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WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Good morning. Election Day is tomorrow. In the final 24 hours of the campaign, we spotlight the Orthodox rabbis endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Donald Trump and examine why the Haredi vote leans so consistently (and overwhelmingly) rightward.

Starting around noon today, we'll be experimenting with a live blog, your one-stop shop for all the Jewish news and conversation related to the election. Check it out here.

ELECTION 2024

Jewish supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. (Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images and Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Our 5 biggest questions about Jewish voters and candidates. Where will the Jewish vote end up mattering most? Would Harris’ chances in Pennsylvania be better if she had picked Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate? What will happen in down-ballot races featuring Jewish issues or Jewish candidates — like Rep. Elissa Slotkin’s Senate campaign in Michigan? Here’s a peek at some of the questions that are most informing our reporting heading into tomorrow — and, yes, even in this extraordinarily uncertain campaign season, some answers, from our senior political writer, Jacob Kornbluh. Read the story ►

‘Rabbi rebellion’: 33 Orthodox rabbis endorse Harris. “The risks posed by former President Trump’s character make clear to us as Torah-abiding Jews that we should support VP Kamala Harris,” the rabbis wrote in a letter published Sunday. Per Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, who organized the effort: Trump’s “character is not suited to be the leader of the free world, and his values are not aligned with those of our holy Torah.” Read the story ►

Opinion | Here’s why Orthodox Jews are loyal to Trump — even if they don’t love him. So, why exactly is there such a well of Orthodox support for Trump, particularly among the Haredim? Binyamin Rose, an editor-at-large for Mishpacha magazine, says the Orthodox are well aware of the antisemitism spread by some Trump supporters — but are sticking with the former president because he has delivered on his promises on policies that are meaningful to the community. Read his essay ►

“Jehu Destroying The Temple and Statue of Baal,” 1569 print by Maarten van Heemskerck. (Prints Department, Royal Library of Belgium)

Plus:

Why Trump is being compared to the obscure biblical king Jehu on the Christian right

Meet two rabbis who are trying to fight ‘toxic polarization’ — one Jewish text at a time

How rabbis in battleground states are approaching a razor-close election with enormous implications for Jews and for Israel

‘I’m an American, but I’m also Jewish’: How Yeshiva University women are voting for president

Shock jock Sid Rosenberg has become one of Trump’s most aggressive Jewish surrogates

A collage of posters on immigration history conceptualized by David Margolick. (Andy Outis/Studio7/Photos by Library of Congress )

Opinion | Our grandparents made America great, but Trump would have trashed them, too. A Yiddish version of a poster from Ellis Island showing immigrants on the deck of a ship hangs in the apartment of journalist David Margolick. Outraged by Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, Margolick mined photos from the Library of Congress “which catalogs the huddled masses arriving from all over the world,” and teamed up with a designer to make some posters of his own. See the result ►

Opinion | This election, the Jewish commitment to human rights is on the ballot: “As American Jews, our obligation to repairing the world compels us to think of those who are vulnerable beyond U.S. borders,” writes Robert Bank, head of the American Jewish World Service. “Supporting an administration bent on dismantling U.S. leadership on global human rights issues will leave us with a daunting amount to repair. Read his essay ►

More from the campaign:

Trump has leaned even more forcefully into Christian nationalist rhetoric in the last days of his campaign, leading one expert to say “this is a make-or-break election for church-state separation.” (New York Times)

In a late-campaign shift, Harris has begun engaging with pro-Palestinian protesters at her rallies. (Associated Press)

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat and the only Palestinian American in Congress, has declined to endorse Harris but wrote on X that “Trump is a proud Islamophobe + serial liar who doesn't stand for peace.” (Detroit News)

Former President Barack Obama appealed to Jewish voters while campaigning for Harris in Milwaukee, asking those “worried about the rise of antisemitism” why they would put their trust in a man “who sat down for pleasantries with Holocaust deniers.” (Newsweek)

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ALSO IN THE FORWARD

Covers from Nazisploitation films and stalag fiction. (Graphic by Canva)

Is it really so wrong to be into Nazi kink? “Roleplaying and BDSM may be nothing to be ashamed of” in the bedroom, writes Mira Fox, “but when an SS uniform is added to the mix, that seems to cross a line.” The substance of that line may be more complicated than you expect. The Jewish writer Leora Fridman, who has recently come out with a new book exploring the question of whether it can be kosher to intimately invoke the Nazis, told Mira that her research pushed her to focus on the question of “what happens when generations upon generations of Jews are obsessed with their own victimhood.”

From the archives: The importance of voting with fury — and with hope. In the lead-up to the 2020 election, our archivist, Chana Pollack, and I took a look back at the Forward’s history of campaign coverage. Part of what we found: A set of deeply felt, and deeply provocative, commentaries on how to reckon with the fact that voting can often feel like a hopeless act, one that gives ordinary people an illusion of control within a system built to benefit the wealthy and powerful.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Jacquelyn Martin / POOL / AFP/Getty Images)

In Israel…

A major new scandal for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:Five people, including his spokesman, have been arrested on suspicion of leaking top-secret information to European media outlets regarding hostage negotiations. (Times of Israel)

Israel formally notified the United Nations that it is canceling the agreement that allows UNRWA, the U.N. agency that serves Palestinian refugees, to operate within its borders. (Haaretz)

More Palestinian civilians are coming forward with claims that Israeli soldiers have forced them to act as human shields in Gaza — despite vociferous denials of the practice from IDF officials. (Washington Post)

In the U.S…

A man was sentenced to eight months in prison for illegally buying two firearms on behalf of a man who later used them in a shooting that targeted California Jews, injuring two. (United States Attorney’s Office)

Are we about to enter “the most consequential MLB offseason for Jews in recent memory”? Perhaps! (JTA)

Elsewhere…

A co-leader of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party, which won its biggest electoral victory yet in September, is the granddaughter of a Nazi judge appointed by Adolf Hitler, a new investigation found. (Politico)

Iran executed a 20-year-old Jewish man, Arvin Nathaniel Ghahremani, who killed a Muslim man in 2022 in what his defenders said was an act of self-defense against a knife attack. Reports suggest some Iranian officials had advocated against an alternate punishment because Ghahremani was Jewish. (Times of Israel)

Two masked members of a pro-Palestinian group broke into a display case at the University of Manchester and stole two busts of Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first president, who once taught at the U.K. school. (BBC)

What else we’re reading ➤ She was “sold as part of a giant postwar black market for Jewish babies” … “Israelis and Palestinians find little hope in divisive U.S. election” … “Eighty years after thousands of Greek Jews were murdered, Thessaloniki’s Holocaust museum is finally set to open.”

VIDEO OF THE DAY

The most unexpected celebrity of the weekend: New York state Rep. Harvey Epstein. His campaign for New York City Council got a surprise boost after Saturday Night Live ran a sketch starring John Mulaney, as Epstein, trying to explain that he is not related to the two infamous “sex perverts” who share his names. “I’m 57 years old. I’ve been Harvey Epstein my whole life,” the real Harvey Epstein, who had no advance notice about the sketch, told The New York Times. “I have a really lovely reputation in the neighborhood, and people know me for who I am.”

Thanks to Benyamin Cohen for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Jodi Rudoren for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com.

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