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, the JTA reports, “a slate of Jews who have deep ties in the Jewish organizational world endorsed Harris, saying she was best suited to advancing the U.S.-Israel relationship and combating antisemitism.”

ALSO IN THE FORWARD

Bob Dylan in Sam Peckinpah’s film, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. (Getty)

That time Bob Dylan played Elijah the prophet in an underrated Western — and did a better job than you might think: A new DVD box set of Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid offers film buffs an extended cut that settles an old mystery: Just what, exactly, was Bob Dylan supposed to be doing in the movie? Seth Rogovoy writes that, without edits, Dylan’s character, known simply as Alias, becomes much more than a musician cameo transforming into what “may well be the central axis upon which the story revolves.”

Plus: Judaism did not factor in The Catcher in the Rye, but that doesn’t mean J.D. Salinger’s work was devoid of spirituality.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

University of Maryland students gathered in November for a pro-Palestinian demonstration. (Getty)

🎒 The University of Maryland has banned all student-led events set for the Oct. 7 anniversary. Now the Students for Justice in Palestine is suing, saying the decision infringes on their First Amendment rights. (Times of Israel)

🏫 The president of Rutgers University plans to step down in June 2025 after a year marked by protests — including pro-Palestinian encampments and a faculty strike that required him to hire personal security. (New York Times)

😲 An American Jew was sentenced to death for his role in an attempted political coup in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (JTA)

🧬 The genetic testing company 23andMe agreed to pay a $30 million settlement “over a data breach last year that specifically targeted customers of Ashkenazi Jewish and Chinese ancestry.” (JTA)

🗣️ A protester interrupted a Senate hearing on antisemitism Tuesday, yelling an antisemitic epithet as Sen. Ted Cruz talked about antisemitic incidents on college campuses. “We now have a demonstration of antisemitism,” retorted Cruz. (Forward)

What else we’re reading ► How an Oscar winner made a top-secret Benjamin Netanyahu movie without anyone finding out … These Israeli punk bands have been labeled Nazis and Hamas supporters … Why some Christians don’t want to bring the Bible into public schools.

VIDEO OF THE DAY

The documentary The President’s Tailor: From Auschwitz to the White House had its U.S. premiere last night at the Marlene Meyerson JCC in Manhattan. It tells the story of Martin Greenfield, who learned to sew while at Auschwitz and would go on to make suits for celebrities, mobsters and American presidents — from Dwight D. Eisenhower, who helped liberate him from Auschwitz, to Barack Obama.

Greenfield died in March at 95.

Thanks to PJ Grisar, Jacob Kornbluh and Julie Moos 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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