WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

It’s good to be back from celebrating my 50th birthday, when Jewish wisdom teaches one is old enough to give advice. Ask me anything, but I can’t promise a smart answer.

Today: ‘Hamasniks’ on campus • Will the next pope be good for the Jews? • And what artificial intelligence discovered when it examined thousands of rabbis’ sermons.

POLITICS

The Trump administration was set to meet today with Boston city leaders over alleged antisemitism. Then the city never heard back from the White House. (iStock)

First campuses, now cities

As protests and crackdowns escalate, campus politics are drawing in everyone from clergy to Congress — and even Jared Kushner.

First up: A planned meeting between Boston city leaders and the Justice Department’s antisemitism task force that was scheduled for today was called off after officials in Washington stopped responding. The Trump administration previously said it would also be meeting with leaders in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. (Boston Globe, The Crimson)

Context: The lack of response from the administration speaks to the sometimes chaotic firehose of orders coming from the White House. The Boston cancellation occurred just days after it was revealed that an email sent by mistake from a Trump administration official to Harvard started the clash that led to the loss of billions in funding and a lawsuit. (New York Times)

Related: In a frantic bid to avoid a fight with the Trump administration, Harvard President Alan Garber reached out to Jared Kushner — an alumnus and the president’s son-in-law — to request help, but Kushner declined to intervene. (New York Times)

Elsewhere on campus…

• Several Democratic members of Congress visited two ICE detention centers in Louisiana on Tuesday to press for the release of Mahmoud Khalil, who led pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia, and Rümeysa Öztürk, who wrote a pro-Palestinian op-ed at Tufts, marking the first time members of Congress have met with the detained students. (CNN)

  
  

• Khalil had been denied a request for a monitored furlough to be with his wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, as she gave birth to their first child Monday in New York. (NBC News)

  
  

• Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, referred to pro-Palestinian students being arrested as “Hamasniks on these college campuses.” (CNN)

  
  

• More than 100 rabbis and cantors in Chicago have signed a letter condemning the Trump administration’s recent wave of campus funding cuts and student arrests. (JTA)

  
  

• A member of a local California school board attacked the Jewish community, accusing it of not protesting on behalf of deportees, and another called out Jews’ for leveraging their wealth. (JTA)

  
  

• Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative candidate for prime minister in Canada, proposed cutting off federal funding to universities that fail to take meaningful action against antisemitism. Poilievre, who is staunchly pro-Israel, has referred to Canadian Jews as “the true Indigenous people,” and condemned campus protests against the Gaza war as antisemitic. (Montreal Gazette, Forward)

No more antisemitism envoy?

A proposed Trump administration plan to drastically overhaul the State Department would eliminate the most prominent job in the federal government fighting antisemitism and replace it with a “Jewish affairs coordinator” focused on Israel. Moving the functions to an office focused on Israel and the Middle East could significantly shrink its portfolio and would align with the Trump administration’s efforts to fight antisemitism, which have focused almost exclusively on criticism of Israel and alleged support for Hamas. Go deeper ►

• Attorney General Pam Bondi hosted Trump administration officials at the Justice Department on Tuesday for a meeting of the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias. (YouTube)

  
  

• The Supreme Court on Tuesday seemed likely to back a group of parents who want to exempt their children from public school lessons featuring LGBTQ+ themed books, citing religious objections. (AP)

  
  

• Opinion | President Trump has created an American version of the Dolchstosslegende, a Nazi-era legend, argues Terrence Petty.

POPE FRANCIS

It’s hard to guess what direction the Catholic Church might go after the death of Pope Francis. (Getty)

Will the next pope be good for the Jews?

​As the Vatican prepares to elect a new pope, our Mira Fox examines the leading contenders and their stances on antisemitism, Israel and interfaith relations. Among them is Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, known for his nuanced positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and his efforts to foster Catholic-Jewish dialogue. Will the next pontiff continue Francis’ outreach to Jews — or chart a different course? Go deeper ►

Plus…

• Mourners are filing through St. Peter’s Basilica, where Francis’ open casket will remain for three days for public viewing. The funeral is set to begin at 4 a.m. ET on Saturday. (BBC, CNN)

  
  

• Following Francis’ death, viewership of Conclave spiked 283%, reaching nearly 7 million minutes watched. Netflix’s 2019 drama The Two Popes also generated renewed interest, with viewership spiking 417% from Sunday. (Variety)

In case you missed it…

• The pope, who during a trip to Israel made the first pilgrimage by any pontiff to the tomb of Theodor Herzl, evolved a theological approach inspired by Jewish scholars. (Forward)

  
  

• The pope’s final speech, delivered less than 24 hours before his death, called for an end to the war in Gaza. (JTA)

  
  

• The pope’s favorite painting, Marc Chagall’s White Crucifixion, was a reaction to the horrors of the Nazi regime. “There are eras of darkness in the world,” writes our Talya Zax, but “they are followed by eras of light.” (Forward)

ISRAEL

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir last week in Israel. (Getty)

A controversial U.S. visit

• Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, kicked off his U.S. trip in Florida, where he visited a gun store, an Israeli supermarket and Jewish inmates at a prison. (Times of Israel)

  
  

• Students set up a Gaza solidarity encampment at Yale, ahead of a speech tonight by Ben-Gvir. It was disbanded late Tuesday, but the protesters promise to come back tonight. (Haaretz, New Haven Independent)

Opinion | Ben-Gvir is an acolyte of Meir Kahane, who opposed citizenship for Arab Israelis and whose Israeli political party was designated a terrorist organization by the United States. “No one. Not a soul,” should meet with Ben-Gvir on this trip, writes our senior columnist, Rob Eshman. American Jews should “send a clear message to people who may be confused about whether there’s a difference between supporting Israel and supporting its current government.” Read his essay ►

The head of Israel’s domestic security agency said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded loyalty over law, according to an affidavit published this week. (Getty)

Plus…

• The chief of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged him to spy on anti-government demonstrators. (New York Times)

  
  

• President Trump said that he and Netanyahu “are on the same side of every issue” — including tariffs and Iran — after a phone call between the two on Tuesday. (Axios, JTA)

  
  

• Israeli and Hamas delegations are in Egypt this week for another round of hostage negotiations. (Times of Israel)

  
  

• Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister, sparked backlash when he said that “returning the hostages is not the most important thing.” (Times of Israel)

  
  

• In a rare move, a ballistic missile launched at Israel by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis triggered air raid sirens in the country’s north early Wednesday, sending more than a million people scrambling into bomb shelters. (AP)

  
  

• No Other Land, the Oscar-winning film about the demolition of a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank, is now available to stream in the U.S. (X)

HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY

Ziporah Janowski joined Generations Forward, a group that helps descendants of survivors excavate their families’ trauma — and their own — for the public good. (Matthew Litman)

Yom HaShoah, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, begins at sundown.

As Holocaust survivors die, their descendants are finding new ways to keep their stories alive

Zoom in: The children and grandchildren of survivors are now being invited to speak at synagogues, public schools and community centers as part of a broader movement aimed at ensuring that Holocaust education and testimony continues while the number of survivors rapidly dwindles.

Go deeper: But what does it mean for descendants of survivors to excavate their families’ trauma — and their own — for the public good? Can you really testify to the world’s greatest horror if you didn’t live through it?

Related…

• More than 70% of Holocaust survivors will die within the next 10 years, a new report said, with advocates calling for their first-hand testimonies to be heard. (AP, JTA)

  
  

• Walter Frankenstein, who witnessed Kristallnacht and survived the Holocaust by hiding in Berlin, died at 100. (AP)

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Aliza Magen, the first and only woman to serve as deputy director of Israel’s Mossad, died at 87. (Kan)

🗣️  Researchers used artificial intelligence to analyze 4,400 sermons from rabbis across denominations from October 2021 to October 2024. It found that clergy focussed on politics and Israel more often than anything else. (JTA)

📈  Antisemitic incidents in the U.S. hit a record high in 2024, the Anti-Defamation League reported, with anger at Israel the driving force. (AP, JTA)

✝️  The writers of the Gospels rewrote history to place the blame for Jesus’ death on the Jews, a historian argues in a new book. (JTA)

🏒  With his major league debut this week, Zeev Buium of the Minnesota Wild became the first NHL player born to Israeli parents. (Forward)

Shiva call ► Aliza Magen, who served for four decades in Israel’s Mossad, eventually becoming the highest-ranking woman in the history of the spy agency, died at 87.

What else we’re reading ► The miracle babies who survived a concentration camp (AFP) … Columbia Journalism Review editor fired after drawing line between journalism and activism (Jewish Insider) … How Abraham Lincoln in a kippah wound up making a $250,000 deal on Shark Tank (JTA)

PHOTO OF THE DAY

(Benyamin Cohen)

👋  It’s always a treat to bump into Forwarding readers out in the wild. At Ramah Darom in the north Georgia mountains, I had the pleasure of meeting Merle Carrus of New Hampshire — a devoted subscriber who kindly invited me to sit with her family at dinner during the Passover retreat.

News about the news: Thanks to Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld who generously donated the domains Yiddish.com and Yiddish.org to the Forward. Those websites now go directly to our Yiddish section.

Today’s newsletter made me:

🤓 Confident I understand issues impacting American Jews.

🔗 Connected to the Jewish world.

💡 Curious to learn about something I read.

😵‍💫 Confused about today’s Jewish news.

🤷🏽‍♀️ No different.

❤️ Love this newsletter? Check out what else the Forward has to offer!

Support independent Jewish journalism

Become a member and ensure the Forward’s journalism remains free for all.