| JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT. |
| WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION |
| | | Why an Israeli hospital has been quietly harboring dozens of Gazans, Delta bans its flight attendants from wearing Palestinian flag pins, St. Louis kosher deli closes over unpaid bills, Israeli controversy in new Marvel movie, and remembering Dr. Ruth. |
| | | | Law enforcement officers prepare for the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. (Getty) |
| Former President Donald Trump arrived in Milwaukee Sunday — one day after an assassination attempt north of Pittsburgh — to get ready for the Republican National Convention, which begins today. Both President Biden and Trump have condemned the political violence, and Trump said he is ripping up his planned nomination acceptance speech to write a new one focused on unity. “It will be a lot different,” he said.
What to know about the convention… The Anti-Defamation League, AIPAC and Jewish federations are keeping away from this year’s conventions. The American Jewish Committee and the Republican Jewish Coalition will both be hosting receptions in Milwaukee. Matt Brooks, the RJC’s CEO, is set to address the convention.
The Republican Jewish Coalition has pledged $5 million to Trump’s election, and its major benefactor, casino magnate Miriam Adelson, is reportedly setting aside $90 million for the same cause.
The 2024 Republican Party platform pledged to focus on “anti-Christian bias” and offered a broad nod to antisemitism, drawing some concerns among conservative Jewish voters who wanted it to better address policy actions to deal with the rise in antisemitism.
Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Jewish student who testified before Congress this year about antisemitism at Harvard, is scheduled to speak at the convention. Kestenbaum is one of six people suing Harvard for failing to protect Jewish students.
Read more Jewish angles to the convention ➤ |
| | People in Milwaukee on Sunday prayed for former President Donald Trump. (Getty) |
| Trump finds faith after shooting “Pastors at megachurches across the country on Sunday credited God with sparing the life” of Trump, Politico reports.
Trump was feeling “spiritual” in the wake of the shooting, The Washington Post reports. “He thinks he was handed a gift from God. He can’t believe it,” a person who spoke to Trump said.
A doctor told Trump it was a “miracle” he was alive, Axios reports. Trump replied: “I'm not supposed to be here. I'm supposed to be dead.” He said that “God alone” saved him and “prevented” the unthinkable.
“By luck or by God,” Trump said, “many people are saying it’s by God I’m still here.” |
| | Former President Donald Trump after an assassination attempt on Saturday; the fire at the Reichstag building on Feb. 27, 1933. (Getty/Wikimedia) |
| Jewish takeaways from the shooting…
Some people are comparing the shooting to the Reichstag fire. When someone burned down the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament, Hitler claimed Communists were launching an uprising. Hitler convinced Germany’s president to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree, which took away some civil liberties from people who opposed the Nazis. Some of Trump’s critics think it’s possible that he will follow the playbook of the Reichstag fire and use the assassination attempt as the basis for whipping up fervor against his political enemies. Read the story ➤
The rifle shots that rang out in Pennsylvania echoed in Israel as well. “In a country that is too familiar with political violence and assassination, the failed attempt on the former president’s life was both a reminder and a warning,” writes our senior columnist, Rob Eshman, in an opinion essay. He is reminded of the Rabin assassination and worries that Israel — where he is visiting this week — is on the brink, yet again, of internal strife that could lead to tragedy. Read the story ➤
Prominent Jewish leaders from both parties condemned the shooting. “I’m holding former President Trump, and all those affected by today’s indefensible act of violence in my heart,” Democrat Gabrielle Giffords, a Jewish former congresswoman who survived a 2011 assassination attempt, posted on social media. “Political violence is un-American and is never acceptable — never.” Read the story ➤
Related: The assassination attempt has sparked antisemitic conspiracy theories online, according to the ADL.
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| | | | | Iptisam Hasanein, right, and her granddaughter, Lujain, both from North Gaza, have spent 15 months sheltered in Israel’s Sheba Medical Center as Lujain’s 3-year-old brother receives medical treatment. The kids’ father was killed in an Israeli airstrike. (Susan Greene) |
| Israeli hospital has been quietly harboring 24 patients from Gaza and their families since October: The seriously ill patients and their relatives were at Sheba Hospital outside of Tel Aviv when the war broke out. Some still need months or possibly years more of specialty care. Others are done with treatment but are being allowed to shelter in the hospital rather than returning to a war zone where health facilities have been destroyed, clean water is scant and hunger is rampant. “What we’re going through,” said one grandmother who’s been there since April 2023, “it’s like living between two hells.” Read the story ➤
The latest… Starting today, Delta Airlines will only allow its flight attendants to wear U.S. flag pins, after a controversy involving Palestinian flag pins. This follows a similar move by JetBlue in May.
Argentina officially declared Hamas a terrorist organization in a move that the philosemitic new president, Javier Milei, hopes will show his support for Israel. The largely symbolic declaration comes days before the 30th anniversary of a 1994 terror attack on Buenos Aires’ Jewish community center, which killed 85 people.
Organizers at the Paris Olympics are planning to hold a 52nd anniversary event to honor Israeli delegation members who were murdered at the Munich Games in 1972. But due to security concerns, it will be held in a secret location. |
| | Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, at a campaign rally last month. (Luke Tress) |
| Opinions… “The Democratic Socialists of America’s decision to withdraw their conditional endorsement of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a near-perfect illustration of how left-oriented political and cultural organizations are using anti-Zionist litmus tests in order to ensure their irrelevance to real-life politics in America,” writes Eric Alterman.
The IDF released its first report into the military failures on Oct. 7. Our columnist Dan Perry argues that it is proof of an “extraordinary dereliction of leadership” and “a broad pattern of neglect, complacency and illogic.”
At a synagogue Hebrew school in Brooklyn, teachers wear “Ceasefire Now” T-shirts and cancel classes to attend a pro-Palestinian protest. Our editor-in-chief, Jodi Rudoren, writes that it’s a “cartoonish overcorrection” after years of “peddling a narrow Israel-right-or-wrong message.” |
| | | | She’s married to the king of futzing: She works, he’s retired. He shops, cooks, handles finances. But she has a back injury and he won’t vacuum, help with the dog or garden. He cleans his bathroom but not hers. How should our Bintel Brief advice column respond? Let us know by emailing bintel@forward.com or calling 646-389-4394. |
| | WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
| | Shira Haas in Captain America: Brave New World. (Marvel) |
| 🦸 The new trailer for Marvel’s Captain America is drawing controversy because it includes Israeli actress Shira Haas (Shtisel, Unorthodox) who was set to portray the Mossad agent Sabra from the comics, but instead will be playing Ruth, a U.S. government official. (Hollywood Reporter)
🗨️ A Jewish teacher at a Bronx public high school says her colleagues shouted “Heil Hitler” and tossed “Free Palestine” stickers on desk, according to a discrimination lawsuit she filed. (NY Post)
🥩 The only freestanding kosher butcher and grocer in St. Louis shut down after 60 years, after a meat supplier sued over an alleged $150,000 in unpaid bills. Efforts are being made to reopen the store. (St. Louis Jewish Light)
🤣 A new exhibit at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts explores how MAD Magazine was a merger of two sensibilities: “gentile and Jewish, nostalgic and subversive, rural and urban, mild and meshuggeneh.” (JTA)
Mazel tov ➤ To Allan Pearlman, an Orthodox NYPD recruit, who will receive a top award at his graduation today for rescuing two of his classmates during separate medical emergencies.
They said it ➤ “My parents used to call all of us ‘Danish knishes.’” — Actress Scarlett Johansson talking about her dual Danish-Jewish heritage in an interview with The New York Times.
What else we’re reading ➤ The boycott movement against Israel is spreading into new corners of society … On the anniversary of Frida Kahlo’s death, her art’s spirituality keeps fans engaged around the globe … She fled the Nazis to Shanghai. Now her granddaughter wrote a musical about it. |
| | | | Watch: “If you write a good piece, I promise you good sex for the rest of your life.” That’s how Dr. Ruth Westheimer, who died this weekend at 96, ended our first interview. She also asked me to fax her a copy of the article. When we spoke again last summer, which you can watch above, she offered up one of her favorite pieces of advice: “Put the worries outside the bedroom. Close the door, and enjoy each other.”
Further reading: Dr. Ruth, the 4-foot-7 sexologist who sounded like Albert Einstein on helium and looked like everybody’s bubbe, contained multitudes: She escaped the Holocaust on the Kindertransport, became a sniper in the Israeli army and offered love advice to countless couples. She was “a woman of valor, a Lion of Judah,” writes Benjamin Ivry in an appreciation.
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| Thanks to Julie Moos and Jake Wasserman 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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