|
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT. |
| WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION |
| | | Scheduling: My colleagues and I are heading to New York City today for an editorial staff retreat. This newsletter will be off tomorrow, and back in your inbox on Thursday. |
| Today: Elon Musk’s Nazi salute • Hamas says four women to be freed next • Arsonist torches Jewish day care in Australia • Senators to reintroduce campus antisemitism bill • And Bob Dylan’s trash sells for $500,000 at auction. |
| | | | Will Scharf, left, hands President Donald Trump executive orders to sign Monday night. (Getty) |
| Mr. President, again
Reclaiming power Monday, President Donald Trump spoke of the assassination attempt against him in his inaugural address saying, “I felt then, and I believe even more so now, that my life was saved by God to make America great again.”
Opinion | “I will, very simply, put America first,” Trump said. The phrase stood out for Aviya Kushner, our language columnist. “Presidential slogans matter,” she writes. “And here we are, going back to the past, with an old slogan, and an old isolationist attitude; with the old far-right of Europe showing strength in Italy and Germany and elsewhere. And here we are, with the great promise of dictators, that everything is simple.” Read her essay ►
Executive actions…
Trump signed dozens of executive orders on his first day in office. The man handing him the paperwork was Will Scharf, the staff secretary and a former Trump personal lawyer. He grew up Modern Orthodox and says he keeps kosher, wraps tefillin daily and attends Shabbat services at his local Chabad synagogue. Go deeper ►
Plus… Trump issued a sweeping grant of clemency to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021‚ including Aaron Mostofsky, the son of a prominent Jewish judge, and Robert Keith Packer, the man who wore to the riot a Camp Auschwitz sweatshirt. (Washington Post, X)
Trump also pardoned Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, and five other members of the far-right antisemitic group, for their role in the attack. (New York Times)
Trump overturned former President Joe Biden’s executive order that imposed sanctions on Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. Palestinians worry the move will incite violence against them. (Times of Israel, Haaretz)
Opinion | Amid this flurry of activity on the first day, our opinion columnist Emily Tamkin is looking to a Soviet Jewish dissident for guidance. (Forward) |
| | Elon Musk stiffly extended his arm as he spoke during an inaugural rally Sunday in D.C. (Getty) |
| Musk’s move
Elon Musk, who spent at least a quarter of a billion dollars to help elect Trump, appeared to make two Sieg Heil salutes at an inaugural rally on Monday. The Anti-Defamation League called it an “awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute, but again, we appreciate that people are on edge.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, wasn’t buying the ADL’s explanation. “People can officially stop listening to you as any sort of reputable source of information now,” she posted on social media.
Musk posted on X: “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.” |
| | Related… Neo-Nazis online celebrated Musk. “This is incredible,” said one noted Holocaust denier. (Wired)
What are the origins of the fascist Nazi German salute? It’s complicated. (Forward)
Musk has made some disturbing comments about Jews. Here’s a list. (Forward) |
| The inauguration… “My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier,” Trump said after he was sworn in, highlighting the release of three Israeli hostages and the beginning of a ceasefire in Gaza. (Forward)
Wearing a knitted yarmulke and a yellow-ribbon pin, Rabbi Ari Berman of Yeshiva University invoked the hostages and antisemitism on college campuses during his benediction at the inauguration. (Forward)
Nine rabbis have spoken at presidential inaugurations. President John F. Kennedy invited a rabbi who was also an archaeologist. (JTA)
Imam Husham Al-Husainy was also scheduled to offer a blessing, but was removed from the program without explanation. (Detroit News, Jewish Insider, Religion News Service)
Miriam Adelson, the pro-Israel megadonor who gave at least $100 million to Trump’s campaign, co-hosted an inaugural ball Monday night with Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg. (JTA)
The new administration… The Senate unanimously confirmed Sen. Marco Rubio as the next Secretary of State. Read about his Jewish and Israel bona fides.
Our senior political reporter, Jacob Kornbluh, has compiled a guide to Trump’s Jewish advisers and pro-Israel cabinet nominees. |
| | | | Pastor Mike Evans, left, and Rabbi Yehuda Glick prayed together at a party in Jerusalem celebrating President Donald Trump’s inauguration. (Deborah Danan) |
| The latest… Hamas said four Israeli women would be released on Saturday as part of the next group of exchanges of hostages for prisoners. (Times of Israel)
A senior Hamas official said the terrorist group wants to improve its relationship with the United States. (New York Times)
President Trump said he was “not confident” that the three-phase ceasefire would last, while taking questions from the reporters in the Oval Office. “It’s not our war,” he added. “It is their war.” (Jerusalem Post)
At a post-inauguration rally in Washington, Trump invited to the stage Noa Argamani, a freed Israeli captive, and the families of American hostages. “We never stopped praying for you,” he said. (Times of Israel, X)
Attendees at a Trump inauguration party in Jerusalem — including both Jews and evangelicals — were optimistic, but also expressed unease at how Trump had pushed for a ceasefire deal that allows hundreds of Palestinian prisoners to go free. (JTA)
The largest group of historians in the U.S. vetoed a resolution by its members that accused Israel of committing “scholasticide,” that alleged it destroyed much of the educational infrastructure in Gaza. (Times of Israel) |
| | | | | | The fire destroyed a Schoenberg family home in the Pacific Palisades as well as Belmont Music Publishers, which stood in a building behind it. At right, Arnold Schoenberg. (Getty) |
| Lost in the fire
The Palisades fire that swept through Los Angeles destroyed cherished cultural artifacts, including a collection of rare scores and writings by Arnold Schoenberg, a Jewish composer. Schoenberg, who fled Nazi persecution, found refuge in the U.S., where he composed some of his most influential works. The fire is a poignant reminder of how fragile cultural memory is, writes his grandson, E. Randol Schoenberg. “There is no easy way to reconstitute the architecture and landscape that made the Palisades such a welcoming refuge for a traumatized generation.” Read his essay ►
In other music news: Two pages of a draft of Bob Dylan lyrics that were tossed in the trash sold for $500,000 at auction. (New York Times)
And speaking of Dylan: On Jan. 25, Timothée Chalamet will join the Rolling Stones and Jennifer Lopez as the rare performer to both host and perform as the musical act on Saturday Night Live. Chalamet is currently starring in A Complete Unknown as Bob Dylan, and did all of his own singing and guitar playing to recreate the songs of the Jewish troubadour. (New York Times) |
| | WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
| | An overnight fire at a Jewish day care in Australia caused severe damage, but no injuries. (X) |
| 🔥 An arsonist spray-painted antisemitic graffiti on a Jewish child care center in Sydney, and then torched the building, the latest in a string of attacks on Australia’s Jewish community. (Reuters, Times of Israel)
🎒 Sen. Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, and Sen. John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, plan to reintroduce a bill today that would make it easier for Jewish students to file discrimination complaints. (Jewish Insider)
👮 Trenton, New Jersey has two Jewish police officers. Both have filed complaints alleging workplace discrimination and antisemitism. (NJ.com)
✍️ You may recall that viral 2021 obituary in which Andy Corren remembered his mom as “a plus-sized Jewish lady redneck” who excelled at “rolling joints and buying dirty magazines.” Corren’s new memoir, Dirtbag Queen, picks up where the obituary left off. (Tablet)
Transitions ► B’nai B’rith International named Robert Spitzer as its next president … Jeremy Fingerman will step down as CEO of the Foundation for Jewish Camp after 15 years. |
| | | | I interviewed Barak Hermann, the new president and CEO of the JCC Association of North America, on Monday at a JCC in Baltimore — while we walked on treadmills. I’ll share a link in this newsletter when the story goes online. |
| Thanks to Jacob Kornbluh and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Julie Moos for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com. |
| | Support independent Jewish journalism |
| With your help, the Forward will be ready for whatever news 2025 will bring. Make a tax-deductible gift and invest in the future of Jewish journalism. |
| | | |
|
|
|
| |
|
